Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when

Question

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when the ownership of both property and the means of production  is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not  a license granted by government and revokable at whim.

(A) is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not
(B) are regarded as individuals’ inalienable rights, and that it not be
(C) is regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not as
(D) are regarded as an individual’s inalienable rights, not when they are 
(E) is regarded as the inalienable rights of an individual, not when it is

hafizkarim · Accepted Answer

Questions that deal with subject-verb agreements can be tricky as the verb can be placed far away from the subject that refers to it.
Most questions that contain subject verb agreement errors contain many "smoke and mirrors" nouns. The intention of placing these nouns in the sentence is to deflect the attention of the reader from the REAL subject. For most questions, the good news is that the key to answer such questions is to understand that one CAN IGNORE subjects within prepositional phrases. I use the word "most" because sentences that contain SANAMO (Some, Any, None, Most, All, One) rely on the subject within the prepositional phrase to determine if the verb needs to be singular or plural.

Ok, now on to the question . I have reordered the answer choices for the purpose of explanation.

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when the ownership of both property and the means of production  is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not  a license granted by government and revokable at whim.

(B) are regarded as individuals’ inalienable rights, and that it not be
 Ok, so there are many nouns -  Analysts, Capitalism, ownership, property, means of production, inalienable right  etc etc 
There are many verbs -  contend, exists , "is", etc

"The noun  "Analysts  " matches with the verb " contend " - Plural 
"The noun  True capitalism " matches with the verb  "exists"  - Singular

Let's ignore the nouns  within prepositional phrases . In this case, the prepositional phrase starts with  "of" . So let's chuck out the nouns  property  and  means of production.  
This leaves us with the noun  "ownership"  which is singular and hence the correct verb is  "is"  and not "are".
Lets read the sentence once again -  Some analysts contend ...blah blah... exists only when the ownership    of both blah.....blah on  .....IS regarded as ...

(A) is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not
 Ok, this one contains the right verb "is" . Lets examine the other aspects of this sentence. 
Look at the usage -  regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s . Seems like the sentence is missing a noun after the word  "individual's".  
E.g : The headlights of John's  car  failed to work. 
 The headlights of John's failed to work. - Doesn't make sense. 
 
(C) is regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not as
 OK in both the aspects.
Subject verb agreement.
Correct usage of 's - individual's inalienable right .
From a parallelism perspective - the usage of  regarded as...not as  is correct.

(D) are regarded as an individual’s inalienable rights, not when they are 
 Look at explanation for (B)

(E) is regarded as the inalienable rights of an individual, not when it is
 
The subject - verb agreement is ok ,
The error with the  's  is no longer present
However, there is a parallelism error here. The correct usage is "regarded as ...not as "..
The meaning of the sentence takes a turn for the worse.

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gmatbull · Answer

Compare the two sentences:

C: ownership is regarded as   an individual's inalienable rights   NOT as...  a license  ...
X: an individual's inalienable rights; Y: a license
ownership is regarded as X not as Y: X and Y are nouns and parallel.

E: ownership is regarded as   the inalienable rights... ts  NOT   when it is  
X: the inalienable rights; Y: when it is a license (refers to a period)
in this case, X and Y are not parallel:

Hope that helps.

sprtng · Answer

C...uses "is", matches "a license"...and "as..., not as...." is parallel

rs2010 · Answer

IMO C

correct verb is IS for singular subj. ownership 
A & E have ambiguous  it . So left out with C.

mrsmarthi · Answer

Here is my take.

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when the ownership of both property and the means of production is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not a license granted by government and revokable at whim.

I tried reading the above sentence as follows -

The ownership is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual, not as a license granted by govt and revokable at whim.

Among the ans choices, only C is close enough. So my pick is C.

In E the problem is - The ownership is a license.......(how can a ownership be a license. It can be regarded as a license.

mainhoon · Answer

Why is it IS and not ARE? Can someone please clarify why the subject here is not plural - the 2 things joined by AND?

Marcab · Answer

the subject is " the ownership of x and y"...and it's singular

akhil911 · Answer

can someone explain why e is not correct.
I fell for e although after reading the posts c looks correct but important to understand the reason why e is not correct.

akbism · Answer

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when   the ownership   of both property and the means of production   is   regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not as a license granted by government and revokable at whim.

vix · Answer

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when the ownership of both property and the means of production  is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not  a license granted by government and revokable at whim.

(A) is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not
(B) are regarded as individuals’ inalienable rights, and that it not be
(C) is regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not as
(D) are regarded as an individual’s inalienable rights, not when they are 
(E) is regarded as the inalienable rights of an individual, not when it is

I am also confused between B and C!

Reason - I chose 'are' initially because 2 things are joined using 'and', but C is the answer because 'ownership  of both property and the means of production ' made me think that there have to be 2 things after both - property and means! Hence our subject is ownership, which is singular! if we did not have 'both' there then we would have had 2 things - 'ownership of property and the means of production' followed by 'are'.
 I hope you got my point!

daagh · Answer

Let us look at the structure of this sentence to ward any possible confusion in SV agreement,

This complex-compound sentence has the following clauses

1 Some analysts contend --- main clause 
2 that true capitalism exists only ----- Subordinate clause 1
3 When the ownership of both property and the means of production are regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s Subordinate clause 2. 
4 and it is not a license granted by government and revocable at whim. – another independent clause

Whether it is  both property and the means of production  or  simply property and the means of production , it does not matter. The subject of the subordinate clause remains  the ownership , a singular one. So the verb has to be necessarily the singular  ‘is ’. Therefor B is simply out.

In addition, ‘regarded as’ is not // with the subjunctive verb ‘that it not be’. Use of the subjunctive imperative mood verb ‘that it not be’ will not go with the  non-bossy verb ‘contend  ‘

kuttingchai · Answer

here the subject is "the Ownership"(singular) and not   which is prepositions so we use IS and not ARE.

crashVcrush · Answer

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when   the ownership    of both property and the means of production   is regarded as an inalienable right   of an individual’s ,  and it is not a license   granted by government and revokable at whim .

Thus the reduced stem :

the ownership is regarded as an inalienable right...............AND...........it is not a license..............

verical scan reveals : only A / C/ E maintains the correct SV pairing......... : Thus B&D go off

bxn A / C / E :

(A) The ownership............is regarded as X, and it is not..........................Y

(C) The ownership ...........is regarded as X, not as.........................Y

(E) The ownership............is regarded as X, not when it is............Y

guess now it becomes easy to zone in on C : ............. regarded AS X..........NOT AS Y........

leading to C , my take

mejia401 · Answer

(A) is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, and it is not
(B) are regarded as individuals’ inalienable rights, and that it not be 
 (C) is regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not as 
 (D) are regarded as an individual’s inalienable rights, not when they are 
(E) is regarded as the inalienable rights of an individual, not when it is

I liked E until I read it aloud. Answer choice E contains faulty predication, which occurs when a subject and a predicate cannot go together. The subject "ownership  " cannot be a "license". A license may convey ownership; even so, ownership <> license.

chendubber · Answer

For the answer C, shouldn't there be an "and" that acts like a conjunction?
Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when the ownership of both property and the means of production is regarded as an inalienable right of an individual’s, AND not as.....

Please help. Thanks.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Hi chendubber , I shall try to help.

X, not Y is a valid idiom, although not very stylistic. The structure of option C is as follows: A is regarded as X, not as Y. A stylistically better idiom is: not Y, but X The sentence could be better expressed as: A is regarded not as Y, but as X. Does this help? By the way, I guess that you overlooked a serious mistake in your sentence above - of an individual's is definitely wrong (double possessive). :-D

chetan2u · Answer

Hi,

You are correct on the observation of choice C..
just a point---
The question is testing the IDIOM Regarded as..
and even the second 'as' is a part of 'REGARDED as'.. ..

(C) is regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not regarded  as..
its not repeated to avoid wordiness...--

aishwarya4391 · Answer

OA :- C

Ownership is the subject of the main clause and hence the usage of " is "
 C rightly compares individual's rights with license; ( as X as Y ; X is noun(rights) and Y(license) is noun)

Funsho84 · Answer

(A) is regarded as an inalienable right of an  individual’s, and  it is not - Individual's what? suppose to be a possessive noun
(B)  are  regarded as individuals’ inalienable rights, and that it not be - wrong tense, ownership is singular 
(C) is regarded as an individual’s inalienable right, not as - best answer
(D)  are  regarded as an individual’s inalienable rights, not when they are -wrong tense, ownership is singular 
(E) is regarded as the inalienable rights of an individual, not  when  it is - when should modify time or a point in time

Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when

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Some analysts contend that true capitalism exists only when

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