Monday, June 1, 2009

Shamelessly Borrowed.....

From Snigs Spot
A lesson on Socialism:



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 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 socialism. 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.
Could not be any simpler than that.

4 comments:

  1. Heh. I love it. There simply cannot be a better practical lesson out there.

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  2. It is a very practical lesson. It also reminded me of a college education class I took at SWTSU (south of Austin). The magazine, Texas Monthly wrote an article saying that SWTSU was cranking out bad teachers with too easy of classes. My class had been easy - I did have an A average. The professor told the class that they could sign this paper, not take the final, and get a B in the class - no matter what their grade was going into the final. It made me mad that people who had low grades were going to get a B just by signing the paper, but if I signed the paper I would not get my A. I took the final, and I took my A.

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  3. Absolutely. I'll have to remember that lesson the next time I find myself arguing pro-capitalism (which I often do, being a Libertarian and all, and living in Massachusetts...)

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  4. Good point! BUT no one wants to believe that would really happen... sigh...

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