SOCIALISM A FAILED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
Socialism, a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the
means of production, distribution, and exchange,should be owned or regulated by the
community as a whole. (Oxford Concise Dictionary)
It is very apparent that the idea of Socialism as a successful, modern system of
government of nations, has been swept away into the dust bins of history.Of course
complete theoretic Socialism never existed anywhere.
At the advent of the Socialist system, as introduced by political parties in Europe and Asia,
it cannot be denied that it had the effect of bringing greater equality between people. This
was implemented in a variety of ways. Governments in many countries, took over ownership
of the means of production and land holdings(in Russia after the revolution in 1917) and in
Hungary and Poland after 1947. Stock markets were closed and resource wealth was
nationalized .Top incomes were reduced, and full employment at the bottom of the income
scale was introduced.( many were in fact make-believe jobs). Free education opportunities
were increased, and explicit policies were introduced to limit wage spreads between
intellectual and physical labour, as well as between the more and less skilled workers.
Cheaper transportation, subsidized vacations, child allowances and pensions, received
by all citizens further equalized incomes
And therein lay the problem with equality. It took away all incentives to work harder
and to learn It didn’t pay to be better. Being an entrepreneur could land you in jail
as a speculator. Lack of incentives led to lower productivity and very little, if at all,
innovation. Advanced Socialist economies like Russia and China, which were autocratic,
in their many years of existence, never produced a single consumer product that was
successful internationally. In addition equality led to a perversion of the system.
People high up in the Communist party, (a version of Socialism), directors of large
enterprises, decorated military personnel ,managed to live very well on so called small
salaries. They received from the government large apartments, country dachas, and
chauffeur-driven cars. This system ensured that the salaried job holders would not
be independent of the top echelon of the Communist party
The system failed miserably. China and Russia, the two leading Socialist countries
eventually saw that they could not compete with Capitalism and the entrepreneurial
system. Their societies are now Capitalistic
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will recived the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A….(substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
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. 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.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and 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.
