When the pilgrims first came to America, they were very committed to each other, collective farming, communal sharing, and social altruism. Their plan was to each work as much as they could, then split everything amongst themselves. You know, how did that idiot Karl Marx put it? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” In other words, socialism.
Bad plan. Quickly, the hyper-productive felt it wasn’t fair that they were doing the bulk of the work while the lazy worked very little knowing that their families would still get the same amount of the production as everyone else.
Governor William Bradly explained the problem in his journal:
The less industrious members of the colony came late to their work in the fields and were slow and easy in their labors. Knowing that they and their families were to receive an equal share of whatever the group produced, they saw little reason to be more diligent in their efforts.
After two years of socialism, the colonists were literally starving to death. More than half of them died. The same thing happened to my ancestors in Russia when the USSR nationalized all the farms including one owned by my great grandparents. Once the profit margin was taken from the farmers, production fell and millions of Russians starved to death. Millions.
Back to the colonies: Governor Bradford, realizing that if the Pilgrims suffered another year of socialism they would all starve, wisely reversed everything. He divided up the fields into plots and told the colonists that they were on their own. Each family could keep and eat all that they could grow and he would not require any for redistribution. He explained:
“And so, I assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end . . .This had a very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted then otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”
It worked. More from Governor Bradford after several years of pure capitalism:
“By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God. And the effect of their planting was well seen, for all had, one way or other, pretty well to bring the year about, and some of the abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.”
The new capitalist system generated so much abundance that the colonists traded amongst each other and voluntarily cared for those in the community who honestly couldn’t work. As their new-found capitalism produced more than the Pilgrims could use, they began trading with the Native Americans and eventually celebrated the abundance together creating an American holiday that we celebrate to this day.
So let us be thankful that we live in country where most of us realize that evil ideas such as central planning, socialism, and forced redistribution of wealth (such as taxing unrealized gains) leads to mass death. And let us also be thankful that long ago, the Pilgrims figured this out and started a tradition of celebrating the miracle we know as capitalism.
Happy Thanksgiving.
