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 Obama's 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 Obama's plan".. 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. (Please pass this on) 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.

Can you think of a reason for not sharing this?
Neither could I. And I've heard this before.

I would like to point out that his is the idea of socialism/communism at its most extreme.

However this example is definitely something to think about.

"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, 'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.'" (Free enterprise)

~ Thomas Jefferson

it's the progressive version of trickle down economics..

I don't know if that story of the class is true or not, but I suspect it isn't, as it is based on an erroneous assumption…that people always work in their own self-interest and never co-operate. The truth, as always falls somewhere in the middle.

I rather suspect that if the students knew one another and could work as a unit, we would have found the brilliant students continuing to do what brilliant students naturally do…their best. MOreover, they would have seen immediately what would happen to the class grade if EVERYONE didn't do their best, and would likely have held a class meeting to lay out the problem & solution…If we compete selfishly, we are all going to fail…If we cooperate and help one another we can raise the class average and make a chump of the professor and his erroneous assumption.

As a result, the class would probably have started their own lecture & mentoring groups to bring the slower guys up to speed and help them improve their performance. Except for a few real freeloaders, who were only in the class because their daddy was an alumni who wanted his kid to have a prestigious degree, the bulk of the class probably would have been contributors who were actually learning economics.

The net result would probably have been an improved class average, not a failure. Granted the brilliant kids wouldn't be getting A+ anymore, but I'm sure they didn't work for gold stars in the first place; they were there to learn. They would also have had the satisfaction of teaching their economics prof a thing or two about the primary economic assumption…that people always compete and never cooperate for the common good of their fellows.

Without documented proof of the OP social experiment, I would not be inclined to share it, as I feel it might then only be propagating a myth that makes the rounds from time to time. For myself, I'd rather explore the altruistic economics proposed by Robin Upton.

http://www.altruists.org/ideas/economics/post-autistic/Default.asp