Pilgrims Beat ‘Communism’ With Free Market

By Mike Franc, Nov 21, 2005

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10414

Recalling the story of the Pilgrims is a Thanksgiving tradition, but do you know the real story behind their triumph over hunger and poverty at Plymouth Colony nearly four centuries ago? Their salvation stemmed not so much from the charitable gestures of local Indians, but from their courageous decision to embrace the free-market principle of private property ownership a century and a half before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.

Writing in his diary of the dire economic straits and self-destructive behavior that consumed his fellow Puritans shortly after their arrival, Governor William Bradford painted a picture of destitute settlers selling their clothes and bed coverings for food while others “became servants to the Indians,” cutting wood and fetching water in exchange for “a capful of corn.” The most desperate among them starved, with Bradford recounting how one settler, in gathering shellfish along the shore, “was so weak … he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.”

The colony’s leaders identified the source of their problem as a particularly vile form of what Bradford called “communism.” Property in Plymouth Colony, he observed, was communally owned and cultivated. This system (“taking away of property and bringing [it] into a commonwealth”) bred “confusion and discontent” and “retarded much employment that would have been to [the settlers’] benefit and comfort.”

Brink of Extermination

The most able and fit young men in Plymouth thought it an “injustice” that they were paid the same as those “not able to do a quarter the other could.” Women, meanwhile, viewed the communal chores they were required to perform for others as a form of “slavery.”

On the brink of extermination, the Colony’s leaders changed course and allotted a parcel of land to each settler, hoping the private ownership of farmland would encourage self-sufficiency and lead to the cultivation of more corn and other foodstuffs.

As Adam Smith would have predicted, this new system worked famously. “This had very good success,” Bradford reported, “for it made all hands very industrious.” In fact, “much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been” and productivity increased. “Women,” for example, “went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn.”

The famine that nearly wiped out the Pilgrims in 1623 gave way to a period of agricultural abundance that enabled the Massachusetts settlers to set down permanent roots in the New World, prosper, and play an indispensable role in the ultimate success of the American experiment.

A profoundly religious man, Bradford saw the hand of God in the Pilgrims’ economic recovery. Their success, he observed, “may well evince the vanity of that conceit...that the taking away of property... would make [men] happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.” Bradford surmised, “God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”

Amen to that.

Thanksgiving Story: 2005

Plymouth’s Pilgrims may have survived that near-fatal brush with socialism but, sadly, many political leaders remain transfixed by a blind faith in the ability of government to shape and set the course of human behavior.

Case in point: the tenacious liberal belief that no connection exists between the tax burden we place on capital formation and the economic behavior of those who must shoulder that burden.

The liberal creed holds that investors will take economic risks and create jobs no matter how punitive the tax regime. To liberals, lowering that burden through reductions in the rate of taxation simply bestows an unwarranted windfall on the “rich” and deprives the government of much-needed tax revenue.

Of course, incentives matter every bit as much today as they did four centuries ago. The latest proof comes from figures released by the Treasury Department for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. They vindicate the predictions of conservative economists that the 2003 law, which included a number of pro-growth provisions such as cutting the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15 percent, would be a raging success.

Compared to the previous year:

• Total federal revenues grew by an astonishing 14.6%.
• Corporate receipts exploded, increasing by 47%.
• Payroll tax receipts, an indicator of employment growth, increased by a respectable 8%.

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

Mr. Franc, who has held a number of positions on Capitol Hill, is vice president of Government Relations at The Heritage Foundation.
To send a question or comment to Mike Franc, email him at: MichaelFranc@heritage.org

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What Happened AFTER the Feast - The Rest of the Thanksgiving Story

By Chuck Colson, Nov 24, 2005
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/chuckcolson/2005/11/24/176700.html

Thanksgiving is just about my favorite holiday—a wonderful combination of family, faith, and American-style religious freedom. I love the story of those hardy Pilgrims, and I love eating turkey and pumpkin pie and gathering with family.

Many of us tend to think of the first Thanksgiving feast as the official end to all the Pilgrims’ difficulties. Wrong: Their survival would remain in jeopardy for years to come. And yet, no matter how difficult things became, they never failed to offer thanks to God.

As every school child knows, the Pilgrims arrived in the New World in the winter of 1620. As the freezing weeks passed, nearly half their number died. It was a terrible time, but by spring, things began to improve. Friendly Indians helped the Pilgrims plant their crops. By October 1621, the fields yielded a harvest large enough to sustain the colony in the coming winter. The grateful Pilgrims invited their Indian friends to a three-day feast of thanksgiving to God.

That’s where the story typically ends—for us. But for the Pilgrims, the hardships went on. The next month, a ship arrived with thirty-five new colonists. But to the Pilgrims’ dismay, they brought no provisions. The entire colony was forced to go on half rations that winter. At one point, with food running out, everyone was forced onto a daily ration of just five kernels of corn.

As my friend Barbara Rainey writes in her new book, Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, by spring, the colony was weakened by hunger and sickness. While the bay and creeks were full of fish, the Pilgrims’ nets had rotted. Were it not for shellfish, which could be dug by hand, they would have perished. Despite the great difficulties, they thanked God for His provision.

More ships arrived that year, usually bringing newcomers with no supplies. Pilgrim father William Bradford wrote in his journal that, given the poor harvest, it “appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also.”

By April 1623, the conditions were desperate. The Pilgrims planted double the corn of the previous year, only to see a drought several weeks long threaten the precious crop. In response, the Pilgrims held a day of fasting and prayer, asking God for rain. Pilgrim father Edward Winslow wrote that by evening, “The weather was overcast, [and] the clouds gathered on all sides.” It was the beginning of two weeks of rainfall. The crop was saved, and that fall, the harvest was abundant. Another Thanksgiving feast was arranged, and again the Indians took part. As Winslow wrote, “Another solemn day was set apart . . . wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness to our God who dwelt so graciously with us.”

They prayed this, remember, at the end of two terrible years filled with famine, hard work, and the loss of many loved ones.

As we gather with our families to celebrate our blessings, we ought to remember what happened to the Pilgrims after the feasting was over. Their steadfast trust in God is a reminder that we, too, need to trust in God, even in the most difficult circumstances—and thank Him.

May God bless you and yours this Thanksgiving.

Chuck Colson is founder and chairman of BreakPoint Online, a Townhall.com partner.

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How the Pilgrims Progressed
By Joseph Farah, Worldnetdaily, November 27, 2008
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82052

As America embarks on a bold leeward lurch toward centralized power and massive redistribution of wealth in addressing its economic problems, it might be time to take a step back and learn a lesson from our forebears, the Pilgrims.

But first we must familiarize ourselves with the historical truth of their experience – something that has been in short supply in the media and our schools.

Kids often learn today that the Mayflower gang were pretty incompetent – bad farmers, bad fishermen, bad hunters. They came to the New World unprepared for the hardships they would face in the wilderness.

They were rescued by the friendly native Americans who taught them the survival skills they would need, so the story goes. The first harvest festival was a time of rejoicing and giving thanks to their saviors – the Indians who befriended them and guided them to a better way of life.

That picture is totally wrong. Here's the real story.

Before leaving Europe, the Pilgrims entered into a contract, dated July 1, 1620, that would have them place all profits of their "trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means of any person or persons, remain in the common stock until division."

In other words, the settlement at Plymouth Bay was the first New World experiment in communism – long before Karl Marx supposedly invented it.

To say that social experiment was a total failure would be an understatement. The first winter spelled death and disease and hunger for the colony because the Pilgrims had arrived too late in the season to plant crops and build adequate shelters. Half of them died. The following spring, however, they planted and hunted and fished to get by – just barely. They did invite some of the friendly Indians to join them in their first "Thanksgiving" celebration. But they were not thanking the Indians. They were thanking God for pulling them through.

As William Bradford wrote in his journal: "And thus they found the Lord to be with them in all their ways, and to bless their outgoings and incomings, for which let His holy name have the praise forever, to all posterity."

Nevertheless, Bradford remained troubled by the colony's inability to prosper. He found the answer by studying the Bible and revisiting the notion of private property and incentized hard work.

He wrote about it in 1623: "So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. ... This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than 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. The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst Godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times, that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing, as if they were wiser than God. For this community 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 labour 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. … 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 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 off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them."

In other words, the introduction of the idea of private property saved the Pilgrims – made their experiment successful.

To coin a phrase, that's how "the Pilgrims progressed."

They went back to their Bibles and saw that in practicing utopian communism, they were attempting to be "wiser than God." Once they abandoned that deadly economic system, they flourished.

Do you think we are wise enough to learn a lesson from the Pilgrims' experience today? Or are we doomed to repeat the failures and experience the miseries of socialism, again, for ourselves?

Now this might just be a good idea… whadda ya think?  It is surely better than what they have done so far…

"How Would You Fix the Economy?"

Dear Mr. President and Congress,
Instead of giving billions and billions and billions of our tax dollars to failed insurance companies, failed car companies, failed banks, political cronies, etc, let’s try the following plan. We will call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.

Pay them $1 million each tax free severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Suddenly 40 million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

4)  They MUST buy their own health insurance. Health Plan for seniors just fixed!!!

Now, put all of those billions and billions and billions that were taken out for the so-called “stimulus plan” back into the treasury, pass the Fair Tax program, get rid of the IRS, insist on a balanced budget every time, and actually start following the US Constitution.

Nah… it will never work… waaaaaaaayyyyyy too simple!