Um. This is communism, not socialism (I think). This also does not explain why there are leading scientists, businesses, etc. in other, in your words, "socialist" countries. It also does nothing to explain that capitalism- especially unfettered capitalism- encourages outright fraud and deceit. Even Ayn Rand said that government's function is to be police to ensure that markets operate free of corruption. Since fraud is illegal (at least on paper) it stands to reason that government should enforce the law.

This story simply suggests a shitty teacher who intentionally set things up to fail (and nothing like what happens in the real world). Did the teacher let people work together on assignments? no. Did the teacher encourage each of the students to help each other learn? no. The teacher changed the game on the students, but did nothing to give the students other ways to do things to accomplish the goal- thus the students learn that individualism is all that counts and teamwork means nothing. It's a nice piece of propaganda, but the teacher (if real) should be canned. They probably won't be though, since they are likely a member of the teacher's union...

wtf - You totally missed the point of the post. Too bad. So sad.

My son's first encounter with public school was in grade 5.

He was a grade A student in private schoool but had to go to public when we had another kid.

Their grade 5 was private school's grade 3.

They sat at round tables that seated 6 so the "smarter" kids could "tutor" the less smart.

My son was one of the smart kids. Half way through the year I had to go to a teacher conference because my son was getting failng grades.

When I talked to him about it he was extremmely upset with the fact that he not only had to study harder (because it was expected) but also had to teach as well.

He realized it was easier to let someone else do the work and tutor him.

He did not graduate high school and ended up getting a GED.

In private school he did very well becuase he saw that the disruptive, non-producing kids were forced to leave the school.

I am actually in a good mood.

Actually I don't think I did (misunderstand this "story")- I think it is just a wrong allegory. Since this is a conservative blog, you should value truth and accuracy above all else. I still think the teacher should be fired, but a more accurate story (in terms of your goal at painting an allegorical portrayal of socialism) would be for the teacher (the state) to identify the smartest kid in the class (the uber rich capitalist-imperialist pig-dog) and make that kid's grades the only one that counts. That way, he has to do all the work and is penalized for being smart. All the other kids get to go to recess. Maybe the smartest kid gives up and gets an F at some point, but that is beyond the scope of our present discussion.

I stand by my original assertion that this story is more about theoretical communism than it is socialism. It would be fun to apply a laissez-fare capitalist system to this. I need to think about how this would play out...

a laassez-fare capitalist system would have the smart kids getting good grades and the dumb kids getting bad grades. You get out what you put in.

When you subsidize failure, you get more failure. When you penalize success, you get less success.

wtf--

A corrupt government policing unfettered capitalism?
Are you kidding me? Shit flows downhill, my friend.

wtf, you are funny. You say, "This also does not explain why there are leading scientists, businesses, etc. in other, in your words, "socialist" countries."

Um, are you joking? Just about ALL of new things invented, developed, etc, come from capitalist democracies! True, China has the cheaper manufacturing, but the stuff they make was designed in the US or in some other capitalist democracy.

Please name just ONE THING that someone in Soviet Russia invented that was better than anything invented in the USA. Good luck with that.

--chicopanther

That was the perfect analogy for socialism. Just perfect.

"Please name just ONE THING that someone in Soviet Russia invented that was better than anything invented in the USA. Good luck with that."
-chicopanther

PROPAGANDA? POGROMS? Yeah, that's it. I got nothing else.

I am a bit prouder to send TTU my money next semester. My daughter is finishing up her first year there. I grow to like and respect the place more and more as time goes by. guns up ( Not just CD....everybody)

I have to comment about my kid's public school. They have a policy of not awarding any recognition publicly and they won't allow kids to open report cards or test scores on campus. The end of the year awards ceremony consists of each kid's name called and them being handed a sealed envelope. The overly PC attitude of not hurting the feelings of kids who don't get awards (or get "best smile in the 5th grade), forming "no cut" teams and never exposing kids to the results of other kids accomplishments (or lack thereof), has resulted in a bunch of lazy, uninspired kids. Failure is rewarded the same as success in their eyes.

And wtf - if you think being set up to fail isn't what happens in the real world, then you ain't from here.

Things from Russia better than U.S. version...Stoli and big furry hats.

wtf,
I appreciate your comments in the depreciatory intent you intended, however, is it not the role of a teacher to develop young minds to adapt to change and become policy makers rather than policy followers?

WTF........

I guess one conditioned to accept universal mediocrity instead of cultivating those capable of greater achievment will never grasp the essential nature of a capitalistic system.

In todays world of dumbing down education to accomodate those unable or unwilling to apply themselves to a challenging curriculum, it has become the duty of a liberal educational system to assure everybody feels good about themselves.

This guarantees we suppy Ignorant & Stupid Graduates to the real world whose first learning experience there is to find they are a dumb ass rather the the smart ass they played the role of while thinking they were receiving an education in our public liberal educational system.

Not every student is capable of Astrophysic`s........Why do we allow our so-called Educators to hold everyone back & to discourage the desire to learn from those who can? This will be recorded in history as one of the reasons for the fall of America.

I think it's sad that college students are this stupid. They had to fail the course to learn that socialism doesn't work. They could have learned the same thing by simply getting a library card and reading books about the history of the USSR, Cuba and Venezuela.

WTF, socialism is simply communism without a spine. A commie will be in your face and ready to fight. Socialists deny they are leading you into communism. Remember that USSR stood for Socialist Republics, not communist republics. Even the Commies recognized there was no diffrence in the end result.
And East Germany was the German Democratic. Hmmm kinda like a certain political party whose symbol is an out of control jackass?

I liked and understood the story. What's more enlightening is the response from wtf. Clearly a smart person, but completely ignorant of the human condition. WTF better illustrates for me how large portions of the population can vote for those supporting the policies of the left.

Poor wtf. The only difference between socialism and communism is a dictator. And ole JHE is close to the latter. The moronic libs have finally realized what this clown stands for. The highest bidder. And they are all out of talking points.

WTF scares me because of what he/she/it represents. Seems very articulate, educated, and argues well with us (that's a compliment BTW), but just doesn't have any common sense. These are the people dangerous to our country.

"Things from Russia better than U.S. version...Stoli and big furry hats."

And those were invented long before the communists took over. :)

WTF epitomizes the typical student in our public schools -- trained to be so cross-eyed dumb so as not to understand something so simple.

To all - wtf is a troll who actually put up an articulate comment without insults. Of course, he/she was completely wrong, but at least he/she followed The Rules. We'll see how long that lasts.

The story clearly illustrates what happened in Russia. Since no one(almost) benefitted from hard work, there was no reason to work harder. In Russia they had vast stores with empty shelves, a bontiful wheat harvest that rotted in piles because no one had any incentive to get it to the markets.
What we must remember about the USSR was that a small handful benefitted more then others. The leaders awarded some people with higher pay and position.
If the prof had said that the top student and that student alone would get his or her own grade, we would have seen what communism was really like. After the first test (revolution) there would have been a top dog. At the second test, some would have tried harded, but the drag of the first averaged grade would have kept them from pulling ahead. At that point there would have been many more hard feelings, and the leader would not have needed to study or work hard, and the rest would have been dejected and angry.
Socialism works in small groups to an extent. An example would be a tribe. they are essentially a family unit, and survival depends on all doing their share. They must work together to succeed. But how many tribes rose above that? Even today tribal cultures are stuck in survival mode
A family unit is essentially small unit communism. Mom and Dad rule, they are not elected, and the kids have no choice but to do as they are told.
TO clearly understand what I just wrote, think hard about it. I have hired quite a few teenagers over the years. They worked harder for me then they ever did for their parents. In fact, one father called me aside about three weeks after his son started working ofr me and told me that if his boy wasn't working hard that I didn't need to pay him. Lynn was about the hardest worker I ever had, yet his own dad couldn't get him to mow lawn, let alone do his own laundry. The parents decided that th best approach was to require that Lynn have all his own chores done before he could go to work. Why the diffrence? Lynn knew that the food would be on the table even if his room was dirty. He knew he could borrow a dollar or two from dear old dad almost anytime.
Another guy I knew, on his twelfth birthday demanded a raise in his allowance. his dad said not only no, but allowance ends today, its time you earn your own money. He then gave his son the tools to earn money with. The son took those tools and went to work. In a short time he had others working for him, and by the time he graduated high school was a millionaire whose mother couldn't get him to clean his own room. He also was not allowed to hire a maid for the task.
So, wtf, what do you see as the diffrence between communism and socialism?

wtf:

I get a kick out of discussions with some on the left. Someone offers a philosophical idea and they come back with a specific example. Well, you can come back with a specific example to defend any position. In fact, that’s the problem with central planning. Here is something that I wrote in answer to another socialist:

When we are children, we all play the game: What would you do if? What would you do if someone came at you with a knife? What would you do if you had a million dollars? What would you do if this or what would you do if that? What would you do? What would you do?

If and when we grow up, you come to learn that no one, not you, not me, not anyone else knows what they will do in any given circumstance because every future circumstance has an infinite number of variables. What you in fact end up doing is circumstance driven. And since there is little chance that any two circumstances are absolutely the same, what we do is seldom the same.

This is why central planning can’t work. No one, no brainiac, no group of brainiacs can issue a mandate that will be responded to, by everyone of three million people, in the manner the mandate was created to achieve. This is why, virtually every time, central planning mandates become victims of the law of unintentional consequences.

This is why ethanol from corn, for example, led to more unintended consequences than I care to take time to list. This is why, as another example, none of the bail-outs are going as planned.

For anyone who’s mind has not atrophied, I recommend Thomas Sowell’s book Basic Economics. (It is written in plain language, free of jargon.) In the beginning of the book he catalogues why central planning doesn’t work.

Marksman2000 -- since some people learn better by doing than by reading, it's better that they fail a course, than use an entire country for an experiment.

Oops...never mind...

Like the man said, "You just can't fix stupid!" Now we're all paying, though.

wtf wrote:

This story simply suggests a shitty teacher who intentionally set things up to fail ...

In other words, wtf thinks that when socialism fails, it's because the right people weren't in charge.

Ah, yes ... Someday wtf will get to run things, and then we'll see!

Socialists believe that it's unfair and immoral that some people drive expensive cars while other people have to hitchhike. Put the socialists in charge of the economy, and we'll finally have economic justice: Everyone will hitchhike!