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From Ronald Reagan's Radio Addresses
Student Letter
April 13, 1977
Are
you worried that perhaps our sons and daughters are
being led to believe that socialism offers
advantages capitalism can’t match? I’ll be right
back.
Economics (at least the good old fashioned kind)
have written countless books and essays trying to
explain that a free market economy is superior to
the collectivism of Karl Marx. There really
shouldn’t be much an argument with all the examples
we have for comparison. Everywhere there is a
socialist nation there is a failure to meet the
needs of the people of that nation except by calling
on capitalist neighbors for outside help. Still it
is the socialist world that is expanding while the
free world grows smaller.
Well how would you like to feel a little better
about the whole thing? I received a letter a couple
of weeks ago that brightened my whole day. Paul A.
Leonard a Sophomore at Mayo High School in
Rochester, Minnesota wrote to tell me he had
listened to some of these radio broadcasts. Then he
wrote, “In view of your support of free enterprise,
I thought that you might be interested in an
experiment that I recently conducted in my history
class. Fifteen volunteers were selected with an eye
to an appropriate balance of athletes, non-athletes,
boys and girls. The volunteers were not informed of
the purpose of the experiment.
The
1st day a socialist-like system was set
up. The subjects were informed that they had
“volunteered?to do pushups, in return for which
they would be given candy.?/p>
Now
pushups & candy! What do they have to do with
socialism? Well Paul Leonard explained to the 15
volunteers that they would do pushups with a limit
of 30 on how many anyone would have to or be allowed
to do. For every 5 pushups they would each get a
piece of candy. And here is where the political
science comes in. The total number of push ups
accomplished by the volunteers would be divided by
15 ?(the number of volunteers) and each would
receive a piece of candy for every 5 pushups. Those
who could do 30 and those who couldn’t get off the
floor once would share equally in the candy.
Four managed to do the maximum & over all average
was 16.2 pushups so everyone received 3 pieces of
candy. That was half the experiment ?the socialist
half. The next day was capitalisms turn. The
volunteers found they were going to do push ups
again - same limit, no more than 30 and same reward,
one piece of candy for each 5 push up’s. Just one
difference ?they were capitalists this time ?no
averaging. They would each get one piece of candy
for every 5 pushups that each one was able to do. In
other words there was an incentive for each one to
do his or her very best.
The
average of 16.2 on the socialist day went up to 21.2
a 30% increase in productivity and this time almost
half of the volunteers, 7 not 4 did the maximum of
30.
I
gather from Paul Leonard’s letter that he really
wasn’t too surprised about that. If I could deliver
a personal message to Paul, Sophomore at Mayo High
it would be, “congratulations Paul you’ve
demonstrated you understand the difference between
the magic of the free market system & the idiocy of
Karl Marx. There are some pretty eminent PHD’s in
Economics who can’t figure that out.?This is Ronald
Reagan thanks for listening.
Reagan in His Own Voice: Ronald Reagan's Radio
Addresses
by Ronald Reagan
Narrated by Ronald Reagan
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