Socialism

[Smoke]

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".

That's an old, old story. I'm not at all surprised that some dimwit has taken the initiative to make it about Obama. No new ideas in the Tea Party.

I wish Obama were a socialist.

 

[cynic2005]

Friends,
Am forwarding something interesting to post here.

As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." This man is truly a genius!

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 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 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?

Love & rgds

That is one the most stupid and preposterous things I have ever heard.

As a student, I am usually at the top. For instance, the mean grade in one of my biology courses is actually an F. I am averaging a 94%. This professor must curve grades so that many can pass the course. I have no issues with this. While in a sense, it invalidates my grade to a certain degree (it makes my GPA stand out less in comparison to the mean GPA at my university), it does not stop me from learning the course material. In fact, I have tried tutoring one of these students, and I am also happy that grades will be curved, because I hate to see people fail. And guess what, grades get curved all the freaking time.

Anyone who needs a high letter grade in order to become motivated is pathetic. Well guess what, our system of cronyism does not always provide privileges to those who work hard. Ever heard of ritualism in Merton's Strain theory? Generally, a person who has accepted the approved goals of society (e.g., wealth) but cannot achieve those goals through the institutionalized means (e.g. working hard), engages in ritualism by continuing to adhere to the institutionalized means, even if it is hopeless in providing wealth. There are numerous examples of this within our society. Ever heard of a glass ceiling? Discrimination? I personally have felt disenfranchised at times (e.g, a professor of mine pays lots of attention to the female college students), but this has not caused me to give up and fail entirely. The fact of the matter is, is that without a hierarchical structure, no one would be systematically disenfranchised. Whether your hard work gets recognized or not is irrelevant. People would work hard because of passion, not because of a stupid letter grade. They would enjoy the satisfaction of their self-accomplishments and the actualization of their potential. This whole "people need an incentive" thing is artificial and mechanical. Our school system arose from the industrial era. It was organized like a factory, and was meant to produce workers... and still is, although from my perspective, its role now includes systematic indoctrination, social control, and the pacification of the human intellect.

This little quasi "experiment" is a complete failure. It has absolutely no generalizability to the real world. None of the students were randomly assigned. Causality cannot be established, only correlation (i.e., extraneous variables are not controlled). There is the possibility of a spurious correlation. The sample size is extremely small (it is a classroom full of students I presume), and the students (probably white middle-class adolescents) are not representative of the entire population. Whether or not this "experiment" actually simulates socialism is a highly controversial matter. There is no operational definition of socialism, and thus, no established methodology for measuring socialism as an independent variable (grades would be the dependent variable). Finally, there is no control group, or baseline comparison.

Finally, the professor makes the assumption that low achieving students are low achieving because of personal irresponsibility. This is an extremely erroneous assumption. It ignores the favoritism in education given to white, middle-class protestant students, the fact that education promotes white middle-class protestant values while invalidating other cultural values, the fact that most school officials come from white middle-class families, the fact that students of other racial and ethnic backgrounds are more prone to being labeled as a "problem student" or "delinquent," it ignores the fact that we live in a heterogenous and not homogenous society, it ignores the fact that not every student has equal access to education opportunities, it ignores the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophesy... Must I continue?

This economics "professor" should smack himself repeatedly because his "experiment" is wholly based on a set of popular myths, created in large part by the elite segment of our society to perpetuate the status quo. Also, his experiment lacks generalizability entirely. Nothing can be said or concluded about socialism based on this pseudo-experiment. What I am wondering is whether or not this experiment had actually occurred, because the professor's incompetence in both conducting and interpreting the results of an experiment is extremely immense.

 

[Valjean]

This topic will never be resolved as long as people are arbitrarily defining the terms in question.
Last night on TV I watched a commentator declare outright that communist, socialist, progressive and liberal were virtual synonyms and that these people were dedicated to establishing a repressive, totalitarian, 'big government' state.

In my experience most people calling themselves "socialist" these days are not advocating the traditional state ownership of the means of production and state managed, planned economic models described in textbooks.
Conflating classical socialism, communism and American liberalism will only lead to divisiveness.

My take is that all societies are social(ist), by definition. Otherwise they wouldn't be societies. The differences are only in degree and scope. Eg: do you make sacrifices or alter your behavior for the benefit of your children or spouse? -- that's socialism! -- albeit on a small scale.

I think there are some benefits to socialism. You can get services and certain benefits that you'd have to obtain in any case wholesale rather than retail.
Who could afford a private army, private water and food testing, private fire and police protection, private education, private disability or disaster or unemployment relief all on one's own?
Who would take care of a person when he's old, disabled or unable to support himself, without a society?

 

[zenzero]

Friends,

Seyorni has raised the right point/question.

Now if we further analyse it we find the DESIRES of the mind which is to be understood and transcended before we find any system that works and so had mentioned that the MONASTERY system is the best as it is based on desirelessness. Again if the system becomes organised the system will fail.

Love & rgds