Thread: Why Socialism Doesn't Work

Still put the first man in space.

Aye Denmark is an awful place to live

Originally Posted by Xei

Still put the first man in space.

How are they doing these days? Give us the details.

You were a university student last I heard. What do you think of forced redistribution of grade points? What flaws do you think there would be in such a system?

Originally Posted by Marvo

Aye Denmark is an awful place to live

Well, you have fun living in Denmark. I would never even consider it.

Lessons Better Left in Denmark | Tea Party Patriots

I support LA, but Rasmus Brygger is insane.

e: also, all those things he mention are indeed bad, but they are also being worked on. I think with the next parliament election, we will see a lot of things change, since LA will get a lot of power.

Grade points are not supposed to be based on competition. You're rewarded for the amount of work you complete, so if everyone does just as well they'd all get the same grade, hypothetically. Analogy failed, thread failed.

^^ Sure, who cares if the answers are actually right or anything…

There may be a slight influence from having the correct answers but only slight.

What you're describing sounds like today's dumbed-down, no-child-left-behind, let's not hurt anybody's feelings who cares if America drops to the bottom in world education, left wing (aka socialist) school system. Funny how when we actually did rank high on education we graded on correct answers.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Grade points are not supposed to be based on competition. You're rewarded for the amount of work you complete, so if everyone does just as well they'd all get the same grade, hypothetically. Analogy failed, thread failed.

They are both based on competition. Grades are based on accomplishment, and so are paychecks. Redistributing either discourages accomplishment and rewards lack of accomplishment and results in stagnation. Both are terrible ideas for that reason.

Do you think a system of grade point redistribution would work well? If not, why not?

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that achieving a certain grade is based on competition?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that achieving a certain grade is based on competition?

It is based on effort, and a student is just as free to compare his accomplishments to those of others as an employee is. What's the difference, and how is it relevant? The point here is that punishing success and rewarding failure is a disastrous practice. Don't you agree with that?

At most law schools, the grade you make in a course is based on how well you did compared to how everybody else did. Is that how capitalism works? I wouldn't say it is, but it's not relevant to the analogy any way.

What analogy would you use to illustrate why socialism fails?

Hold off on the barrage of questions, I'm trying to understand what you're saying first.

Here are two options

1: The grade a college looks at when deciding if it should accept a student or not are based on competition.

2: The grade a student achieves by completing any given amount of work assigned in a class are based on competition.

Obviously the grades are identical. An A is an A, a B is a B, etc. But I think competition applies to only one of those scenarios.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Hold off on the barrage of questions, I'm trying to understand what you're saying first.

Here are two options

1: The grade a college looks at when deciding if it should accept a student or not are based on competition.

2: The grade a student achieves by completing any given amount of work assigned in a class are based on competition.

Obviously the grades are identical. An A is an A, a B is a B, etc. But I think competition applies to only one of those scenarios.

It looks like we are splitting hairs over the word "competition," and I am not sure why. It is not relevant to my analogy. My analogy addresses accomplishment and how taking away from it where it is earned and giving it where it is not earned hurts a system.

The questions I asked you are very relevant. Please answer when ready, "libertarian."

The meaning of "competition" is relevant to your analogy, because if you want to draw a parallel between a system of distributing grades and a system of distributing resources, it would make sense for both grades and resources to be scarce. When a student receives a grade in a class, it's not like he's receiving a scare resource. There's no limit to the number of B's a teacher/professor can hand out, for instance. I'm inclined to agree with OP in general on this point.

But to your credit, it's not without merit. It relates to incentives, and any thorough take-down of socialism will have to mention the incentive problems related to it.

My analogy is only about how redistribution of what is earned affects incentive and thereby affects performance of the overall group. The fact that grade points cannot be scarce does not cause a problem for the point made by the analogy.

In law school, grade points are scarce. If you score the fewest points on an exam, you make an awful grade even if you do what would otherwise be considered really good. If you want to address my analogy only in terms of law school, that is fine, but I don't see what difference it makes.

I remember once receiving an assignment on Kirchoff's laws. As I live in a capitalist society I have a strongly held subconscious belief that I live in a world of scarcity as I have always lived in the lower class of this society. I noticed (subconsciously) that the circuit diagrams could be simplified and that the number of electronic components could be reduced to save the components for something else; which is a very good idea in a world of scarcity. I made the calculations for the adjusted circuit diagrams. I checked my calculations against the original circuit diagrams and had the same answers. I handed in my assignment and received a grade of 0%, the lowest grade possible, for getting the correct calculated answers; saving components; truly understanding Kirchoff's laws by my re-design; exercising my ability to think constructively and wasting an extra hour of my time for doing so. I wonder what score I would have got in a university in a socialist country.

Originally Posted by mcwillis

I remember once receiving an assignment on Kirchoff's laws. As I live in a capitalist society I have a strongly held subconscious belief that I live in a world of scarcity as I have always lived in the lower class of this society. I noticed (subconsciously) that the circuit diagrams could be simplified and that the number of electronic components could be reduced to save the components for something else; which is a very good idea in a world of scarcity. I made the calculations for the adjusted circuit diagrams. I checked my calculations against the original circuit diagrams and had the same answers. I handed in my assignment and received a grade of 0%, the lowest grade possible, for getting the correct calculated answers; saving components; truly understanding Kirchoff's laws by my re-design; exercising my ability to think constructively and wasting an extra hour of my time for doing so. I wonder what score I would have got in a university in a socialist country.

It sounds like you had a professor who was in competition with you and was angry that you did something so well. A lot of professors work mainly to showcase themselves and feel special. When somebody outdoes them intellectually on something, it makes those professors' blood boil. So many students think they are doing the right thing and impressing their professors and making them happy by coming up with brilliant ideas and doing high level stuff, but way too often, it majorly pisses off the professors. That fact makes my blood boil.

Originally Posted by mcwillis

I remember once receiving an assignment on Kirchoff's laws. As I live in a capitalist society I have a strongly held subconscious belief that I live in a world of scarcity as I have always lived in the lower class of this society. I noticed (subconsciously) that the circuit diagrams could be simplified and that the number of electronic components could be reduced to save the components for something else; which is a very good idea in a world of scarcity. I made the calculations for the adjusted circuit diagrams. I checked my calculations against the original circuit diagrams and had the same answers. I handed in my assignment and received a grade of 0%, the lowest grade possible, for getting the correct calculated answers; saving components; truly understanding Kirchoff's laws by my re-design; exercising my ability to think constructively and wasting an extra hour of my time for doing so. I wonder what score I would have got in a university in a socialist country.

Did you ask your professor why you received a 0%?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

It sounds like you had a professor who was in competition with you and was angry that you did something so well. A lot of professors work mainly to showcase themselves and feel special. When somebody outdoes them intellectually on something, it makes those professors' blood boil. So many students think they are doing the right thing and impressing their professors and making them happy by coming up with brilliant ideas and doing high level stuff, but way too often, it majorly pisses off the professors. That fact makes my blood boil.

That wouldn't have been his attitude at all. I was only displaying what a good university graduate would do in the workplace; which would be to engineer a working electronic circuit that also saves time and money for the capitalist enterprise producing such a circuit for a paying customer. He knew that and for whatever reason he decided to punish me for deviating from the questions that he had set.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Did you ask your professor why you received a 0%?

No I didn't. In hindsight I should have done and started an argument. My friends who got the same calculated answers as myself got 100%. If I was that teacher I would have given me 100% for the correct answers due to calculations and explanations as to why the calculations were correct. Then deducted 20% for deviating from the questions asked. And finally adding 40% for initiative and good engineering skill to give me a final score of 120% and put a smiley face next to the score.

So you put the mental effort into simplifying calculations and getting the correct answers anyway, received a 0%, and did nothing about it?

You should be frustrated with that decision rather than whatever the professor's reasoning was.

I just find it funny they used Regan, who was more of a socialist than Obama. People like to pretend Regan was some small government guy but he was for massive government and he put the entire country in debt. His philosophy was spend as much as you could today and have the future generations pay it off later.

Originally Posted by mcwillis

That wouldn't have been his attitude at all. I was only displaying what a good university graduate would do in the workplace; which would be to engineer a working electronic circuit that also saves time and money for the capitalist enterprise producing such a circuit for a paying customer. He knew that and for whatever reason he decided to punish me for deviating from the questions that he had set.

What do you think you should have made on it? If you should have gotten a good grade but got literally a 0, your professor had a personal problem with you.

Originally Posted by Alric

I just find it funny they used Regan, who was more of a socialist than Obama. People like to pretend Regan was some small government guy but he was for massive government and he put the entire country in debt. His philosophy was spend as much as you could today and have the future generations pay it off later.

I agree that Reagan is not the right person for that cartoon role. He was a very big government politician. He raised taxes multiple times and held the national tax increase record for a while. He is a terrible example for promoting capitalism, despite what Republicans think.

Originally Posted by Alric

I just find it funny they used Regan, who was more of a socialist than Obama. People like to pretend Regan was some small government guy but he was for massive government and he put the entire country in debt. His philosophy was spend as much as you could today and have the future generations pay it off later.

People don't know what Capitalism or Socialism are, I find in most cases. They depend all of it on Social Safety Nets. So long as Obama pushes to increase them while Reagan pushed to decrease them, then Reagan's the capitalist and Obama's the socialist even though Republicans actually favor big government more once you take into account all other forms of government spending that get taken off the debate table. If you spend the commoner's tax dollars on the oligarchy rather than the other commoners, I guess that's not socialism.