How To Win All Political Debates

The Von Clausewitz Strategic Guide To Winning Every Argument

September 2006

Meine liebe kinder,

Ja, I am the famous nineteenth-century Prussian military strategist and author of 'On War.' Subsequent exposure to Marvyn Gaye's 'War Is Not The Answer' philosophy has led me now to pass on my field knowledge to the strategies of intellectual battle. Ach, so many of the young people today, the eco-warriors do not know when to get involved in the infantry skirmish of theory or when to remain firing artillery rounds from the elevated plain of statistical proof; when to roll the flaming logs of deforestation at the prancing cavalry of reaction. But with my tactical battle-plan, you need never lose an argument again, meine Grünchen.

This week I have had two communiques from students requesting tactical advice on defeating the free-market fundamentalists.

1. "The markets will solve climate change. Enlightened capitalist self-interest will naturally respond to climate change. Market incentives will achieve what regulation, laws and human planning never can in saving the planet. (And many other assertions of that kidney)."

[See Blücher's opening from Quatre-bras, Waterloo] This is one for the battery-commander on the hill. A single swooping eight-pounder of a single example takes out their whole evolving strategy, thus:

Throw back your head, place your hands on your hips, snap your fingers in the face of your interlocutor and say:

"Ha! Here's how the market responds to climate change... It used to be impossible to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean. Pack-ice always threatened to destroy an oil-rig. Thanks to global warming, however, the ice has melted from the Arctic Ocean. And so now Norway, Russia and Japan have all sold permits to companies to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean. And in a beautiful free-market mechanism, the more oil and gas they extract, the more will be burnt, the more carbon molecules will float up in the sky and the hotter it will get and the more ice will recede, and the more oil and gas they extract, the more will be burnt, the more carbon molecules will float up in the sky and the hotter it will get and the more ice will recede and... everyone gets paid!"

More Von Clausewitz advice next week, write in if there's a debate you keep losing to the bloke who sits next to you at work.