Definition of Socialism

There has been a lot of talk on the news about our current president and his socialist policies. Most recently health care, but some might not be fully aware of what that implies. What exactly is the definition of socialism? A dictionary would tell you it is a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. Simplified this means a transition of government where power is taken away from the government and put it in the hands of local businesses and communities. Which seems all and well until say, imagine an earthquake decimates southern California and there are no more government organizations to bring medicine or aid. Southern California is responsible for itself, whether it is able to or not. The famous father of communism Karl Marx once stated the definition of socialism as “…the transitional stage from capitalism to communism.” He would know, and that isn’t the right direction for America.

I could try and further explain the meaning, implications and definition of socialism for hours in my own words, but I have never heard it so simply and elegantly put as in this old story. An economics professor at a local university introduces himself to his class on the first day of school. He tells his class he has never failed a single student before, but he had once failed an entire class. The class had insisted that history was wrong, socialism could work and not only that but nobody would be poor. Nobody would be rich either but it would be a great equalizer. The professor said okay, we will have an experiment on socialism in this class, all grades will be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade, so everybody study hard, your classmates are counting on you.  After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B. The students who studied hard were upset, and the students that studied very little were happy. By the second test, the students who studied little decided to study even less, or not at all. Most of the students who studied hard, decided they wanted a free ride too, and also studied very little. The results of the second test were a D. Everybody was very upset with how their experiment was going. By the third test, the average sank to an F. The scores never did increase as blame was thrown around and morale fell. Instead of studying harder for everyone’s benefit, the students resorted to arguing and fighting. The professor was able to prove to his class socialism will ultimately fail. When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great. But when the reward is taken away, nobody will want to succeed.