A Lesson In Socialism

I got an email with a story in it.  The sender introduced the story this way:

Got this from a friend and wanted to pass it on.  I wish they would teach this lesson in our public schools, real eye opener.

Here's the story:

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 spread-the-wealth 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's interesting and a little depressing that that we seem to have a growing number of people can find this story to be an “eye opener”.  But then, I suppose it's an indictment of our system of higher education which manages to churn out hoards of working adults who have no idea what socialism does to incentives and what that costs society.

The lesson applies to taxes.  It's a lesson Obama and the Democrats haven't learned as they push for higher taxes on the rich and on the banks and on anything or anybody that they’ve decided is getting more than their “fair share”.  Doing this at a time when the economy is in the toilet and unemployment is high will slow our recovery and keep unemployment high, because it discourages risk taking and investment.  Jobs and the economy rely on investment.

Obama and the Democrats will continue trying to blame everything on George W. Bush, and the legacy media will pull out all the stops trying to promote that message, but too many people get their news elsewhere.  Autumn 2010 in America may turn out to be just as exciting as January 2010 was in Massachusetts.  They're still smiling in Massachusetts.

Comments

[susan]

Great blog and I've been following it for awhile. Did you see this article on cooperative learning http://www.unpopularideas.com/journal/cooperative-learning.html which talks about the fad and the effect on boys? If we treat everyone the same, then why bother to excell?

[election 2010]

I hope that Autumn 2010 in America may turn out to be just as exciting as January in Massachusetts. And we can help to make this happen!

INFORMATION - INFORMATION - INFORMATION.... we need to inform the voters!

Information is the basis for every educated decision in any situation, also at the election 2010 to vote for the right "U.S. Representative or U.S. Senator.

If the voters know, how their employees in Washington voted in crucial issues, that can make or break this great country, they can KICK SOME ASSES and vote those out, who lie, steal and betray!

Get informed, spread the word, send the URL "www.anno2010.com" to all of your friends and let's take this country back!!!

[Tom Bowler]

Thank you, Susan. Very interesting article on cooperative learning. It certainly has its limits, but it has its advantages, too. In the information services industry cooperative learning is the norm. Almost everything is a project which of course involves coordination of a project team. Each member has his or her role that comes with its own set of deadlines and accountability.

In the business world there is usually an emphasis on accountability that may not exist in the world of public education, and that, I think is the most important difference. Public education unions tend to shield members from accountability. It's a union benefit.