Each year, as summer ends and fall begins, the fields are harvested, the foliage turns bright and beautiful hues for a too brief period, costumed kiddies collect wonderful caches of sugar, and then school children across the nation are taught about the wonderful day when the Pilgrims and indigenous natives sat and shared the fruits of harvest, effectively establishing the holiday we call Thanksgiving. "Isn't sharing wonderful?" many teachers will ask.
Of course, it is. But they (or the text books) omit a critical lesson from the Pilgrim history that deserves to learned.
It is because of sharing and human nature that the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen at all.
When the 44 indentured Pilgrims (Saints, they called themselves) and 65 others (Strangers, the Saint's called them) first settled around Plymouth in November, of 1620 to form the Plymouth Colony, they were ill equipped or prepared for the harsh New England winter. They labored and suffered greatly while constructing their settlement, with less than 50 surviving that first winter. When spring and warmer weather did arrive, they organized a simple farm economy along communal lines with the goal being to share everything equally, work and produce.
As a consequence, they nearly starved to death.
Why, you may ask? This is where the human nature kicks in: when most people can get the same return from exerting a small effort as they can from exerting a large amount of effort, most people will put forth little effort.
Many Plymouth residents faked illnesses and frailties rather than putting forth earnest effort to supporting the common property. Some even resorted to stealing, despite their religious, Puritan convictions. Come the first harvest, production had been too meager to support the resident population and famine resulted. To survive, some had to eat rats, dogs, horses and cats. This famine went on for two years.
"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," Governor Bradford wrote in his diary. The colonists, he said, "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, (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land." So it was that the residents of Plymouth Colony cast aside socialism and moved instead to private, substinent farming. The results were nothing short of dramatic.
"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. ... 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. ... " Because of the vital change made to the model of production, the first Thanksgiving was held in November 1623.
The conditions suffered by the Plymouth colonist under communalism was the tragedy of the commons. But, this problem was not new, it had been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle had noted long before, "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."
Thus it is that we should all know that when action is divorced from consequence, few, if any, shall be truly satisfied with the outcome. When individuals can take from a common cache regardless of the amount they contribute, there will exist the temptation, almost an incentive, for individuals to become free riders. Under these circumstances, many will do as little as possible and take as much as possible, lest it be taken by someone else.
Private property, as the Plymouth colonists discovered, establishes the vital connection between effort and reward, thus creating incentive for people to produce far more. By producing more than is required for subsistence and storing the surplus, wealth is created. Then, under a free market economy, people are free to trade or sell their surpluses to others. This mutual exchange for mutual benefit thus makes a community prosper.
Secure property rights are also a key component to this prosperity. When a society's producers can know that the fruits of their labor are safe from confiscation, they are more willing to assume risks and invest for the sake of producing a profit (accumulating wealth). Conversely, if producers fear they will be deprived of the fruits of their labor, they will risk as little as possible.
That is but one of the lost lessons of Thanksgiving. History can be such a rich tool, when presented faithfully and examined honestly. But, I will save the rant on history books for another time.
As Paul Harvey would say - now you know, the rest of the story!
