October 2015 LSAT
Section 2
Question 19
Politician: Union leaders argue that increases in multinational control of manufacturing have shifted labor to nation...
Replies
Emil-Kunkin on October 13, 2023
Those are absolutely other things that might be and likely are motivating the union leaders. However, those are not the arguments that the politician is addressing here. The politician is directly attacking them on their argument for keeping wages high. The fact that we could replace the words "high wages" with "job security" or "safe working conditions" isn't really relevant because we need to engage with the argument the politician is making, not those of the hypothetical labor leaders.The politician dismissed the unions claim on the ground that their claim supports their interest. This is of course a terrible argument. It doesn't actually engage with the argument of the union at all, rather, it dismissed them out of hand simply because they are a union. Furthermore the pol never actually assumed this is the only reason for fighting multinational control. The pol is simply choosing to address one motivation but never closes off the possibility of other motivations.
@MichaelaJ on October 14, 2023
I am still not understanding.Emil-Kunkin on October 15, 2023
I think a shorter way to say it is that the politician never actually makes the assumption that union leaders are only fighting for higher wages. The politician says that unions are fighting for higher wages, and then uses that as the basis for his argument. This isn't the same thing as saying that's the only thing they are fighting for. It's completely possible that the unions are fighting for other things, but the politician chooses to engage with this one argument the unions are making. The flaw here is that he dismisses the argument on the basis of who is making it.