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 third test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, 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.... tho there are still some that say: "Ours will be different."
16 comments:
What is the name of the professor? I would like to contact him to verify your story.
Never mind, I contacted the Chairperson of the Economics Department at Texas Tech University. He informed me that he has been chair of that department for 15 years, and this experiment never happened at his University.
Thank you for doing that. I was curious myself.
wow, i cant believe people actually need to know that name of the professor. DOES IT EVEN MATTER!?>
Who is John Galt? I've never thought to call Ayn Rand's Estate (she's dead) to see if I could speak to Hank Reardon at Reardon Steel. Hmm. maybe I should try that.
Snopes indicates they are still trying to track down the origin of this story. I is apparently older than 15 years and is still being circulated. May have started somewhere else and the origin is lost or it was started at Texas Tech more than 15 years ago. The experiment will deliver the same results over time. Who cares where it was done it happened log before now so is not the result of the Obama administration
http://federalistviews.blogspot.com/2009/04/texas-tech-econ-professor-performs.html
http://www.myptsmail.com/harold/blog/?p=1178
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1388651
http://richmanramblings.blogspot.com/2009/05/socialism-analogy.html
http://www.nothingwavering.org/post/11618/2009-05-13/socialism-analogy.html
First: this is definitively a hoax
Second: this professor didn't understood what socialism is.
My grandma once told me, that she stuied that way. Time: somewhere in the 20-s, place Rostov am Don.
They have at college so called "unit method" of study. That means, that there was only one grade for the whole unit. And that means, that students who study better were forced to help to their mates (mostly to those from working class aka proletariat). And who refused to help, was asked, whether he/she is against the socialist country as well.
Thus, if want to succeed in the building of socialism, it is not enough equality, you need a forced labor as well.
To me, it doesn't matter if it is true. THe story is a prefect fable for the what happens when you take away the incentive for personal gain.
schelm-v-bergen is 100% correct; this is not socialism. Socialism would be if the sum total of points earned were collected and divided up by the professor (or one of his designated bureaucrats) based on some arbitrary qualifier, such as the major being pursued (and its potential value to the State), financial means of the student, or their age, race, gender, et al.
The story above references collectivism; sister of communism, which is the kissing cousin of socialism.
Are you serious? You are perfectly ok with believing a story with no factual evidence and passing it off as fact?honestly this story for any self respecting person would scream hoax esspecially since the hero professor of the story obviously cannot differentiate between socialism and communism(yes there is a difference) despite the fact he at least has a masters degree. Furthermore it gives almost no real facts in the first place.save.for that it happened at texas tech. No name for the most prominent person in your story? No self respecting journalist would just decide not to use his name. if you run this without fact checking you make people who seriously look at capitalism as a good system look bad. Throwing around unchecked facts and stories with fatal factual and logical problems who all look like a bunch of scared children who arent smart enough to check facts much less handle economics.
you people dont realize it doesnt matter if this story is true or not,but the idea is true. if you ever went to college you know this is exactly how it would happen
my favorite comment is from good ole ed:
To me, it doesn't matter if it is true.
It's amazing how ignorant people are. The Snopes conclusion is based on unconfirmed input from a reader who stated he heard it way back then. But google searches show nothing older than 08. Further, do you really believe Helen contacted the Chairperson of the Economics Department at Texas Tech University and was able to get through and discuss this in about 40 minutes?
Interesting comments. Friends, ever hear "the proof is in the pudding"?
Instead of arguing over the points, let us see some results...if there are any professors willing to have the experiment of a challenge to the students in the class to see actual results of class room socialism.
Let this argument be put to rest.
Who cares who wrote this excellent work, or at which college...test the theory!
This is merely an anecdote. If you like anecdote, there is another one about capitalism in the comment section of this page:
http://www.myptsmail.com/harold/blog/?p=1178
The problem of is not if the story is true or not... It said that and Experiment made by important teacher of an important university arrive find a conclusion about a model based on a Experiment.
If there is no real experiment, it only a fable of a posible result if someone do it... but it until is a fake story... you got only 50% chance that you got the same results.
Sorry for my english
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