SECTION 1 TIME— 30 MINUTES 38 QUESTIONS DIRECTIONS

23. The argumentation in the passage turns

importantly on the question of what should be the

what can only be had by another." Pascal believes

proper relation between

that we owe different duties to different qualities. So we

might say that infatuation is the proper response to

(A) "liberal capitalism" (line 2) and

charm, and awe the proper response to strength. In this

"bourgeois society (lines 20-21)

light, Walzer characterizes capitalism as the tyranny of

(B) "reward" (lines) and "recompense" (line 17)

money (or of the ability to make it). And Walzer

(C) "sensitivity" (liner 5) and "the ability to

advocates as the means of eliminating this tyranny and

of restoring genuine equality "the abolition of the

express compassion" (lines 15-16)

(D) "distribution of material goods" (lines 17-18)

power of money outside its sphere." What Walzer

envisions is a society in which wealth is no longer

and "redistribution of wealth" (lines 4-5)

convertible into social goods which it has no intrinsic

(E) "social goods" (lines37) and "material

connection with.

goods" (line 41 )

Walzer's argument is a puzzling one. After all, why

should those qualities unrelated to the production of

material goods be rewarded with material goods? Is it

not tyrannical, in Pascal's sense, to insist that those who

excel in "sensitivity" or " the ability to express compa-

ssion" merit equal wealth with those who excel in

qualities (such as "the capacity for hard work") essen-

tial in producing wealth? Yet Walzer's argument,

however deficient, does point to one of the most serious

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weaknesses of capitalism— namely, that it brings to

predominant positions in a society people who no

matter how legitimately they have earned their material

rewards, often lack those other qualities that evoke

affection or admiration. Some even argue plausibly that

this weakness may be irremediable: in any society that,

like a capitalist society, seeks to become ever wealthier