Monday, July 20, 2009

A lesson...

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 works and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. Everyone would be the same.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on a socialism plan."
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 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.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Hat tip: Judy C.

Class is dismissed. Enjoy your Monday...but study hard! Life is (still) good...

5 comments:

ivana said...

Ciao!!!
A good example...
Sad, that the students have chosen the wrong way!
Need the people always the rules from the authority, are they themselves empty, no moral inside?
I hope I've expressed rightly, i use no dictionary or grammar book, only old memories of school english!!!
Ciao...have a great week!!!

Anonymous said...

I couldn't have said it any better. As a retired teacher I tried to express to my students that is they wanted to succeed, they had to work hard. I had a student once tell me that he worked hard but still only achieved a B . I tried to explan to him that if you got a B and he worked hard he should be happy because he did his best but to continue to work harder and to not worry about marks all the time. He listened to my words and continued to work hard and today he's an accountant working for the banks in the Cayman Islands and I'm so happy for that young man. Well have a great Monday Sandy.

Paul

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

perfect example!!! excellent sandy!

smiles, bee
xxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Sandee said...

Exactly. Perfect example.

Have a terrific day. Big hug honey. :)

Anonymous said...

An excellent analogy! Nobody works if they can get everything for free. And rarely is anything free worth having.