An economics professor said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked - and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer for all, for society. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

He said that 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 was given a B. The students who studied hard were upset, and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who hadn't studied much for the first test had studied even less, and the ones who studied hard weren't motivated to study hard again, and they 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, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed .... and the professor told them that the socialism they wanted would ultimately fail, as they had, because the reward of success normally goes to those that work harder, but when government takes the reward away; few will try so no one will succeed.

Perfect analogy.

Very profound, Thanks.

He should have allowed peer pressure to take its natural coarse.
Then he would have seen different results.

The US Army has been using the teachers example for years, no decades, no centuries,
with far different results.
As they say in the Army Infantry,
A Unit is only as strong as its weakest member and only as fast as its slowest!
They rely on peer pressure and get very good results.
As a result we have the strongest, fastest, and most potent military in the world!

Socialist? We always called it communism!

ImDavid,

Great post! Thanks!





No way. You will still get zero, nada.

Why don't you tell us more about your peer pressure method?

Its a secret!
If I told you Id have to kill you!

OP great post

Well isn't one already dead when their miserable?

Our country is already somewhat socialistic.

...what a dreamteam I've got here...

I see dead people posting!
Oh boy it's going to be a weird day.

In the first place this scenario is undoubtedly BS!

Secondly,
The example is not a good representation of a socialist society, but rather one of today's generation.

A school would never allow students to fail because others didn't do well. The teacher could never have gotten away with what he did.

There obviously were no true leaders in the class!
If there had been they would have tutored the poor students to ensure their grades came up rather than follow the poor students example. Thus every student would have passed!

Second, A good example of a socialist society would have been Modern day Germany.
West Germany is a socialist democratic state. They were successful enough to absorb E Germany with all their problems at the end of the cold war and were just recently surpassed by China as the 3rd richest Country on earth!

The example given was closer to an example of a Communist State with poor leadership!

if results for the class as one, had to be found, to preserve it's very own existence, life itself, solution would be found, or total extinction???

since one cannot know, IF EXTINCTION, OR PRESERVATION OF ALL WOULD HAVE BECOME TRUE REALITY, the study gives not FINALITY, some calling this difference, either knowledge or wisdom???

the difference between knowledge and wisdom is most deceptive, since each piece of knowledge, is a piece of wisdom, so lead to wisdom???

the very essence, of why if one use, or need, any outside data to show, what wisdom is, it has not yet found the ying and yang of knowledge and wisdom working together???

if it is not a constant in all scenario's, it is not the maximum data available to the mind, so not yet wisdom???

wisdom must be founded in a constant, that never change, no matter how it is turned, back to front, front to back, or side to side???

many theories exist, and many labels of things, but truly, if the mind rest on nothing, EXCEPT what it can see as a constant, expanding the "theory" into equalism of all data, to a final point of conclusion, that cannot be disproven, applying it to any scenario, a constant is found, then the mind find the next piece of data, to begin to formulate this into a next constant, to add to the last constant, and thus, the ladder to more, or wisdom, is climbed???

just ideas...

peace

We pay taxes. The taxes are distributed. That's socialistic.

theres a whole lot more then just that...to be considered Socialist...like government running private business...opps !!...I forgot about GM...or...goverment deciding what wages should be paid...opps !!...I forgot about GM...or...government deciding what a private business can and cannot sell...opps !!...once again...GM...which by the way now stands for Government Motors...

Our country has been somewhat socialistic since the beginning of taxes.

like I said...

theres a whole lot more then just that...to be considered Socialist...like government running private business...opps !!...I forgot about GM...or...goverment deciding what wages should be paid...opps !!...I forgot about GM...or...government deciding what a private business can and cannot sell...opps !!...once again...GM...which by the way now stands for Government Motors...

I didn't say that we were Socialists. I said that we have been somewhat socialistic for decades. You are intentionally ignoring that.

what I'm saying is...that we're heading down the path where you and your president want us to be...and...it takes a whole lot more then taxes...to be considered Socialists...if and when we get government run healthcare...which is in the budget that the Republicans voted against...thank God...plus the goverment running private business..." GM "...then I'll agree with you...we're heading their faster then I ever imagined...it's some pretty fugged up shid...ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...for the 50's...

In the first place this scenario is undoubtedly BS!

Secondly,
The example is not a good representation of a socialist society, but rather one of today's generation.

A school would never allow students to fail because others didn't do well. The teacher could never have gotten away with what he did.

There obviously were no true leaders in the class!
If there had been they would have tutored the poor students to ensure their grades came up rather than follow the poor students example. Thus every student would have passed!

Second, A good example of a socialist society would have been Modern day Germany.
West Germany is a socialist democratic state. They were successful enough to absorb E Germany with all their problems at the end of the cold war and were just recently surpassed by China as the 3rd richest Country on earth!

The example given was closer to an example of a Communist State with poor leadership!