Reading Comprehension – Live Session

Passage 1
WHEN starting a new column, it is nice to get a topic that is at the heart of your
chosen field. And David Graeber's book “BS Jobs: A Theory” certainly centres
around the issues of management and work. My analysis of his underyling
thesis—that lots of socially useless and boring jobs have been created in recent
decades—can be found in the print column. (Here also is a link to the original
Economist piece that created “Parkinson’s Law”.) To summarise the column,
some of the phenomena he notices are not new and his explanations for the
apparent rise of pointless activity do not seem convincing. But another idea
discussed in the book is that there is an inverse relationship between the social

om
benefits of a job and the level of compensation.
Is that right? Perhaps he is thinking of nurses or ambulance drivers. But it is not
.c
true of all life-saving jobs. Top surgeons, for example, are very well paid. Both
IM
policemen and firemen earn more than the average salary for men in America.
But let us suppose that Mr Graeber could prove his thesis with some kind of
2I

statistical analysis that ranks social usefulness on one scale and pay on
another. (Not that he attempts to do that; it’s not that kind of book.) What
e.

would be the explanation? He goes back into history to suggest that work, and
lin

education, are both a process of learning self-discipline and how to behave like
an adult. He refers to the paradox whereby -
on

“Most people’s sense of dignity and self-worth is caught up in working for a

living; but most people hate their jobs”
And suggests that:
Workers gain feelings of dignity and self-worth because they hate their jobs.
There must be something to this, although I think he underestimates the
extent to which any job imposes constraints that chafe. Even film stars get
bored by endless retakes and sports stars dislike training. But he leaps to the
conclusion that factory workers are poorly paid for the simple reason that
(they) have legitimate reason to take pride in their work. A key part of the
justification for the underpaying of such workers is simple envy.
This can’t be right. If envy were the crucial criterion, we would underpay rock
stars. Nurses and others are poorly paid because plenty of people have a
combination of the educational requirements and the caring attitude required
for the job. But one doesn’t get the impression that nurses are envied; dealing
with the infirm and elderly, and the anti-social hours, must be hard work.
And let us imagine a country in which nurses were paid the same salaries as
chief executives of S&P 500 companies, and chief executives were paid like
today’s nurses. Taxes (or insurance premiums in America) would be very high
in order to pay such wages, and talented executives would head for other
countries where they would be paid a lot better. The economic outlook would
deteriorate fast.

om
Q1. Which of the following best summarises the writer’s position in this book
review?
.c
A. The writer is generally disdainful and sceptical of the proposed relationship
IM
between unenviable jobs and self-worth.
B. The writer is strongly critical of the book and challenges its claims by citing
numerous counter-examples.
2I

C. The writer is dismissive of the book as it lacks statistical analysis and as it

e.

doesn’t address many real life situations.

D. The writer disagrees with the book though he concedes that constraints at
lin

work may have an impact on a worker’s feeling of self-worth and dignity.

on

Q2. Based on this review, which of the following statements summarises

Graeber’s (author of ‘BS Jobs: A Theory’) in the best manner?
A. Workers who hate their work but accept lower wages do so because they
feel their suffering gains them a sense of dignity and self-worth.
B. Suffering makes it likely that you will hate your job, but fill you with a sense
of dignity that is enviable.
C. Socially beneficial jobs, or jobs that are hard and unenviable, fulfil the
worker’s need for self-worth in other ways that compensate for low pay.
D. Unenviable work, like that of a nurse’s, should be paid more since they do
not fill the worker with a sense of self-worth.
Passage 2
What drives political change – culture or economics? The surge of the Right in
the United States and Europe in the past two years has renewed debate on this
important question. On one side, the cultural determinists attribute Donald
Trump, Brexit and the rise of European populist movements to nativism, anti-
immigrant sentiment and, in the American heartland, lingering racism. On the
other side, economic determinists put the blame on economic inequalities and
anxieties deriving from austerity policies, globalisation and deindustrialisation.
The trouble with this debate is that it is often not possible to disentangle the
economic from the cultural causes. To evaluate economic outcomes, people
necessarily draw on pre-existing conceptions of identity and cultural frames –

om
narratives about how the world works and what is fair. At the same time,
cultural sensibilities can grow more salient, and more readily expressed in the
.c
political arena, following economic struggle. Furthermore, lobbies and interest
groups have an obvious stake in using those cultural tropes or traits that
IM
increase the appeal of their preferred political candidates or policies.
The distinction between ‘culture’ and ‘economics’ is closely related to a
2I

division in the field of political economy: there are scholars who highlight the
e.

primacy of ‘ideas’ and there are those who emphasise ‘interests’.

lin

Both in political science and economics, vested interests representing elites,

lobbies, other pressure groups, or voters at large are the cornerstone of
on

contemporary frameworks of political economy. The emphasis on interests

provides social scientists with a powerful tool with which to analyse the
political determination of policies and institutions. Interests help to explain
why foreign trade is often restricted – so it benefits well-organised domestic
producers. It helps to explain why regulation tends to favour incumbents at the
expense of potential entrants – due to the influence of the regulated firms
themselves (a phenomenon known as ‘regulatory capture’). It helps to explain
why elites fail to develop their economies – to preserve their own in power.
The ‘interests’ approach competes with an alternative perspective –
sometimes called ‘constructivism’. Constructivism, which is a less formalised
and more open-ended approach, emphasises the role of ideas, norms and
values in shaping preferences and interests.
In much of the field of political economy, the interests approach reigns. But the
predominance of the interests perspective is puzzling when one considers the
fact that policy arguments in the real world rarely rely on a naked appeal to
narrow economic interests. Instead, political entrepreneurs make their case in
favour of new policies by trying to convince the public that their proposed
change is better for the whole society. They might emphasise identities, values
or some normative principles such as fairness or freedoms. So in actual public
discussions what we might call ‘ideational politics’ seems at least as important
as interest-based politics.
The reliance on interests in modern political economy is of recent vintage. Not
just classical economists such as David Ricardo and Karl Marx, but also some of

om
the 20th century’s most influential economists – John Maynard Keynes and
Friedrich Hayek, for example – considered ideas as causing political change.
Keynes even observed that ‘it is ideas, not vested interests, which are
.c
dangerous for good or evil’. So the efficacy of ideas has been central to
IM
influential accounts of institutional and policy change in history. Ideas helped
to make possible the prohibition of slavery in the US, women’s rights and the
2I

suffragette movement, and the collapse of the socialist model the world over.
Ideas also enabled policy changes such as welfare reform, deregulation and tax
e.

cuts in the US, and privatisation in Thatcherite Britain.

lin

Q1. Which of these statements best captures the essence of the writer’s
argument?
on

A. While matters of economic importance like foreign trade may be

determined by the forces of interests, deeper social change happens when
it is driven by ideas.
B. Ideas and interests need to be understood together to explain what drives
change, though ideas have taken a backseat in contemporary discussions.
C. The writer is disappointed that interests have taken the limelight and that
ideas are not given consideration in the discussion about what drives
change.
D. Important social changes like the abolition of slavery as well as key policy
changes like welfare reform have been driven by discussions on ideas, not
vested interests.
Q2. Which of these statements don't illustrate an example of interests acting
to influence political change?
I. Cigarette manufacturers support regulation that prevents tobacco
products from being advertised to reduce competition from new entrants.
II. The government sets a maximum retail price for meidcal stents and other
life-saving devices to ensure affordable health-care.
III. Institutes of higher education create favourable admission policies for
women and students from various educational backgrounds.
IV. Lobbyists publicise a regulation to demark a forest as protected to preserve
the way-of-life of the historic human inhabitants.

om
A. Statements II and III only.
B. Statements I and IV only.
C. Statements I, III and IV only. .c
D. Statement I only.
IM
2I
e.
lin
on