UPSC CSAT : Reading comprehension Home Exercise- 17 PASSAGE C

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Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Reading comprehension Home Exercise- 17 PASSAGE C

The vows one has taken as a priest, including poverty and chastity, are not for everyone. Others have a vocation to be fathers and mothers and thereby provide materially for their families and communities. When the government takes their wealth away and on the other hand, discourages them having children, this vocation is artificially impeded.

We know well that government reduces people’s wealth through taxation and inflation. Thanks to programs like social security, children and the extended family have lost much of their economic value.

Once there was an implied contract between generations. Parents would take care of helpless children who in turn, would take care of the parents when the parents could no longer earn a living. Each would be cared for during the vulnerable years. Today many parents are horrified at the idea of relying on their children, and the children even in times of dire need, often resent having to help parents. Let the government do it.

While many younger adults wash their hands of responsibility for their parents, they also doubt they will receive a dime from social security themselves. They are probably right. Demographics bear them out. By this decade of the new millennium, taxes won’t keep up with benefit demands.

It’s time to stop talking pure economics and introduce a moral element into the debate. For lack of strong moral arguments on the side of the reformers, last year’s efforts at reforming the welfare system broke down. Radical reform requires a strong moral argument to back the economic one. Otherwise, demagogues and egalitarians dominate.

Can we make a moral argument against the current Social system? Of course. Social Security was set up to act as an economic exchange akin to the savings account. The wage earner surrenders some of his income now for security later in life. This is the promise. The cynical breaks it.

Thus, there is a powerful moral argument for privatizing social Security. When the market provides services, people are free to enter and exit the program. The fund’s caretakers have the incentive to deliver a good deal and keep their word. In economic life, the free marked rewards people who live up to their word. People who do not, lose business.

Not so with the government. It relies on a non-voluntary or coerced exchange. There is precious little incentive to keep promises this is why the government can stuff the system with government IOUs while using proceeds to pay current government expenses. It’s not without reason that Social Security has been called a Ponzi scheme.

Workers have no way to opt out of this system, even though they know it is a fraud. The “promise” has ceased to resemble a contract and has become system based on intergenerational plunder, with the loot diminishing over time. We may soon be stuck with either breaking the promise or bankrupting future generations to keep it.

A story from the Bible underscores the moral urgency of reform. In the Parable of the talents, a caretaker who was entrusted with a sum of money returns it to his master. “Here it is back, “the man says. But the master rebuffs him. “Should you not then have put my money in the bank,” the master demands to know, “do that I could have gotten it back with interest?”

Today’s younger people not only won’t get any interest, they may not even get their principal back. Nor will they be able to count on their children to help them in old age. The link between generations has been broken. Unless something is done, we will see more intergenerational fighting and recrimination. Without Social Security, the young would again be reminded of their obligation to repay the debt they owe to their parents. We would plan for our futures rather than rely on coerced obligation and government programs. The generations would begin to rediscover the value of each other.

The morality of the market is that contracts are honest and promises are kept. Governments are bound by no such morality. We need security that lives up to its name.

18.   The author gives a clarion call to
A.      Stop contributing to social security system
B.       Have a moral element in the social security debate
C.      Reject the current social security system
D.      Re-evaluate one’s options.

19.   Which of the followings best describes the author’s attitude towards the current social security system?
A.      Disenchantment
B.      Indifference
C.      Difference
D.      Slight optimism

20.   Which of the following is not a point of difference between the market and the government?
A.      People meeting promises get rewarded by the market.
B.      Voluntary participation and exit from full market services.
C.      Market men would like to deliver decent returns to stay in business.

A.      A only
B.      B   only
C.       C  only
D.      None of these

21.    It can be genuinely inferred from the passage that the term “Ponzi scheme” means
A.      A scheme started by a man named Ponzi
B.      Probably a fraudulent scheme
C.      A scheme run by the government
D.      A scheme full of IOUs

22.   You would like to title the above reading selection as
A.      Social Security: No, Thanks!
B.      Revisiting Social Security
C.      Intergenerational Loot: who will stop it?
D.      Securing Social security

Answer:


18.    B   “…. And introduce a moral element into the debate…..”

19.   A   Here and there, the writer has expressed in many ways his displeasure with the current system.

20.   D     All these are duly mentioned in the passage.

21.   B   “…. It’s not without reason that Social Security has been called a Ponzi scheme ….” Option a, though factually true, is not inferable form the passage.

22.   A    the author is critical of the existing form of social security and seeks an urgent improvement in the same. Unless its form is modified, he prefers to stay away from it. Hence A.


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