Thursday, October 21, 2010

Reminders I have received

The following arrived by e-mail. It's a new one on me (although the wonderful quote at the end is not);

An economics professor at a local college made the 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 third test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased. Bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings. and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

At the end of the experiment, to their great surprise, all failed.

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 could not be any simpler than that.

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

Also well worth a read is Leftists, Progressives and Socialists by Walter Williams. Lest we forget...

What goes unappreciated is that socialists and communists have produced the greatest evil in mankind's history. You say, "Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists, communists and their fellow travelers care about the little guy in his struggle for a fair shake! They're trying to promote social justice." Let's look at some of the history of socialism and communism.

Read more

4 comments:

Nick R said...

What a nice story.

Is it true or just a fairy tale?

Della said...

It's a very old story... Didn't I first read that in one of Ayn Rand's bad tempered rants back in the 1980s? It bears as much relation to how socialism actually works, as it does to a mackerel, ironed or not...

pdm said...

Excellent and so true.

Debbie I assume you are the same Debbie that appears at Red Alert. I suggest you come over here more often - it will help you understand why socialism will never work.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant.

I appreciated the quote and link to William's post.

people forget that the greatest atrocities (as in most people murdered) recorded in human history were committed in the 20th Century by socialist governments.

Was that how socialism was meant to work Debbie?

If not, WHY HAS IT NEVER WORKED?

Rufus