The Story of Socialism

A note from Radarsite: The following concise but enlightening essay on Socialism was submitted to Radarsite by Michael Haltman, a friend of our noble fellow warrior Jenn Sierra of Fort Hard Knox

Friday, April 10, 2009
The Story Of Socialism
Socialism: general term for the political and economic theory that advocates a system of collective or government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods. Because of the collective nature of socialism, it is to be contrasted to the doctrine of the sanctity of private property that characterizes capitalism. Where capitalism stresses competition and profit, socialism calls for cooperation and social service.

All For One And One For All

In the spirit of populism and political correctness, certain things have recently been deemed to hold true:

Among them are the fact that not all contracts are made the same. Some are airtight while still others can have attempts made at voiding them if it appears that the majority of the citizenry feels that they are excessive, unfair and unwarranted.

Another is the fact that the majority of employees are good, hard working and honest. That said, because some have exploited the compensation system and have taken on undue and unwarranted risk that almost brought the worlds financial system to it's knees, no employee going forward, no matter how valuable and profitable should receive excessive amounts of compensation (this amount is to be determined).

As a last example, no executive regardless of security or time shall ever take anything other than a car or train to a Congressional hearing lest they be excoriated for their elitism and wastefulness (this of course does not apply to our politicians).

The list goes on, but the general idea is that the rich should be less rich and the poor less poor, not through the rich becoming less motivated or poor working harder to achieve wealth, but by legislating it to be true.

This example points out some of the flaws in the argument (sent to me by a friend of mine):

An economics professor at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The majority of the 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 okay, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

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. 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, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed the greater the reward but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.

Visit the blog to see the video.

--"A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom,can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." John Adams



Michael Haltman
http://politicsandfinance.blogspot.com/