Logical Reasoning

PT140 · S1 · Q22 From time to time

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From time to time there is a public outcry against predatory pricing—where a company deliberately sells its products at prices low enough to drive its competitors out of business.

Conclusion

The practice of predatory pricing (i.e. where WalMart comes into town, prices themselves less than all the local mom-and-pops, until the latter go out of business), should be acceptable.

Evidence

Sure, predatory pricing may allow a company to establish a monopoly, but the mere threat of renewed competition will keep them from getting too cocky with the prices.

Evaluate

As you can see, I'm trying to make this argument more relatable to myself so that I can better engage with it. Many of us will not hear the buried missing language link in here, and instead will have only a vague sense of what we're looking for.

At this point, we should try to argue the anti-conclusion, to sharpen our thinking about where one could make potential objections to this argument.

Given that the threat of renewed competition will be enough to keep Company X from raising its prices,

How can we still argue that it would not be acceptable for Company X to use predatory pricing to drive all the other local stores out of business?

Are prices all we care about, when assessing whether or not this is acceptable?

Maybe we think our city thrives more when the aggregate business done by Company X is spread out among lots of local mom-and-pops.

Goal

Since we could make objections by saying, , we can say that the author is assuming "All you have to worry about is prices".

22.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Any company that is successful
Too Strong: inevitably
Does the author make a reasoning move from it's a successful company to it will inevitably induce competitors into the market? No. She only talks about the threat of competition. She doesn't guarantee that competitors will enter the market.
10% picked this
It is unlikely that several
Out of Scope: several at once
The author is never talking about several companies doing predatory pricing at the same time. It wouldn't matter to her whether they do or don't. If several competitors do it at the same time, it's unlikely to succeed at driving any one of them out of business (unless it drives them all out of business as they lower prices to money-losing levels). But the author's argument has nothing to do with whether or not predatory pricing is likely to be a successful strategy. She only is assessing whether it's an acceptable strategy (like ethically).
11% picked this
Only the largest and wealthiest
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: sustained period Out of Scope: largest / wealthiest This is just a common sense trap answer. Sure, this sounds like a true statement about the world we live in. But the author said nothing about the largest / wealthiest companies, so she isn't logically assuming anything about those specific companies, for the sake of this argument. Also, if anything this rule makes someone want to react by saying, "If only the richest / biggest companies can take advantage of this strategy, then that seems unfair. How is that an acceptable strategy?" So we might even go as far as to say this drifts in a Weaken direction.
2% picked this
It is only competition or
Too Strong: only Illegal Opposite
The author is just treating the threat of competition as something that would keep prices reasonable (it would be sufficient to keep prices low). competition → maintain prices This answer accuses the author of thinking that threat of competition is the only way to keep prices reasonable (it is necessary keeping prices reasonable). ~competition → ~maintain prices
39% picked this
Correct
Any pricing practice that does
Why this is right
This seems strong to me at first blush, but let's think about whether it matches the reasoning flow of the argument: doesn't result in acceptable pricing unreasonable prices → practice Yeah, that seems to match what the author argued about Predatory Pricing. It doesn't result in unreasonable prices (because threat of competition keeps 'em in check). Thus, it's clearly an acceptable practice. Given our prephrase of "all that matters is prices", we can gravitate toward this answer, since it's conveying the idea that "As long as it doesn't mess up prices, I don't care. What's the big deal. Is there more to life than prices?"
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
37% picked this

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