Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Thoughts on a popular metaphor

The metaphor 

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 receive 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. Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on) These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.


My thoughts 

I agree with the motivational aspect of this popular metaphor. But I think I see some oversimplifications/deviations from reality in this. First marks can be distributed without any limitation on its sum. For example every one can get A+. But every person in a country can not be super rich. It can be assumed in a small segment of a society, E.g in a company or in a family or in a class. But not in a country or in the world whole. Because total amount of wealth/resources is limited. Second, when we attribute poverty of an individual solely to his lack of hard work or talent (later is not part of the metaphor but of Rand's philosophy) we are imagining a world where every individual is presented with equal opportunities at birth. Which is utopian for a complex society. John Galt may be right in the world portrayed in Atlas Shrugged, but Atlas Shrugged itself presents a limited scope of the world. This is not a criticism of capitalism, but I think this metaphor is inappropriate for capitalism. Interestingly, from that aspect marks is metaphorically more closer to different kind currencies.. like happiness, social respect. Everyone can be happy or be respected even in a big society as there is no physical limit on it. But then we are approaching socialism.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Eternal

Golden dust of sahara covering sky
On its day job, hopeless earth
Making rounds and rounds of nothing
Storms of wrath..
Trying to scratch surface of dignity,
'Why don't you take me to her?'

You are on moon..
Far away from heaven
Far away from grey haven of mundane vigor
Darkish streets.. 
Breaking rules from Timor to Somalia
Bridging gap from here to eternity,
'Why don't you take me to her?'

I stare those eyes dark,
Hovering from star to star.
Through unbearable density of dusky ether
I know you see me.

Cross-country


Two thousand miles
A pair of eyes
Street ends to the sky
A smile full moon
Fog dust and dryness
A dimple on desert smooth
Aroma of burnt flesh
A drop of water strolling skin
Sleepy mind through rising sun
A blink of lifetime
Shadows of passing fears
A brow tilted
Frozen mountains touching dreams
A world on the tip of nose
Mirage of end hopping time
A dream - hand in hand