Why socialism fails: Teacher fails entire class as example | Hacker News Reader

Why socialism fails: Teacher fails entire class as example

faustiesblog.blogspot.co.uk

7 pointsc-oreills13 comments

How is this on HN front page? This is an old chain email that is most likely made up (notice the lack of any specific names).

Edit: Someone in the comments links to snopes

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

Just because something's fictional doesn't mean it's not an interesting way to illustrate an idea.

The fact that this post has been flagged to oblivion illustrates that HN readership politely disagrees.

Fair enough. Out of interest how do you know to what extent it's been flagged?

I'm guessing by how fast it left the front page. My guess is around 10.

That's obviously a fictional story. Since it depends on a single (fictional) anecdote to make its case there is very little to even discuss, unless you're going to either believe or disbelieve this "story" based on nothing.

Ultimately I'd prefer to look at statistics and other facts to make policy decisions. Many countries have different levels of socialist policies so there is plenty of data to draw from.

Obviously all theories cannot work in all contexts, applying free market principles to the prison system leads to more people in jail.. All economic policies are about optimizing incentives, and the government steps in when the general good is at odds with the obvious incentive.. That does not make everything socialism..

This is exactly what is happening over at Norway. The government takes all our wages and distributes the money equally across the population. /s

I hate it when people present everything as a black and white situation. Apparently either we live in complete and utter free market anarchy with no oversight or accountability, or everybody gets the same wage no matter how hard they work.

Where do I fit in, if I want the market to be mostly free and private, but I don't mind some regulations to make sure there isn't cyanide in my cereal?

What he should have failed them for is thinking Obama is a socialist.

Exactly. More like Bush # 3

This is clearly as fake a story as stories get.

If the experiment was real it proved only that the majority of students of the class were not personally interested in the subject and studied only for grades. Such students should think about finding something they actually like to learn even if there is no grading system or grading system is broken.

Not really, as the fake article states, it was an unprecedented action for a prof, who must have been famous for having an easy course. I can't imagine never having a student fail.

>Such students should think about finding something they actually like to learn even if there is no grading system or grading system is broken.

Because basic Econ is an elective? When did that happen? Most students take Econ because they have to. Many end up hating it because some Econ profs find a way to make it boring, or fail to demonstrate its relevance to their lives. Also, most freshmen suck at going to college.

> 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.

That's obvious tripe. The mere existence of: most academic research, organ donors, bone-marrow donors, and scores of other low/no reward activities proves it false.

It's always been a pet-peeve of mine that so many have the opinion that every person's natural state would be lethargy or hedonism or some such, if work weren't required for survival.

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