Government and Social Problems (critical essay)

Government and Social Problems (critical essay

Section one

The is dedicated to the of the relationships between a government and a society . The instigates the rate of dependence of a society on a government and questions the effect of the government intervention in social development . The essay analyzes the article Government Cannot Solve Social Problems authored by Charles Murray Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute . In his article Charles Murray expresses an opinion that society can continue to function in a world of a limited government . In to convince his

br readers , Murray puts forward a considerable argumentation based on his research where the assessments were made using trendline test . The goal of the is to criticize the article Government Cannot Solve Social Problems and to rebut the overall argument advanced by Murray

Section two

The overall argument of the article Government Cannot Solve Social Problems is that the government intervention into society does not lead to a visible improvement , visible improvement is the evidence of effectiveness , and therefore the government is not effective . The overall conclusion driven by Murray is that society needs a limited government . Murray suggests that the absence of visible improvement is demonstrated through the following : 1 ) the trendline tests in the majority of cases show a decline , where improvement is an exception 2 the majority of the government reforms have failed 4 ) the changes for better were very seldom related to the actions of the government 5 ) if the intervention of the government caused some progress , it was very slow and disproportionate to the efforts made . The premises supporting the conclusion are dependant on each other . The overall argument is deductive and not valid

Section three

The author of the article asserts that the trendline tests in the majority of cases show a decline after the intervention of the government , whereas improvement is an exception . Murray argues : To my knowledge the best examples involve the environment , showing , for example , that reduction in some emissions (but only some ) steepened after federal emissions standards were set (Murray 1997 ,

.3 Moreover , Murray states that the trendlines of his research show the persistent tendency : if the government intervenes , the process is likely to shift in the wrong direction . Therefore , the author believes that after the implementation of the government policy the trendline must go up at once , which will be the evidence that the policy works well However , due to his test in the majority of the cases the trendline goes flat , not enough steep or drops . Only in rare cases , which are characterized as exceptions , the trendline shows fast improvement . Can these premises be considered as true

It is important to note that the research of Murray pertains to the area of social studies and the trendline test accounts only one factor - the action of the government . This is insufficient to measure the variety of processes that occur in the society as a response to the government intervention . In other words , there are many other factors that influence on a particular social process and in to assess the effect of the politics of the government , one needs to apply a complex statistical method . So , the premises used for the argument 1 (the trendlines show decline , improvement is an exception ) are false

Furthermore , Murray asserts : Whatever was happening before the government got involved continued to happen after the government got involved (Murray 1997 ,

.3 ) This argument is not clearly expressed Most probably , this argument concerns only the cases of negative processes in the society . But it may be interpreted absolutely opposite to what the author intended to say : whatever is happening , when the government gets involved , and the government implements the right strategy , everything , either positive or negative , must stop . Or , does Murray imply that it is wrong that the process (or any process ) is still going on after the intervention of the government ? So , the unclear expression of this argument destroys it

As for the premise referring to the failure of the majority of government reforms , it contains the fallacy of division : There is a growing acceptance that the reforms of the 1960s largely failed , and many readers will not find it surprising that the trendline shows that things generally got worse rather than better (Murray 1997 ,

.3 Murray suggests that if some of the government reforms (for example those carried out in the 1960s ) failed , all the government reforms or the major part of them should not be considered as successful

Likewise , it is doubtful that the government intervention into society does not lead to a visible improvement because in the past the changes for better were not frequently related to the actions of the government Here both kinds of fallacies are apparent : the fallacy of division and the fallacy of composition . The author of the article asserts that the intervention of the government was not often related to the positive outcomes on the basis of some particular examples : The period of the greatest change [the case the 55mph speed limit introduction] had nothing to do with the government regulation . The steepest downward slope occurred in the period 1934-1949 . The only thing that the government did was build better highways as traffic increased (Murray 1997 ,

.4 ) Also , it is erroneous to conclude that if in the past positive changes occurred without government regulation , society in the future can live without much regulation done by the government

And finally , the logic of the argument : government intervention in society does not lead to a visible improvement because the progress resulted from this intervention was very slow and disproportionate to the efforts made , - is very questionable . The implication of this argument can be : time and expenditures are the measurements of the success of a particular project . If such implication is true , then it does take into consideration that projects can be of various levels of difficulty , that there can be delays in time and so on . This implication alters the argument

Summing up , the first premise of the overall argument the government intervention into society does not lead to a visible improvement ' is not true

On the other hand , the second premise visible improvement is the evidence of effectiveness ' should have the following form : visible improvement is one the evidences of effectiveness . Only in this form the second premise would be true

So , the deductive argument advanced by Murray that reads : the government intervention into society does not lead to a visible improvement visible improvement is one the evidences of effectiveness , and therefore the government is not effective is invalid and not sound

Thus , the thorough analysis of the Government Cannot Solve Social Problems written by Charles Murray shows that the article is based on an invalid deductive argument , the premises of which are not true . In the major arguments supporting the overall argument a number of fallacies and false premises was found out . In this way , the conclusion that the government intervention does not solve social problems and therefore society can with a limited government is rather doubtful and is not proved in the article

Bibliography

Murray , Ch (1997 . Government Cannot Solve Social Problems . From : Where it means to be a libertarian : a personal interpretation . Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group : Broadway Books

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