At first blush, this resolution seems to tick all of the boxes. There are social justice issues and economic issues and individual rights and are corporations people issues. Instead of the perennial Hobbes v Locke debate, we can get a classic Adam Smith v Karl Marx debate. The young'uns can run justice with whatever definition they like. Downey's young'uns can run Rand and my young'uns can read our Rand blocks. Fun Times!
There is, however, a huge caveat. When I do a Google search of "right to unionize" and limit it to the past year, the first 3 or 4 pages are dominated by grad students and Uber drivers fighting for the right to unionize. I'm not sure that's the debate I want to hear. (I know that coaches all tell the young'uns to go beyond Google, but they are young'uns; also, a Google search is a good indicator of what people are thinking about on any given set of issues.) Further recent studies about economic issues such as raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour seem to have been sponsored by institutions with political agendas. Depending on one's political view, the results are "provocative" and "conclusive" or "the product of a severely flawed methodology." Debaters have 13 minutes to deal with value, criterion, working conditions, fair wage and benefit issues, and economic impacts of the cost of labor. Research methodologies may become a time suck rabbit hole that other resolutions can avoid.
Rankings and voting recommendations will follow the final post on the potential 2017 topics.
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