A lesson in socialism (modified from a circulating email.)

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had failed very few students but had, once, 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.

"The grades will be awarded in two stages: 1) in the usual way, including grading on a curve, so that the usual spectrum from A to F is possible but with tests of usual (historical) difficulty so that the average grade is designed to be the historical average for the course; 2) in the socialist way, in which the grades from (1) are averaged and that grade awarded to each student. The second stage determines the actual grade.

That is, everyone will receive the same grade meaning, obviously, no one will receive an A." 

They all agreed to this. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a C. 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 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. To their great dismay the professor failed them all. Then he sent all of them this note: "A socialistic government will 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."

Now, socialism can't be made any clearer than this! (And, remember, we have many congressmen, and now a president, who hold to socialistic ideals. If they are allowed to succeed, the United States , the last bastion of democracy, will eventually cease to exist. This is frightening, but a simple truth! Take a look how people are forced to live under socialism in Russia , China , North Korea , Cuba , etc. - the people have no initiative!)