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North American Free Trade Agreement

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North American Free Trade Agreement

by GmatKiss » Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:26 pm
The recently negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States is misnamed, because it would not result in truly free trade. Adam Smith, the economist who first articulated the principles of free trade, held that any obstacle placed in the way of the free movement of goods, investment, or labor would defeat free trade. So since under the agreement workers would be restricted by national boundaries from seeking the best conditions they could find, the resulting obstruction of the flow of trade would, from a free-trade perspective, be harmful.
The argument proceeds by
(A) ruling out alternatives
(B) using a term in two different senses
(C) citing a nonrepresentative instance
(D) appealing to a relevant authority
(E) responding to a different issue from the one posed

Please help to break this one!
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by badpoem » Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:00 am
IMO (D). -- appeals to Adam Smith
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by saketk » Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:36 am
GmatKiss wrote:The recently negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States is misnamed, because it would not result in truly free trade. Adam Smith, the economist who first articulated the principles of free trade, held that any obstacle placed in the way of the free movement of goods, investment, or labor would defeat free trade. So since under the agreement workers would be restricted by national boundaries from seeking the best conditions they could find, the resulting obstruction of the flow of trade would, from a free-trade perspective, be harmful.
The argument proceeds by
(A) ruling out alternatives
(B) using a term in two different senses
(C) citing a nonrepresentative instance
(D) appealing to a relevant authority
(E) responding to a different issue from the one posed

Please help to break this one!
Hi-- Option D looks the best choice!

Reason: First, the author mentions the name of Adam Smith to backup his argument most probably to appeal to the authority. Since, Adam Smith is the person who proposed this theory, he is the 'Authority'.
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by navami » Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:26 am
In other forums OA is D..
I am really clueless on this
This time no looking back!!!
Navami
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by Acorn » Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:13 am
Saketk wrote:

Hi-- Option D looks the best choice!

Reason: First, the author mentions the name of Adam Smith to backup his argument most probably to appeal to the authority. Since, Adam Smith is the person who proposed this theory, he is the 'Authority'.


I am clueless how Adam Smith is the RELEVANT authority, in this argument.

Experts please comment/help.
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by Acorn » Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:19 am
The recently negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States is misnamed, because it would not result in truly free trade. Adam Smith, the economist who first articulated the principles of free trade, held that any obstacle placed in the way of the free movement of goods, investment, or labor would defeat free trade. So since under the agreement workers would be restricted by national boundaries from seeking the best conditions they could find, the resulting obstruction of the flow of trade would, from a free-trade perspective, be harmful.
The argument proceeds by
(A) ruling out alternatives
(B) using a term in two different senses
(C) citing a nonrepresentative instance
(D) appealing to a relevant authority
(E) responding to a different issue from the one posed

Please help to break this one!

OPtion B seems relevant to me. It is clearly mentioned in the argument that NAFTA is misnamed.
The terms of the NAFTA give the first interpretation of free trade.
The author cites Adam Smith's interpretation of Free Trade as second interpretation.
Please comment.
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by GmatKiss » Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:46 am
badpoem wrote:IMO (D). -- appeals to Adam Smith
Please reason why D.
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by prateek_guy2004 » Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:54 pm
[spoiler](C) citing a nonrepresentative instance [/spoiler]
Don't look for the incorrect things that you have done rather look for remedies....

https://www.beatthegmat.com/motivation-t90253.html
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by ilovemgmat » Sun Sep 04, 2011 12:17 pm
GmatKiss wrote:The recently negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States is misnamed, because it would not result in truly free trade. Adam Smith, the economist who first articulated the principles of free trade, held that any obstacle placed in the way of the free movement of goods, investment, or labor would defeat free trade. So since under the agreement workers would be restricted by national boundaries from seeking the best conditions they could find, the resulting obstruction of the flow of trade would, from a free-trade perspective, be harmful.
The argument proceeds by
(A) ruling out alternatives
(B) using a term in two different senses
(C) citing a nonrepresentative instance
(D) appealing to a relevant authority
(E) responding to a different issue from the one posed

Please help to break this one!
Whenever a reasoning is made based on the claims of a legitimate authority regarding the subject in question, this kind of reasoning is called "appealing to a relevant authority". So, D is the correct answer. But sometimes, GMAT may set a trap in which the "authority" may not be legitimate. For example: If Adam Smith, an economist,makes some claims about the digestive system of a human body, Adam Smith is not a legitimate authority. Hope this helps!
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by avik.ch » Sun Sep 04, 2011 8:39 pm
This is a typical fallacy or methods of reasoning that is explained in details in Powerscore CR Bible. It is called " Appeal to authoity ".
All fallacies have been divided by different abuses of the Aristotelian triad :
Logos,
Pathos,
Ethos - it refers to applealing to sentiment of the reder. Well Poisoning & Ad Hominem, Saint's Mask, Appeal to authority all fall into this category.

In this argument :

Premise-1 : The recently negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States is misnamed, because it would not result in truly free trade.
Premise -2 : Adam Smith, the economist who first articulated the principles of free trade, held that any obstacle placed in the way of the free movement of goods, investment, or labor would defeat free trade.
Conclusion : So since under the agreement workers would be restricted by national boundaries from seeking the best conditions they could find, the resulting obstruction of the flow of trade would, from a free-trade perspective, be harmful.

Here the author cite Adam Smith's theory about free trade to justify his conclusion. He is not logically drawing the conclusion from a valid logical premise but he is trying to persuade the reader that since Adam smith's is an authority his premise in well justified and so the author's conclusion.
So the correct answer is D.

But i dont think this is a legitimate GMAT type question. GMAT doesnt ask you to find typically the type of flaws, and I havent came accross such questions type in OG-12 ( Please excuse me if I am wrong about my statement, since i have just started my preparation). I think this type of CR is more relevant in LSAT where it directly asks you to find the type of Logical flaws.
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