Thanksgiving: Proof That Collectivism Doesn’t Work

I saw a short snippet on TV this week regarding the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving. The journalist was making the point that, due to collectivism practiced by the Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony had almost ceased to exist. In fact, he claimed it was the failure of the Pilgrim’s collectivist efforts, replaced by an experiment in individual responsibility and personal property rights, that saved the Colony and actually resulted in the abundance that spawned the first Thanksgiving celebration.

Intrigued, I did a bit of research and found him to be correct. Communal effort was the keystone to the Pilgrim’s societal plan. All for one and one for all, where harvests would be the result of the colonists working together in the fields, and everyone would equally share in the early American socialist effort.

The result: when folks realized they could realize the same benefit of everyone else, without putting forth their best efforts, the full production capability of the Colony never materialized. In fact, with communal ‘comrades’ doing such things as faking sickness, and making up various other excuses to not contribute to the overall effort of the Colony (while continuing to reap the common benefits), Plymouth declined into famine. After a year and a half of landing, over half of the original complement of settlers had perished (some of accidents, but most of nutritional deficit).

In the words of Plymouth’s Governor Bradford, “For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice.”

He went on to explain the fallaciousness of Plymouth’s experiment in socialism. “And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set among men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutual respects that should be preserved among them…and would have been worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none object this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them.”

Bradford ended this writing with fateful words: “God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.” That course: individual responsibility and personal property rights.

In 1623, two years after the landing, the Colony changed its societal practices. Each family was given rights to their own plot of land. All family members worked for the good of the family unit. Hard work meant personal reward and resulted in plenty. Crops flourished and there was abundance throughout the Colony. So much abundance, in fact, that in the fall of 1623, the Colony families felt it appropriate to share their abundant harvest with each other and their American Indian neighbors….and give thanks to their God for showing them the universal truth that each man deserves the fruit of his own labors.

In Bradford’s words, “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 particular [private] planting was well seen, for all had, one way and 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 has not been among them since to this day.”

What’s even more striking to me is there evidence of such a realization about personal responsibility, and the failure of the collectivist approach, for centuries before Plymouth. I found the following quote from Aristotle: “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it...everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill.”

So, let me get this straight. The wisdom of personal responsibility, liberty and property rights over socialism and the collective has been known for centuries. The “first” Americans learned the lesson the hard way, almost decimating their colony. Amazingly, Americans for every generation since the Pilgrims have had to relearn the same lesson…Indian reservations (kind of ironic, given the first Thanksgiving), the welfare state, progressivism, government infringement of property rights, etc.

You’ve got to be kidding me! Happy Thanksgiving America… maybe, this time, we can learn the lesson permanently.