The Social Contract

I chat on a private listserver with a handful of people who have been doing this for well over 10 years now. One of them posted today what appears to be something that's making the email rounds. It's the story of an "experiment in socialism" proffered by an anonymous university professor--a painfully obvious (and rather juvenile, to be honest) ploy to discredit socialist theory, no doubt circulated by the extremist right. Here is what he posted:

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 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 a socialism plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. 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. 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. All failed, to their great surprise, 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. Could not be any simpler than that!

Here is Snopes' take on it: http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

Now I love talking about socialism, because so few people seem to know what it is. :)

So let's start with the dictionary definition: the 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. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism

The very first problem with this "experiment" is that the professor violated his own conditions: He let his students fail, when he promised no one would. True socialism would have called for him to intervene in order to prevent this. So in that respect, what he really implemented was not socialism, but laissez-faire capitalism--"every man for himself", "survival of the fittest".

The second problem with this experiment is that it violates the socialist principle of the people owning the capital. The professor decided how he would implement his grading system (ie, he kept control of the capital). In this respect, what he actually implemented was not socialism, but communism.

The third problem with it is that he averaged the grades. This, again, is not socialism (which does not mandate equality of wealth), but communism (which does).

The fourth problem is that the students did not willingly enter into a social agreement with one another. The professor--again--imposed his will on the class. And--again--this turns out to be communism or fascism, not socialism.

Socialism, to put it in American terms, works like this: In the 18th and 19th Centuries, when the country was first being formed, people worked together to build communities. They erected each other's houses and barns, shared food with neighbors whose crops had failed, bought their neighbors' goods, joined together in community events, met weekly in church (as much a social activity as it was a religious one)--in short, supported each other. No one laxed off because his neighbor would feed him if he grew nothing. But he was assured that no one would let him go hungry, either, if his honest efforts failed.

Could we go back to this?