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By Ed Hoffman
I realize there are plenty of accounts out there about the “real” story of Thanksgiving, but I have one more to share with you – and it’s an important one. I have to give well-known libertarian John Stossel credit for the facts, but it’s written in my own words. It’s about how the Pilgrims almost starved themselves to death, and how that relates to one of the greatest blessings we have available to us as Americans: private property ownership.
As you may know, when the Pilgrims first settled at the place we now know as Plymouth, Massachusetts, their colony was ruled by communal property. They might not have said, “What’s mine is yours” yet, but they did say, “Share the work, and we’ll share the harvest.” There was even a contract drawn up that declared their new settlement would be a “common.” Life’s necessities would be retrieved from the common stock gathered; very few pilgrims had any personal possessions. It was share and share alike.
Sound a little bit like socialism? Try communism, actually. Karl Marx would have been proud of the Pilgrims’ approach to their new social experiment, and not just because of the utter lack of private property. The Pilgrims also embarked on another Marxist endeavor in the way they organized their labor. As Stossel wrote, “People would produce according to their abilities and consume according to their needs. That sure sounds fair.”
The problem was, some of the Pilgrims determined that they could access the same stuff by working less. Some of them even faked illnesses instead of working. (Any of this sounding familiar yet?) As a result, the Pilgrims experienced two years of famine due to the scant harvest. They nearly starved. Today, economists call this “the tragedy of the commons.”
When did it all turn around? When their governor, William Bradford, had decided enough was enough. Bradford wrote a decree that the Pilgrims should “set corn every man for his own particular” – or in modern English, change the rules to dictate that every man should work for himself. Bradford assigned each family their own parcel of land, and they were responsible for planting and harvesting on it. What do you think happened? It was the abundant harvest they reaped that year that led to there being food for the first Thanksgiving – enough to share with the natives who had taught them to hunt and fish.
This year, let’s not forget to include William Bradford on our list of giving thanks. His decree of private property and personal responsibility is one that changed the course of history for the better.
Ed Hoffman is host of The Main Event on AM590, which airs Saturday 9:30 AM- 10:30 AM and Sunday 4:00 PM- 5:00 PM. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event 590.
