• Fictional account to illustrate a deeper truth

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that if enacted, no one would be poor and no one would be rich.  It would be a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan.”

The Professor decided that all grades would be averaged together and everyone would receive the same grade.  No one would fail, but no one would receive an A either.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B.

The students who studied hard were upset, but the students who studied little were happy.

As a result of the averaged grade, both the students who studied hard as well as the students who studied little decided to study even less for the second exam.

The average score this time was a D and no one was happy.

When the 3rd exam rolled around, the average score was an F.

The scores never increased and students blamed each other for the overall poor performance of the class.  No one wanted to  study hard for the benefit of another student.

To their great surprise, all students failed the course.  The professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when the government takes all of the reward away, no one will try hard or want to succeed.