End of semester stories part II...

A Simple Socialism Analogy

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 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 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.

Of course, you don't have to take this story's word for it. Star Trek: TNG's The Masterpiece Society makes a somewhat similar point.

Hoping to post some real stuff soon,
Brad

End of semester stories part I...

Over the last week of classes, my students have debated several controversial issues within the field of political science and politics in general. Several of the subjects have involved issues of economic "fairness" (welfare policy, universal healthcare, the bailout, etc.) Here is a story that one of my students shared with me after her debate...

A woman recently asked her friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so the woman asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?' She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.'

Her parents beamed.

'Wow...what a worthy goal.' The woman told her, 'But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.'

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked the woman straight in the eye and asked, 'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?'

The woman said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.'

I have since seen this story - in different forms - across the internet. I would change the last line to 'Welcome to the Conservative movement' but that's only because I'm an academic.

Brad

I love children's literature...

...especially when it teaches good life lessons.

Brad