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Work for it or do without

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An interesting email I received, source: unknown. I think I will have to agree to a certain extent. Fixing some problems will no doubt introduce others.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently 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 will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

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.

As the tests proceeded, 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.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED 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.

Remember, there IS a test coming up. " elections sometime soon – perhaps the sooner the better"

Your chance to have YOUR say.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. 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 is the beginning of the end of any nation.
 
Some really good ideas in that story. Certainly makes the point that trying to "take care of people" "too much" can backfire .

I think there is another side to this picture which is the one of unbridled free enterprise and no effort to protect or assist people who will be exploited in such an environment. The discussion it brings up is asking how much intervention should governments bring to society, what kind and how do we keep checking to keep a good balance.:2twocents
 
Some really good ideas in that story. Certainly makes the point that trying to "take care of people" "too much" can backfire .

I think there is another side to this picture which is the one of unbridled free enterprise and no effort to protect or assist people who will be exploited in such an environment. The discussion it brings up is asking how much intervention should governments bring to society, what kind and how do we keep checking to keep a good balance.:2twocents

And it's back to square one! ;)
 
An interesting email I received, source: unknown.

That's called spam...and one of the reasons its called spam is because the message contained within the email is usually rubbish, as proven by the contents of your post.
 
I've actually been meaning to make a similar thread.

I remember the comedy News Radio, where the following exchange occurred:

Dave (employee): But that's not fair.
Jimmy (boss): Dave, if the world was fair there wouldn't be rich people.

That quote stuck to me ever since, and I believed in it for a very long time...until now.

Now when I think about it, the quote seems to imply that 'fairness' dictates that everyone should have an equal amount of money. However, this causes injustice to those who work harder and/or smarter. I think in general, rich people deserve to be rich, because they have made efforts to be where they are at (there are exceptions of course, like Paris Hilton).
 
Not only is the story in OP completely false, it is illogical in it's ideology.

In real life, only a small proportion of the students would not study, and the remainder would be motivated to not only study harder - but to help those with difficulties understanding the content, in order to themselves get a better mark.

This is not why socialism fails and has failed in the past, it is just a really stupid story. In fact socialism need not fail at all - just look at Germany and Switzerland.

I get the impression it should be "why communism" fails - but that is not why communism fails either.

Overall really stupid, 0/10.
 
This is not why socialism fails and has failed in the past, it is just a really stupid story. In fact socialism need not fail at all - just look at Germany and Switzerland.

Germany and Switzerland are mixed economies, not socialist economies.
 
Germany and Switzerland are mixed economies, not socialist economies.

They are both economies where people are taxed very heavily, and the tax revenues are redistributed across the population. That is what modern socialism is.

Socialism need not exclusively be the extreme some people make it out to be. That in itself is a very black or white way of looking at things, and only liberals think in absolutes.
 
They are both economies where people are taxed very heavily, and the tax revenues are redistributed across the population. That is what modern socialism is.

Socialism need not exclusively be the extreme some people make it out to be. That in itself is a very black or white way of looking at things, and only liberals think in absolutes.

Neither does capitalism. Categorizing economies with aspects of both socialism and capitalism as socialist is as asinine as categorizing them as capitalist.

The correct categorization of these two countries is 'social market economy' AKA 'mixed economy'.
 
The correct categorization of these two countries is 'social market economy' AKA 'mixed economy'.

That is still an absolute. It would be better to use a scale. Something like this

Socialism ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Capitalism

++++ Australia +++++++++++++++++++ Singapore +++


Can't really fit a lot of countries on that one, but you get the point. When a country is much closer to one end than another, it makes perfect sense to refer to them as a socialist country - and vice versa.
 
So 'mixed economy' is an absolute, but your assertion that they are socialist economies is not an absolute.

Dear Lord! :eek::eek:
 
So 'mixed economy' is an absolute, but your assertion that they are socialist economies is not an absolute.

Dear Lord! :eek::eek:

Not at all - hear me out. If they lie near the middle of the scale, it would make sense to call them mixed. I can't come up with any good examples of this though, but then again there are very few economies I am familiar with.

But in general, it seems to me that just about all of the Western world is socialist (some more so than others).

Actually perhaps India would be a good example of a mixed economy? Not sure.
 
That is still an absolute. It would be better to use a scale. Something like this

Socialism ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Capitalism

++++ Australia +++++++++++++++++++ Singapore +++

Here's a definition of socialism:

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership and/or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy,[1] and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises.[2] There are many variations of socialism and as such there is no single definition encapsulating all of socialism.[3] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organised within economic enterprises, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4]

60% of Singapore's GDP is from state owned enterprises. That's why the taxes are so low, the government owns the means of production.
 
I think there is another side to this picture which is the one of unbridled free enterprise and no effort to protect or assist people who will be exploited in such an environment.

That's why Fair Work Australia was introduced. It gives the unions unbridled power to create an environment to hinder free enterprise, especially small business.
 
That is still an absolute. It would be better to use a scale. Something like this

Socialism ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Capitalism

++++ Australia +++++++++++++++++++ Singapore +++


Can't really fit a lot of countries on that one, but you get the point. When a country is much closer to one end than another, it makes perfect sense to refer to them as a socialist country - and vice versa.

And just to follow up, here's what the Heritage Foundation (who sit slightly to the right of Genghis Khan) think of Australia's economy...

They rank Australia third and Singapore second in terms of economic freedom. Kind of blows your scale out of the water.:rolleyes:

Australia’s economic freedom score is 83.1, making its economy the 3rd freest in the 2012 Index. Its overall score is 0.6 point higher than last year, reflecting better scores in trade freedom, government spending, and fiscal freedom. Australia is ranked 3rd out of 41 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its score is well above the regional and world averages.

The foundations of economic freedom in Australia are strong and well supported by excellent protection of property rights and an independent judiciary that enforces anti-corruption measures effectively. While many large advanced economies have been struggling with growing debt burdens that result from years of heavy government spending, Australia’s gross public debt stands at less than 25 percent of GDP. Budget deficits have been under control owing to prudent public finance management that recognizes limits on government.

Australia’s modern and competitive economy benefits from the country’s strong commitment to open-market policies that facilitate global trade and investment. Transparent and efficient regulations are applied evenly in most cases, encouraging dynamic entrepreneurial activity in the private sector.

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/australia
 
Thanks for that link McLovin, that a pretty cool site!:xyxthumbs

CanOz
 
Neither does capitalism. Categorizing economies with aspects of both socialism and capitalism as socialist is as asinine as categorizing them as capitalist.

The correct categorization of these two countries is 'social market economy' AKA 'mixed economy'.

Would be what a good undergraduate says.

In reality we have a world which runs on some kind of heavily evolved capitalism (insert hyper- finance- etc) with a limited amount of socialist elements employed by some states.

Also OP this bit...

Overall really stupid, 0/10.
 
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