Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.

This confusion concerns nothing less than the concept of socialism itself. It may mean, and is often used to describe, merely the ideals of social justice, greater equality and security which are the ultimate aims of socialism. But it means also the particular method by which most socialists hope to attain these ends and which many competent people regard as the only methods by which they can be fully and quickly attained. In this sense socialism means the abolition of private enterprise, of private ownership of the means of production, and the creation of a system of "planned economy" in which the entrepreneur working for profit is replaced by a central planning body. There are many people who call themselves socialists although they care only about the first, who fervently believe in those ultimate aims of socialism but neither care nor understand how they can be achieved, and who are merely certain they must be achieved, whatever the cost. But to nearly all those to whom socialism is not merely a hope but an object of practical politics, the characteristic methods of modern socialism are as essential as the ends themselves. Most people, on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialists, refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by the socialists. The dispute about socialism has thus become largely a dispute about means and not about ends-although the question whether the different ends of socialism can be simultaneously achieved is also involved. This would be enough to create confusion. And the confusion has been further increased by the common practice of denying that those who repudiate the means value the ends. But this is not all. The situation is still more complicated by the fact that the same means, the "economic planning" which is the prime instrument for socialist reform, can be used for many other purposes. We must centrally direct economic activity if we want to make the distribution of income conform to current ideas of social justice. "Planning", therefore, is wanted by all those who demand that "production for use" be substituted for production for profit. But such planning is no less indispensable if the distribution of incomes is to be regulated in a way which to us appears to be the opposite of just. Whether we should wish that more of the good things of this world should go to some racial elite, the Nordic men, or the members of a party or an aristocracy, the methods which we shall have to employ are the same as those which could ensure an equalitarian distribution. It may, perhaps, seem unfair to use the term socialism to describe its methods rather than its aims, to use for a particular method a term which for many people stand for an ultimate ideal. It is probably preferable to describe the methods which can be used for a great variety of ends as collectivism and to regard socialism as a species of that genus. Yet, although to most socialists only one species of collectivism will represent true socialism, it must always be remembered that socialism is a species of collectivism and that therefore everything which is true for collectivism as such must apply to socialism. Nearly all the points which are disputed between socialists and liberals concerns the methods common to all forms of collectivism and not the particular ends for which the socialists want to use them; and all the consequences with which we shall be concerned in this book follow from the methods of collectivism irrespective of the ends for which they are used. It must also not be forgotten that socialism is not only by far the most important species of collectivism or "planning"; but that it is socialism which has persuaded liberal-minded people to submit once more to that regimentation of economic life which they had overthrown because, in the words of Adam Smith, it puts governments in a position where "to support themselves they are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical".

Amongst the options below, the one that best captures the ideology being advocated by the author is:

Question

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
For early postcolonial literature, the world of the novel was often the nation. Postcolonial novels were usually [concerned with] national questions. Sometimes the whole story of the novel was taken as an allegory of the nation, whether India or Tanzania. This was important for supporting anti-colonial nationalism, but could also be limiting - land-focused and inward looking.
My new book "Writing Ocean Worlds" explores another kind of world of the novel: not the village or nation, but the Indian Ocean world. The book describes a set of novels in which the Indian Ocean is at the centre of the story. It focuses on the novelists Amitav Ghosh, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Lindsey Collen and Joseph Conrad [who have] centred the Indian Ocean world in the majority of their novels. . . Their work reveals a world that is outward-looking full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection. They are all very different - from colonially inclined (Conrad) to radically anti-capitalist (Collen), but together draw on and shape a wider sense of Indian Ocean space through themes, images, metaphors and language. This has the effect of remapping the world in the reader's mind, as centred in the interconnected global south. ... The Indian Ocean world is a term used to describe the very long-lasting connections among the coasts of East Africa, the Arab coasts, and South and East Asia.
These connections were made possible by the geography of the Indian Ocean. For much of history, travel by sea was much easier than by land, which meant that port cities very far apart were often more easily connected to each other than to much closer inland cities. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean. This is the interconnected oceanic world referenced and produced by the novels in my book. For their part Ghosh, Gurnah, Collen and even Conrad reference a different set of histories and geographies than the ones most commonly found in fiction in English. Those [commonly found ones] are mostly centred in Europe or the US, assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and mention places like Paris and New York. The novels in [my] book highlight instead a largely Islamic space, feature characters of colour and centralise the ports of Malindi, Mombasa, Aden, Java and Bombay. . . . It is a densely imagined, richly sensory image of a southern cosmopolitan culture which provides for an enlarged sense of place in the world.
This remapping is particularly powerful for the representation of Africa. In the fiction, sailors and travellers are not all European. . . African, as well as Indian and Arab characters, are traders, nakhodas (dhow ship captains), runaways, villains, missionaries and activists. This does not mean that Indian Ocean Africa is romanticised. Migration is often a matter of force; travel is portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure, freedoms are kept from women and slavery is rife. What it does mean is that the African part of the Indian Ocean world plays an active role in its long, rich history and therefore in that of the wider world.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understanding the Question:
We need to name the ideology closest to the author's own stance, built from two features: support for socialism's aims, and distrust of its coercive planning method.

Step 2: Key Approach:
Rank each option by how much central, forced economic control it requires, then match that ranking against the passage's tone, which accepts the goals but is wary of forced collectivisation.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Fascism relies on an authoritarian state controlling the economy and society together by force, the strongest form of concentrated control among the four choices, directly opposed to the author's warning about tyranny. It scores worst on the method axis and offers no particular attachment to socialism's egalitarian aims either.
Marxism calls for abolishing private ownership of production outright and imposing full central planning, which is exactly the method the passage treats with suspicion throughout, describing it as the abolition of private enterprise and the replacement of the profit-seeking entrepreneur with a central planning body. This is close to the passage's definition of collectivist method taken to its fullest extent.
Fabian socialism favours gradual change over revolution, which is a point in its favour, but it still leans on heavy state planning and nationalisation as its main tool for reaching socialist goals, so it sits closer to the coercive method than the passage's cautious, skeptical stance would allow.
Democratic socialism keeps the same goals, fairness, equality, and security, but pursues them through democratic and gradual means, elections, legislation, negotiation, rather than a central planning body replacing the market entirely and rather than revolutionary upheaval. This matches the author's actual balance stated across the passage: supportive of the ends, careful and cautious about the means.

Step 4: Final Answer:
Democratic socialism is the ideology closest to the one the author advocates, since it alone combines acceptance of socialism's aims with rejection of its most coercive, centrally planned methods.
\[ \boxed{\text{Democratic socialism}} \]

Over Number	Run Rate
N-2	8.00
N	7.43
N+2	8.11
N+4	8.45
N+6	8.08

Show Hint

The Correct Option is B

Solution and Explanation

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