Support In order to maintain a high standard of living, a nation must maintain a functioning infrastructure. █████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ █████ ████ █████ ██████ █ ██████ ████ █ █████████████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ █████ █ ██████ █████ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ███ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ █ ██████ ████ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████████████
The author concludes that if a nation’s standard of living is on the rise, it must have invested heavily in improving its infrastructure. She supports this with two conditional premises:
(1) To maintain a high standard of living, a country needs to maintain a functioning infrastructure.
(2) Investing in infrastructure will raise the country’s standard of living.
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of mistaking sufficiency for necessity. The author treats “investment in infrastructure” as necessary for “rise in standard of living.” But according to premise 2 above, “investment in infrastructure” is sufficient, not necessary.
In other words, the argument fails to take into account that a nation’s standard of living could improve for other reasons, without major investments in infrastructure.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ████
a nation that █████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ██████
many nations are ██████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ███████████ ██ ██████████████
the rise in █ ████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ███ ████ █ ████ ████ ██ █████
a rise in █ ████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████████
nations often experience ██████████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████████████