Socialism made simple, why it doesn't work

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An economics professor at Texas Tech said 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. But, 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, 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....

^^^ no basis in truth. only a legend. first heard at a bible college in 1994. follow the link below to the real story.

LINK TO SOCIAL INJUSTICE ARTICLE

The Professor's cousin meanwhile tried the same trick with unregulated free market capitalism.

Lectures did not go well, as those students not peddling or buying sex up the back row were too off their face on illicit drugs being sold down the front row, with the exception of the students who were killed by the student who went into peddling murder-for-hire.

Many of the students passed the paper none the less, only the poorest could not scrape together $500:00 to buy a C- pass, and a select number could afford the top rate pass at $10,000:00 for an A+. Unfortunately it was a medical lecture, and these A+ students are now practicing MDs at a health center near you.

@the OP if you want to have a serious argument about the pros and cons of socialism may I suggest that you learn something about it first and not post banal stories in a lame attempt to 'prove' the inability of society to thrive in a socialist manner.

The silly original posting does ignore that in real groups the control can be done via social pressure. This story works only, because no one sees the output of the the other. In a real group there would be pressure on the weakest members to improve because they would lower the overall standard. This is way e.g. primitive Hunter societies survive without a market - how is capable of doing something for the group and does not do so, will became a social outcast and will not survive without the group.

In our societies this pressure has been replaced with money - obviously very effective.

Can you please tell us the difference between socialism, liberalism, and communism, so we know you have some idea what you're talking about, before we waste further time responding to your posts?

It seems to me we've just proven that Capitalism doesn't work. It is based on the fact that we are greedy, and only functions because of that greed. It results in huge disparities in wealth, rewarding those who display the most greed.

Socialism won't work either, we are also lazy. In the long run however, this is the system that offers the best hope for our continued survival. We must change ourselves, becoming more dedicated to helping the entire species, instead of just ourselves. Better to use a system that rewards us for being good than one that rewards us for being evil.

^^^ survival but at what cost?

I'm going to do something I didn't think I'd ever be doing in PPR, defending this OP.

She may not be well-versed in political philosophy (you are invited to prove me wrong here), but her story, whether true or not, is actually a rather apt analogy.

Socialism doesn't work because of our very nature. Now, whether this nature is inherent or learned is arguable. Also, whether this nature makes capitalism workable is also arguable. Considering that we have the resources on this planet to provide for the food, health care, education and housing for every single person, how could it be anything but our nature that prevents us from doing so? It seems that a logical species with even a little bit of heart would reach this conclusion rather easily, and yet, it seems like a laughable proposition.

What about a scenario where, regardless of what sort of system they were in, the class was full of ambitious, bright and honest people? You know, where student B wouldn't be envious that student A did minimal work and yet recieved the same grade (while also bringing the collective grade down). Or better yet, where there was no lazy student A in the first place.

Ambition!
Brilliance!
Honesty!

Violators will be terminated.