#27 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[yrivers]

Could you please explain why A is wrong and C is correct? Thank you!

[Charlie Melman]

Hi Y,

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because Eltis does not argue that support for antislavery measures didn't exist during the period in question. His point is that they weren't the reason for abolition.

Answer choice (C) is correct because of lines 30-35. Because Eltis is arguing for a position that doesn't say anything about personal liberty, we can say that he is arguing against the liberty-focused position.

[Sydneymkim]

Someone please help me explain why B is incorrect?

I thought B was the answer because in the last paragraph, Eltis mentions how forced labor wasn’t as productive anymore and viewed as inappropriate. Doesn’t this go against what a/c B says about economic viability? Thus, showing that he explains against a/c B?

[Adam Tyson]

One problem with answer B, Sydneymkim, is that in the passage nobody contends that those colonies were economically viable. The argument is only whether their lack of economic viability was the primary factor that led to the abolition of slavery. Williams argued that the lack of economic viability was the cause, rather than humanitarian concerns. Drescher contends that a large component was the British tradition of liberty, and that's what Eltis explicitly argues against, as supported by this section of the text:

Eschewing Drescher’s idealization of British traditions of liberty, Eltis points to continuing use of low wages and Draconian vagrancy laws in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to ensure the industriousness of British workers.

The question is asking more than just "what would Eltis disagree with." If that was the question then answer B would look pretty good. But the question is actually asking what Eltis explicitly argued against in the text of the passage. The use of the phrase "according to the passage" in the question stem tells us that we need to find something that someone else said in the text and which Eltis then said was incorrect. Nobody in the passage said that the colonies were viable, which makes B a wrong answer!