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I think it's pretty much by ear. You have to go with what sounds good. In this case, the writer thought "people" was important enough to repeat. I happen to agree with you that "them" would have be...
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9518 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I think it's pretty much by ear. You have to go with what sounds good. In this case, the writer thought "people" was important enough to repeat. I happen to agree with you that "them" would have been sufficient, but sometimes the repetition works. For example: > government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Lincoln could have said > government of, by, and for the people or > government of the people, by them, and for them but the repetition makes it nearly poetry.