Argument25 清凉夏日3组四人帮第七次作业

domothyUID: 2224019

TOPIC: ARGUMENT25 - The following appeared in a memo from the mayor of the town of Hopewell.

"Two years ago, the town of Ocean View built a new municipal golf course and resort hotel. During the past two years, tourism in Ocean View has increased, new businesses have opened there, and Ocean View's tax revenues have risen by 30 percent. The best way to improve Hopewell's economy, and generate additional tax revenues, is to build a golf course and resort hotel similar to those in Ocean View."
WORDS: 494          TIME: 0:27:00          DATE: 2006-8-14

In this argument, the author recommend that Hopewell(HW) should build a golf course and resort hotel to increase town's tax revenues. To support his recommendation, the author cites that the town of Ocean View(OV) which built a golf course and a resort hotel two years ago, has experienced the growing tourism and business, as well as increase in tax revenues. Although the argument seems plausible, a close scrutiny reveals that it has several flaws.

To begin with, the author fails to provide any cogent evidence to show OV's increasing tourism is due to the newly built golf course and resort hotel.  It is entirely possible that government of OV has also implemented other measures to stimulate local tourism, such as introduce more national advertisements, and develop new scenery spots. Without ruling out other scenarios which might result in the increase of tourism in OV, the author cannot convince me that the golf course and resort hotel are the only reason.

Another logical flaw appeared in the argument is that the author falsely assumes the cause-and-effect relationship between the opening of new business and the built of the golf course and resort hotel. Common sense tells us that business choose the location of their new plants or braches in terms of the economic environment such as whether the governmental policies are in favor of their business, whether there are potential customers of their products, rather than whether there are a golf course and a resort hotel. The author cannot simply conclude that the golf course and resort hotel contribute to the economic growth as they happened at the same time.

Last but not the least, even if the golf course and resort hotel built in OV actually resulted in the growth in tourism and economy, it does not necessarily follow that the same success can be achieved in HW. Since the author overlooks the potential differences between HW and OV, it is entirely possible that OV is a tourism city which possesses beautiful natural sceneries while HW does not, or OV has a complete system which favors and encourages new business in the city, while HW lacks of certain facilities. If any is the case, even HW copies the OV's methods, the golf course and resort hotel will amount to nothing but a waste of public resources.  Moreover even the golf course and resort hotel can encourage tourism and economy, the tax revenue's may not increase due to the expenses to build the golf course and resort hotel and necessary facilities matched to them.

In the final analysis, the author's recommendation is built on some unsubstantiated assumptions, which undermine its credibility. To better support his/her assertion, the author has to provide detailed evidence to show the causal relationship between the opening of the golf course and resort hotel and the increase in tourism and economy. And he/she also need to show there are considerable similarity of OV and HW which guarantees the successful analogy.