Investment banker: Democracies require free-market

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: no one's maxed out3% picked this

   No current government has reached as complete a state of democracy as it is possible for

   This is plausible in a real world sense, because nobody's perfect. But ... does it hurt this argument if we say, "Yo, author -- there is at least one government that has reached the most complete state of democracy any government can reach." No, it doesn't hurt the author's argument if some government is maximally democratic. It would only hurt the author's argument if one of these certain governments that are doing the anticapitalistic measures were maximally democratic. The author is portraying the anticapitalistic governments as "on the road" to democracy, so she is assuming that none of those governments have reached as complete a state of democracy as is possible. But she doesn't need to assume that's true about all governments.

   3%
2. B

   Too Strong9% picked this

   The more democratic a country is, the less regulated its economy

   Too Strong: the more x, the less y Out of Scope: regulation The author never brought up regulation at all, so she certainly hasn't committed to the incredibly extreme Volume Dial idea that "more democratic = less regulated".

   9%
3. C

   Out of Scope8% picked this

   The need for economic stability makes the existence of partially democratic governments more probable than the existence

   Out of Scope: stability Unknown Comparison: more probable The author never brings up a need for "stability", so that's enough for us to say the author didn't need to believe this. She also was never addressing which types of democracies are more or less probable. So overall, we couldn't derive anything like this answer from the few things we've heard her say.

   8%
4. D

   Illegal Negation12% picked this

   A free-market economy is incompatible with a

   We know that non-free markets are incompatible with democracy: not a free market economy → not democracy This answer is just giving us an illegal negation of that idea: a free market economy → not (non-democracy) If we say "being drunk is incompatible with being on jury duty", that doesn't mean we're assuming that "being sober is incompatible with not being on jury duty".

   12%
5. E

   Correct68% picked this

   The nations whose anticapitalistic measures the people in question bemoan had totalitarian regimes in

   Why this is right

   This is a fancy of way of saying that our author is assuming that these certain governments who are currently taking anticapitalistic measures are "on the way to democracy". The author is saying, "Hey, people who bemoan -- give this some time. These guys are on their way from totalitarianism to democracy, and some repressive anticapitalistic measures are needed on that road." But the author is just assuming that these countries are in that predicament. It was never established that they are. If we negate this, we would get this objection: "Hey, author -- I know that anticapitalistic measures are needed when you're transitioning from totalitarian to democracy. But these nations doing anticapitalist things were not recently totalitarian. Hence, they are not transitioning from totalitarian to democracy. Hence, your premise is totally irrelevant to the situation, and thus you don't have an evidentiary leg to stand on any more!"

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   68%