Socialism : why it won't work

Submitted by Jayesh on

The late Adrian Rogers said, “you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

It could not be any simpler than that.

Source: Forwarded Mails

Comments

Submitted by rajat on Tue, 24-Nov-2009 - 16:05

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Marks have been used as the metric in this story. Makes me wonder if the other socialistic measures which probably the Prof was using all the time need a mention too :) -> The prof may be planning this lectures not for the best of his students but on a slightly more balanced side. -> He may be setting the paper with at least a few questions which were relatively easy to answer still keeping the toughest question in for the top notch to compete on while ensuring that many others are driven into failure in order to allow the cutting edge students to have their booty. -> He may have students in his class who were receiving some sort of financial/emotional/educational assistance from public offering in order to allow them to continue education. These are just a few that strike me. These can surely be more. The thought that plays the game up there in the mind is why is socialism being looked at as an averaging function for all to B? Is it not closer to socialism to say that the attempt is to minimise the F's to at least an E even if that means a little restricted growth for the A's, the B's and the C's? After all we are not talking about communism ;-)

Submitted by smruthi aravind on Mon, 30-Nov-2009 - 19:21

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the A's dont always take a free ride... when its socialism...everyone thinks abt the others..so its those A's who'll be keen on improving the overall scenario..:)..instead of talking about that as an averaging..i feel its best to call it a combined effort where the success n glory is achieved when everyone puts in their effort...

Submitted by Guest (not verified) on Thu, 17-Dec-2009 - 01:25

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The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. "Why were they upset ? " As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. Why did they study even less ? When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. "Why did no one want to study for the benefit of anyone else ?" These are deep philosophical and human psychological tendencies - basic human weaknesses of "attention", "pride" , "ego", "dominance", ego in form of "name and recognition" , above all "feeling of superiority and control over others" Otherwise why would the good students get upset, why would they stop studying / study less , if it was not self hatred-ness why would they give up the last time totally" This shows how fragile and Susceptible human mind and thought is to these notions of wanting to be recognized wanting to be on the top of others (ego) and how easily it reveals itself in these story It is the mind that will stand and go ahead to do what is right even if an ocean of people stand with swords in front is firm/unshaken and pure, because that is internal happiness, self love and purity of mind to do what is right despite the whole world standing in front with swords. This word socialism or obamaism or whatever'ism is just another playground for the human mind or in other words sequence of events which show how the mind responds, how the mind is susceptible like a baby. The place where the mind is happy i dont think all these events would matter. Just think about it !!!