Q20 - Investment banker: Democracies require

[clarafok]

hello,

i'm really confused as to why E is a better answer choice than A. i initially chose E, but then talked myself out of the right answer.

For E, i kind of see why it's correct now. basically, to conclude that people who bemoan anticapitalistic measures are being hasty, we would have to assume that those people had totalitarian regimes in the past and are currently going through transition, right? because if they didn't have totalitarian regimes in the past, then the argument wouldn't stand. is this correct?

As for A, i chose it thinking that since there are still governments that have not reached complete democracies, then it would be legitimate for them to use anti-capitalistic measures, and those people who bemoan can still be considered hasty. i'm assuming this is sufficient and not necessary?

any help appreciated! thanks!

[theaether]

Actually, I don't think (A) is a sufficient assumption either. It does not lead us directly to the conclusion by itself. There would still be more gaps in the middle. An example of a working sufficient assumption would be something like "People who bemoan anything are being hasty." That by itself would be enough to support the conclusion. No gaps there.

(A) is also not a necessary assumption, because its scope is too broad. The modifier "no" in particular is troubling. (A) is saying no government in the world has reached a complete democracy, but the argument is only pertaining to people bemoaning "certain" governments. Even if 98 out of 100 governments have reached a complete democracy, we can still have 2 of them not be complete and also undertaking anticapitalistic measures. These would be the certain governments that the people are talking about.

Changing modifiers can change a lot, especially in necessary assumption questions. If (A) instead said "Not all governments are complete democracies," instead of "no governments," that would be a necessary assumption. Because now if you negate it, it's saying that all governments are complete democracies. None are in transition, and the people have no reason not to bemoan the anticapitalistic measures. The argument falls apart.

[jam20636]

Would anyone be able to comment on why (D) is incorrect?

Let me make I sure I can appropriately explain the correct answer:

Anti-capitalistic measures are required during the transition from a totalitarian regime to a democracy. However, there is no indication that those who are bemoaning are doing so out of impatience, expecting a much more timely transition from a totalitarian regime to a democracy. Thus, we must show that the author is speaking about a transition from a totalitarian regime; otherwise, the authors' conclusion that people are being hasty falls apart because he/she negates that anti-capitalistic measures are required during transition and further negates that more controlled economic practices are incompatible with complete democracy. In other words, an anticapitalistic measure not practiced while in transition is incompatible with complete democracy.

Am I crazy to think that I had to dig deep into a chain inferences to explain this question fully and accurately? It seemed to be a big leap in my head.

(D) would be incorrect because it does nothing to bridge the hastiness of people with the transition of a totalitarian regime. A free-market economy may be incompatible with a nondemocratic regime which only negates the second part of the first premise in the stimulus that "a more controlled economy is incompatible with a complete democracy."

Am I headed in the right direction?

[timmydoeslsat]

Welcome to the forum! Nice first post! You explained it wonderfully for why E is a necessary assumption.

The reason I would reject choice D as an answer is because we only know what democracies require.

We know that if we have a democracy ---> we have free market capitalist economies

However, this does not mean that if we ~ democracy, that we cannot have free market capitalist economies.

[jamiejames]

Okay, here's why E is correct:

The general argument is that people who complain about seemingly anti-capitalistic measures should wait to condemn them, because their government may be in the middle of transitioning over from being a totalitarian regime to being a democratic regime, but in transitioning, they have to adopt some repressive measures to transition.

E says that is it necessary to assume that the very people the author is telling to not be hasty to condemn their government only recently had totalitarian regimes in the past, which means that it hasn't been very long into the transition between being a totalitarian state and a democracy, so these "seemingly anticapitalist measures" may be the ones necessary to transition.

Now, let's negate the answer: The nations whose anticapitlistic measures the people in question bemoan did not have totalitarian regimes in the recent past. Ah, this destroys the author's argument because it shows that these anticapitalist measures are not occurring due to a transition and have been going on for a while, and for some other reason - namely not a positive one such as changing over to a democracy.

Sorry this is so long winded, I wrote this out very quickly and didn't have too much time to edit it, but it's how I understand E to be correct. The key to E, is noticing the words in the recent past and linking that to history shows that repressive measures against certain capitalist developments are required during the transition from a totalitarian regime to a democracy.

[lhermary]

Can one of geeks go into more detail as to why E is right?

Thanks

[timsportschuetz]

Much simpler way to solve this question. Whenever you encounter sufficient and necessary assumption questions, be on the lookout for scope changes and/or new terms in the conclusion. This argument concludes something about people "bemoaning" something. Before I even analyse the logical structure of such a convoluted argument, I skim the answer choices to look for this newly introduced term from the conclusion. Please note that any new terms that are introduced in the conclusion will be in the correct answer choice 99% of the time!
I quickly eliminated A, B, C, and D...
Finally, I usually check that the conditional logic is not reversed on my chosen answer. In this case, the logic matched the argument, and I moved on after spending only 30 seconds.

[ohthatpatrick]

I completely agree with the previous poster! Wonderfully contextualized too, because the "new guy in the conclusion" shortcut is most useful on Assumption questions.

Remember that a valid logical argument defines all its terms.

Andy is a boy.
Boys are lame.
Thus, Andy is lame.

This is a valid argument. Both terms in the conclusion have been defined/identified in the premises. The two premises have a common term, "boy", that connects 'Andy' to 'lame.

So if we see an argument that says
Andy is a boy.
Boys are lame.
Thus, Andy is no fun to be around

We are 99% sure that "no fun to be around" will be in the correct answer.

So I recommend people try to use the strategy mentioned in the previous post, because it IS the most efficient way through the problem.

But here is a quick, conversational explanation for those who don't like all the symbol-matching of the aforementioned method.

Argument core:
(prem)
anti-cap measures are req'd during transition from totalitarian regime to democracy
---->
(conc)
ppl who bemoan anti-cap measures certain govt's are taking are being hasty.

Plainspeak version:
Chill out, bemoaners. Don't you realize the govt. is just using anti-cap measures because it's transitioning from a totalitarian regime to a democracy?

If we go back to the argument core as written and look for missing links, we see that "anti-cap measures" are mentioned twice. Anything mentioned twice is logically good-to-go, generally. We're looking to link together the stuff only mentioned once. It looks like we need to connect "transition from totalitarian regime to democracy" to "people who bemoan".

If you were looking at the argument core trying to find a way to fight the conclusion, you want to argue that people who bemoan anti-cap measures are NOT being hasty. You might have thought, "Maybe they're part of a democracy. They're not transitioning. Thus, they SHOULD be unnerved by anti-cap measures." A correct assumption answer could rule out that possible objection.

Answer choices:
(A) "No" is too extreme. Would it hurt the argument if some governments HAD reached a complete democracy? No. The author is just talking to people who are bemoaning. They, presumably, are NOT in a complete democracy. So who cares if other countries ARE in a complete democracy? We only care about the bemoaners in their imperfect country.

(B) The more X, the more Y is too extreme. At a certain point, the author might believe that more democracy should mean less regulation. But he clearly states that as you go from zero democracy to some democracy (the transition from totalitarian to democracy), you actually need more repressive measures (more regulation). So this answer somewhat contradicts his statements.

(C) This is a totally reasonable statement. Of COURSE this is true in the real world. Imperfection is generally going to be more probable than perfection. But what does this have to do with the issue of the argument: whether ppl bemoaning are / aren't being hasty?

(D) Again, we can summarily dismiss this because is has nothing to do with whether ppl bemoaning are / aren't being hasty. As Timmy mentioned a few posts ago, this answer is doing a classic trap answer trick of taking "Democracy --> free market" and erroneously making it seem like the author must assume "~Democracy --> ~free market".

(E) Is this relevant to whether or not ppl bemoaning are/aren't being hasty? Yes! First of all, it mentions them, and so far we know nothing about them. (Remember, we don't "know" anything from a conclusion, only from evidence. Conclusions are a big ol' question mark) Secondly, our author was definitely assuming these bemoaners were transitioning from totalitarian to democracy. So that means that their nation had totalitarian regimes in the recent past.

This whole argument could be analogized like this:
People who live in rainy climates don't need to get their cars washed. Thus, residents of Seattle don't need to worry about cleaning their automobiles.

Assumption:
Residents of Seattle live in rainy climates.

Hope this helps.

[richietrentie]

ohthatpatrick's response makes sense as far as answering the question is concerned, but I am wondering about the structure of the argument.

While it has been mentioned and I understand that the second sentence, "repressive measures... a democracy," is a premise, and the third sentence, "people who bemoan... are being hasty," is the conclusion, I don't quite understand what the first sentence is.

Is it an intermediate conclusion? A claim is being made in the first clause of the first sentence, but I'm not sure that it is supporting the main conclusion.

If the first clause "democracies require free-market capitalist economies" is an intermediate conclusion (supported by the second clause, "a more controlled economy is incompatible with complete democracy"), then how does it factor into the rest of the argument?

Most arguments follow a structure along the lines of Premise + Premise --> Conclusion, or at least Premise --> Intermediate Conclusion --> Main Conclusion, but this one doesn't seem to.

It seems more like the first sentence is a Premise --> Conclusion as background information, which strikes me as odd.

I suppose I am just having trouble wrapping my head around how to handle a claim when it is not the main conclusion, in this case because it doesn't seem to lead directly to any of the other premises or conclusions.

The very next question in this same sections has a very similar structure in that a claim is made in the first sentence, but it is not the main conclusion, and I had the same difficulty.

Thanks in advance.