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 insisted that socialism [eschewed for long by India and made famous recently by Barack Obama] worked. It said 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 the Socialist plan". All grades were to be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade. Ergo, no one would fail and no one would receive an A. At the end of the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B. The students who had studied hard were upset. The students who had hardly studied were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who had studied little studied even lesser. The ones who had studied hard decided that they too wanted a free ride and ergo, they too studied little. The second test average was a D. No one was happy.
When the third 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 wanted to study for the benefit of others. To their great surprise, all of them failed.
The professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great. However, when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
-via random email fwd
3 comments:
interesting read...
This is a commonly used analogy, but it's not accurate. Socialism fails, despite all the great ideas, because incompetents rise to power and get to redistribute the wealth. There are two main forces behind people’s ambitions: greed and envy. Greed drives capitalism [i want more of what I already have]; envy [I want what my neighbor has] feeds socialism. Greed is a productive force; envy is not.
@Anon respondent: I am ready to accept the premise that this analogy may be [for the lack of a better word] a best case scenario. But then, you do not provide any reason why it is inaccurate.
The argument 'incompetents rise to power' sounds like a finger pointing exercise. If incompetents rise to power, that is also a failure of socialism.
I will add another to your list of forces: fear.
Greed, Envy and Fear drive the world. It is the direction that makes the difference.
Greed 'I want more of what I have' is a good thing. It drives us to things bigger and better. Some may call it ambition. The problem lies in the extent or the lack of moderation.
Envy: 'I want what my neighbor has' could be construed to be a good thing, as long as it is channeled well. Healthy competition breeds excellence. I see my neighbor do well, I too want to do well. We do not live in silos. One of the reasons to be in a good school is the motivation one can get from other kids who are doing well. Again, the way in which one channels the envy is key. Too much of it or wrongful intent as a result of it is not desirable. My neighbor bought a new car, I too will work hard to get one is a good thing; My neighbor bought a new car, I will not work hard to get one, but will scratch it and puncture the tires is a bad thing.
Fear: This is the check that is needed to keep things in perspective. The need to have the right incentives and the dire consequences of falling out of line are important. The fear of losing one's job will motivate a person to work harder. Remove this fear and a lackadaisical attitude is common fare.
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