Plymouth, MA, USA – View of the historic Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, MA.
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It’s too bad that the incoming neo-communist mayors of New York City and Seattle don’t know the real story of Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims had to learn a hard lesson: Socialism doesn’t work.
Most of us are familiar with the legendary story of the origins of Thanksgiving. A little more than four centuries ago, the Pilgrims, fleeing religious persecution, arrived on The Mayflower at what came to be called Plymouth Rock. The first winter was harsh, but with help from the local Wampanoag tribe, the survivors learned effective farming techniques. The resulting harvest was celebrated with a feast that subsequently came to be called Thanksgiving.
Contrary to legend, however, the harvest wasn’t bountiful. In fact, the Plymouth Colony nearly collapsed. Severe food shortages and discontent were widespread. The problem, as described by the colony’s governor, William Bradford, was the system under which the colonists initially operated. Today we would call it socialism or communism. All property was communally owned and cultivated. There was no privately owned land. Food and clothing were distributed equally to all. Those who worked hard and efficiently received no more than those who were laggard or did nothing at all. Women were assigned to do communal chores, which they bitterly resented. Destitute settlers began to sell what little they had to get food. They begged the local tribe for chores to do for “a capful of corn.”
Then Bradford and the colony’s other leaders, who—unlike the newly elected leaders of New York and Seattle—could learn from experience, radically changed things. Each family was given their own parcel of land, and whatever was grown on it was theirs to do with as they saw fit. Forced communal labor was discontinued. Within a short period of time, shortages turned into abundance, and the colony soon had a surplus of corn.
The experience of the Plymouth Colony was not unique in those times. The Jamestown settlement in Virginia, for example, had been set up as a commercial enterprise funded by investors looking for a profit, yet the settlers worked for a communal store—with equally dismal results. After what was called “the starving winter,” Jamestown switched to a free market system. The colonists received three-acre plots, whose output was to be theirs after they met obligations to the communal store. Output shot up. Then under certain conditions, colonists could get 50 acres. Food soon became plentiful.
By liberating human creativity and enabling people to discover and fully develop their talents, free markets produce prosperity, while socialism sinks a society into misery.
Unfortunately, the lessons of Plymouth and Jamestown—not to mention the more modern and ghastly ones of the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea—are lost on too many people these days. The government, the Federal Reserve and loudmouthed leftists don’t create prosperity. A society of free people does.
Let us not forget the hard-won wisdom of the Pilgrims.