The argument that the dominant form of economic policy today is not tr

Meaning: The argument that the dominant form of economic policy today is not traditional capitalism, but a modified and extended neo-capitalism, [the argument] is based on a number of facts: the existence of government-owned companies, the number of public-private partnerships in key industries, and the extent to which foreign direct investment is regulated by the government.

There are two parts to this sentence. One part is that the dominant form of economic policy today is not X, but Y, and X and Y must be parallel. The second part is that neo-capitalism is based on a number of facts: A, B, and C. A, B, and C must be expressed parallel.


In A, we have a parallelism issue. Not X: traditional capitalism, noun phrase, but rather Y: it is neo-capitalism, clause. X and Y are not parallel.
A continues to say that [neo-capitalism] that is modified and extended, is based on a number of facts: A: the existence of government-owned companies, B: the number of public-private partnerships in key industries, and C: the extent to which foreign direct investment is regulated by the government. A, B, and C are parallel.
A is not a complete sentence. The sentence is very complex that I erroneously thought the verb was swallowed by the second that clause, but alas, I was mistaken. The subject The argument has the verb is. Eliminate A for parallelism error.


is is outside the parallelism marker, hence does not have to be repeated between but and instead. Hence X:traditional capitalism and Y:is neo-capitalism are not parallel.
The three elements: A: government-owned companies exist, a clause, B: the number of public-private partnerships in key industries, noun phrase, and C: the extent, noun. A, B, and C are not parallel.
Likewise the complexity of the sentence made me to erroneously conclude that the verb for the subject was swallowed up by the that clause; this is not the case. The verb for the subject is actually is. Eliminate B for parallelism error.


C tells us what the dominant form of economic policy today is not, but does not tell us what it is. It erroneously turns what is supposed to be the dominant form of economic policy today into a which clause to modify what the dominant form of economic policy is not. C is therefore incomplete since it does not convey the full meaning of the sentence and there is nothing to compare X: traditional capitalism to in terms of parallelism.
The subject argument, however, has a verb is based on a number of facts: A: the existence of government-owned companies, B: the number of public-private partnerships, and C: the extent. A, B, and C are however parallel. Eliminate C.


X: traditional capitalism, noun phrase, and Y: a modified and extended neo-capitalism, a noun phrase, X and Y are parallel. Not X but Y expresses clearly what the dominant form of economic policy today is, and not.
The verb for the subject the argument is is. The three facts that the argument is based on: A: the existence of government-owned companies, B: the number of public-private partnerships, and C: the extent to which foreign direct investment is regulated by the government. A, B, and C are all noun phrases and are rightly parallel.
I don't see any issues with this sentence. Keep D.


but also ruins the meaning. The idea is the dominant form of economic policy today is not traditional capitalism but a modified and extended neo-colonialism. There is no point in adding also and this distorts the sentence. X: traditional capitalism, and Y: a modified and extended neo-capitalism are both noun phrases and hence parallel. The right idiom should be not X but Y
The subject of the sentence the argument, however, has a verb is. However, the three elements that the argument is based on are not parallel. A: government-owned companies exist, a clause, B, the number of public-private partnerships in key industries, a noun phrase, and C: the extent to which foreign direct investment is regulated by the government, a noun phrase with its relative clause modifier. A, B, and C are not parallel.
Eliminate E.

D is left as the best answer.