TiedDancer wrote:The only part of this that is remotely significant is Putin's desire to return to the past. In the past, the socialist system of government in the USSR was incredibly unfair and unbalanced. Party officials and leaders received huge sums from industry and the government while the regular citizens had next to nothing. Drawing the line that Democrats and Soviet Union era politicians are the same is stretch at best, but in reality they couldn't be further apart.
The left often says that the reason socialism has not worked in the past, is because the wrong people have been in charge. It is alaso said by both sides, that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
There was a story going around that Snopes called a "legend." I'll reserve judgment on that assessment, as Snopes is run by a husband and wife team out of California, who lean heavily toward the Democrats.
"An economics professor said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The 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 "O.K., we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so 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. But, 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 third 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 anyone else. All failed to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder it is to succeed, the greater the reward when success is attained. But when a government takes all the reward away, no one will try, or succeed."
Snopes might call it a "legend," but if you think about it, it's certainly plausable.
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