An economics professor at a university once noted that he had never failed a single student, but then he failed an entire class at once. This particular class had insisted that #socialism works and that in it, no one would be #poor and no one #rich, but equality would prevail.
The professor said to the students: “OK, let’s try socialism with this class. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade, so no one fails and no one gets a five.”
After the first midterm, the grades were indeed averaged and everyone received a four. The students who had studied hard were indignant, while the students who had studied little were happy. As the second midterm approached, the students who had studied little before studied even less, and even those who had studied hard wanted to get off easy, so they also studied less.
The average for the second midterm was only a two, and no one was happy anymore! The same trend continued, and for the third midterm, everyone was already given failing grades. As the exams went on, the grades no longer improved, but bickering, blaming, and name-calling increased instead, leading to a general sense of ill will and a lack of desire for anyone to study for the benefit of others.
To their great surprise, all the students failed the course, and the professor explained that socialism also always fails in the end, because when the reward is great, the amount of work required for success is also great, but when the state takes the reward away, no one tries or even wants to succeed.
It couldn’t be simpler. There are five lessons to the story:
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You cannot enrich the poor by impoverishing the rich through legislation.
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Whatever is given to one without working for it, someone else must have worked for.
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The state cannot give anyone anything that it did not first take from someone else.
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You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
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When half of the people think they don’t have to work because the other half takes care of them, and when the other half thinks it’s not worth working because someone else gets the benefit, it is the beginning of the end for any nation.
