0

Socialism does not work because there is a lack of incentive for the people to contribute, a dangerously dictatorial government, and widespread corruption.

Has parallelism been maintained in the above sentence in writing the 3 reasons (lack of incentive, dictatorial government, widespread corruption)?

tryingtobeastoic
  • 163
  • Non-parallelism shown in what way? Mixing an arguably count usage with two non-count ones? Mixing a concrete NP with two abstract ones? No problem to my sensors. I'm far more worried about the broad-brush damning of all examples of socialism by the statement. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 11 '22 at 16:01
  • It's unclear what the statement is trying to say. – Hot Licks Dec 12 '22 at 02:39
  • It's confusing because the list could be all the things there's a lack of, or "lack of X" could be one of the items in the list. It appears that the latter is the intent, but it invites a garden path parse. – Barmar Dec 12 '22 at 17:57

2 Answers2

1

It does maintain parallelism, but it's confusing because there are two possible parallel parses. It can be read as either

Socialism does not work because there is a lack of (incentive for the people to contribute, a dangerously dictatorial government, and widespread corruption).

or

Socialism does not work because there is ((a lack of incentive for the people to contribute), (a dangerously dictatorial government), and (widespread corruption)).

The second is the intended interpretation, since dictatorships and corruption are normally considered misfeatures, so lacking them would not be a reason why socialism doesn't work.

The sentence can be made clearer by rewriting as David suggests, or if the style guide for the document it's in allows, using a bullet list instead of plain text.

Barmar
  • 20,741
  • 1
  • 38
  • 59
0

To the extent that I understand what the poster means by parallelism, this is maintained in the example as “there is” can be applied to “lack of incentive”, “dictatorial government” (dictatorship?) and “corruption”.

However, by posting, the poster implies that he feels there is a problem with his sentence. There is. The problem is that there is no grammatical — and hence logical — connection between what I shall rename “Xism” (better, I think, to depoliticize on a language list) and “there is”. Once one tries to make a connection one is forced to think more carefully about the arguments relating the ism to its consequences or features.

The simple fix is to write:

“Xism” does not work because it means…

However this immediately betrays the fact that the statement is not an argument, but an assertion, on a par with:

What is Capitalism? Capitalism is theft!

If one wishes to use logic in one’s argument (a stupid suggestion, I know) then for each argument one needs to consider the appropriate verb to use to express the relationship between the ism and its purported consequences. Thus, the first assertion could be rephrased:

“Xism does not work because in an Xist system people lack incentive"

The second assertion requires different phrasing; something on the lines of:

“Xism does not work because it generally leads to a dictatorship”

which can also be used for the third assertion:

“Xism does not work because it generally leads to widespread corruption”

So it is difficult in this case to maintain parallelism and linguistic logic.

But, hell, this is politics.

David
  • 12,625