Question 21

Five jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out and key in the number of the sentence as your answer:

1. You can observe the truth of this in every e-business model ever constructed: monopolise and protect data.
2. Economists and technologists believe that a new kind of capitalism is being created - different from industrial capitalism as was merchant capitalism.
3. In 1962, Kenneth Arrow, the guru of mainstream economics, said that in a free market economy the purpose of inventing things is to create intellectual property rights.
4. There is, alongside the world of monopolised information and surveillance, a different dynamic growing up: information as a social good, incapable of being owned or exploited or priced.
5. Yet information is abundant. Information goods are freely replicable. Once a thing is made, it can be copied and pasted infinitely.

Correct Answer: 2

Solution

We notice that Statement (3) serves as an introduction by touching upon the topic of intellectual property rights. Statement (2) continues along this line and mentions how 'monopolizing and protecting data' {an idea perhaps associated with the aforementioned intellectual property rights} can be observed in certain business models. Thus, the discussion revolves around data/information and its place in the market system. Statement (5) mentions that despite the monopolization, "information is abundant". And this brings us to the description in Statement (4) which portrays information differently - as a social good. Hence, although a bit discontiguous, 3-1-5-4 seems to talk about the same subject while Statement (2) {on "Merchant Capitalism"} diverges from it. Therefore, (2) is the odd-one-out.

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