CSAT Solved Papers/ 2021/Q61
2021 CSAT — Q61
Passage
Can a democracy avoid being a welfare state for long ? Why cannot mass welfare be left entirely to the markets ? There is a built-in tension between markets and democracy. Markets do not work on a one-person-one-vote principle as democracies do. What one gets out of the market place depends on one’s endowments, skills, purchasing power and the forces of demand and supply. Markets reward individual initiative and skill, and may also lift many from the bottom rungs of society, but some people never get the opportunity to develop skills that markets demand; they are simply too poor and too handicapped; or skill formation takes too long. By creating jobs, markets may be able to help even unskilled people, but capitalism has always witnessed bursts of unemployment.
With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:
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Modern democracies rely on the market forces to enable them to be welfare states.
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Markets ensure sufficient economic growth necessary for democracies to be effective.
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Government programmes are needed for those left behind in economic growth.
Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
Thinking pathway
Locate. This is a valid-assumptions question: test each statement against the passage’s actual stance. The passage’s thesis: there is “a built-in tension between markets and democracy”; markets reward skill but “some people never get the opportunity to develop skills that markets demand; they are simply too poor and too handicapped,” and “capitalism has always witnessed bursts of unemployment.” It is skeptical that welfare can be left to markets.
Test (negation + direction-check).
- St3 — government programmes are needed for those left behind. The passage establishes that markets abandon the too-poor/too-handicapped and produce unemployment, so support beyond the market is needed. Negate it and the passage’s worry about the left-behind has no answer. VALID.
- St1 — democracies rely on markets to be welfare states. The passage asks why welfare cannot be left to markets and argues it cannot; St1 asserts the reverse. REVERSED → INVALID.
- St2 — markets ensure sufficient growth for effective democracy. The passage doubts markets’ sufficiency; this is unstated and contrary. INVALID.
Eliminate by anatomy. (a)/(d) seat St1 — a reversed claim: the passage’s market-skepticism flipped into market-reliance. (c)/(d) seat St2 — a claim not in the passage: a pro-market sufficiency claim the passage never makes. Only St3 survives. Key: (b).
Evidence in the text
Statement 3 — “some people never get the opportunity to develop skills that markets demand; they are simply too poor and too handicapped… capitalism has always witnessed bursts of unemployment”: the passage’s point is precisely that markets leave some behind, so non-market (government) support is needed for them → VALID. Statement 1 REVERSES the passage — it asks “why cannot mass welfare be left entirely to the markets?” and argues markets cannot deliver welfare, so democracies relying on markets to be welfare states is the opposite of the text → INVALID. Statement 2 is unstated/contrary — the passage is skeptical that markets suffice, never that they “ensure sufficient growth… for democracies to be effective” → INVALID. → (b).
Worked rationale
The passage argues markets and democracy are in tension: markets leave the poor and unskilled behind and generate unemployment, so welfare cannot simply be left to them.
- St3 — government programmes for the left-behind: directly supported. Valid.
- St1 — democracies rely on markets to be welfare states: the opposite of the passage’s argument. Invalid.
- St2 — markets ensure sufficient growth for democracy: unstated and contrary to the passage’s skepticism. Invalid.
Answer: (b) 3 only.
Why the other options miss
- A cause and effect reversed: keeps the valid St3 but accepts St1, which inverts the passage’s claim that welfare cannot be left to markets.
- C not in the passage: keeps St3 but adds St2’s unsupported pro-market sufficiency claim.
- D compounds the reversal (St1) and the unsupported claim (St2).
Specialist insight
The whole item hinges on the direction of the passage’s argument. It opens by questioning whether welfare can be left to markets and concludes that it cannot — markets abandon the poor and convulse into unemployment. St1 reads as if the passage endorsed market-provided welfare; it does the reverse. This is the classic reversed-direction trap on a skeptical passage: an option states the very position the author is arguing against. Anchor on the author’s stance first; St3 (government support for the left-behind) is the only assumption that runs with the argument.
The passage argues welfare *cannot* be left to markets; St1 (democracies rely on markets for welfare) reverses it — only St3 runs with the argument, so (b).