Q10 - Economist: In the free market

[shirando21]

what is the reason for eliminating A?

Is A not affecting the argument?

[rinagoldfield]

Here’s how I see this problem:

The whole first chunk of the stimulus is background. We can pare down the argument core to:

lots of major decisions are turned over to business executives in free market systems

-->

business executives are public officials

The gap in this argument is the jump from "lots of major decisions" to "public officials." The author of the argument assumes that making big decisions is sufficient to qualify a person as a public official.

(B) is the correct answer. (B) effectively negates the author’s assumption about public officials, stating that making "lots of major decisions" is not sufficient to qualify a person as a public official. Negated assumptions are classic LSAT weakeners.

(A) is tempting. But remember, we are talking about business executives in free market economies, not business executives in general. Whether or not businessmen make decisions in countries with centrally planned economies is irrelevant to our argument core.

(C) Salaries are out of scope. George Clooney might also might make a salary similar to that of a high-ranking public official, but no one is suggesting that he is a public servant. We are looking to link decision-making to public officialdom, not money.

(D) What about public officials? (D) fails to address the conclusion. If anything, (D) seeks to undermine the premise, which is ALWAYS wrong (on the LSAT, at least).

(E) Again, there’s nothing about public officials here. Who cares about cooperation?

[myradin]

I got this question right. However, I lingered on it and I don't quite understand the dismissal of E you described. There is mention of public officials in the answer choice. I interpreted the argument as business executives have become public officials because a large category of major decisions is turned over to them. In B, they say that certain decisions that those corporate executive make are not the core of the public official's job, yet there are many others that were mentioned in the stimulus that the corporate executives still reign on. So what if those other decisions are at the core of the public officials job? In E, if public officials and business executives often cooperate in making decisions of national importance, then isn't the choice attacking the premise that executives are making lots of decisions because they are not doing that. Decisions are instead being made cooperatively, rather than by the corporate executives.

[myradin]

Okay, I think I actually just figured it out. Even if cooperation did mean that the corporate executives are not solely making decisions, you still are relying on the assumption that: making decisions ---> public official. And while E may indirectly sort of weaken that assumption, it really doesn't because the fact that you are jointly making a decision does not mean that you are not taking part in making it so it may even be strengthening the argument rather than weakening it. C on the other hand, explicitly says that the assumption is invalid. And therefore, it totally destroys the simple argument that making (some or all of these) decisions ---> public official.

[erikwoodward10]

I took a slightly different approach to this question, and although I got it right I'm wondering if my logic is flawed. I looked at the conclusion and thought, "ok, we need an answer choice that shows that business executives are not public officials. An ideal answer choice would show that they are mutually exclusive groups".

With this approach, it was easy to eliminate A/C/D/E, as none of them and B was problematic but the best of the worst answer choices. Regarding B, I thought "these attributes could still be a part of a public official's job without being the core". However the other answer choices were all clearly wrong, so I went with B.

I see the validity of the approach outlined above (showing that these attributes are not sufficient to being a public official), but I'm wondering if my approach is valid as well or if I just got lucky. Thoughts?

[HL41]

My two cents regarding elimination of E:

E is wrong because it’s not really telling us anything about the Economist’s flawed assumption that making decisions -> public official. Just because two groups are cooperating doesn’t mean they’re different or the same. In fact, this answer choice can go either way of strengthening or weakening the conclusion depending on how you choose to see it (see below for potential perspectives), but ultimately it does nothing to strengthen or weaken the reasoning, which is also important to consider when considering the answer choices.

One way to strengthen the conclusion: we can assume that by cooperating, business executives are sharing some of the responsibilities of public officials, which strengthens the relationship between the two.

One way to weaken the conclusion: we can assume that by cooperating, business executives and public officials are working together as separate groups, which weakens the relationship between the two