The Economic Lesson of Thanksgiving
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on equality and need as determined by Plantation officials. People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. The problem was that young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.
Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.
This change, Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once the new system of property rights was in place, 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.
Once the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal economic system and adopted one with greater individual property rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the corner.
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The economic lesson of Thanksgiving is nothing but: property is theft.
And your reasoning for this is? Never mind. Anyway, theft of that sort is better than starvation, which is the result from a lack of property rights.
This is very interesting indeed. Michael, hand over your stolen property mkay thanks. I was unaware that I was driving a stolen car. I hope they don’t catch me. I guess it’s ok to have my three cats, they’d refuse to be viewed as property.
Collectivism or any other form of absolutism enforced by a theocracy will fail.
Sounds like distributism.
Michael I.–
Why do you say interesting but provocative things without explaining what you mean or why you said them?
Michael E. – It’s not obvious what I meant by what I said?
Here are a couple helpful quotes from Centesimus Annus which put forth the Church’s thought with respect to such matters:
13. Continuing our reflections, and referring also to what has been said in the Encyclicals Laborem exercens and Sollicitudo rei socialis, we have to add that the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call “his own”, and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.
and
31. Re-reading this teaching on the right to property and the common destination of material wealth as it applies to the present time, the question can be raised concerning the origin of the material goods which sustain human life, satisfy people’s needs and are an object of their rights.
The original source of all that is good is the very act of God, who created both the earth and man, and who gave the earth to man so that he might have dominion over it by his work and enjoy its fruits (Gen 1:28). God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone. This is the foundation of the universal destination of the earth’s goods. The earth, by reason of its fruitfulness and its capacity to satisfy human needs, is God’s first gift for the sustenance of human life. But the earth does not yield its fruits without a particular human response to God’s gift, that is to say, without work. It is through work that man, using his intelligence and exercising his freedom, succeeds in dominating the earth and making it a fitting home. In this way, he makes part of the earth his own, precisely the part which he has acquired through work; this is the origin of individual property. Obviously, he also has the responsibility not to hinder others from having their own part of God’s gift; indeed, he must cooperate with others so that together all can dominate the earth.
In history, these two factors — work and the land — are to be found at the beginning of every human society. However, they do not always stand in the same relationship to each other. At one time the natural fruitfulness of the earth appeared to be, and was in fact, the primary factor of wealth, while work was, as it were, the help and support for this fruitfulness. In our time, the role of human work is becoming increasingly important as the productive factor both of non-material and of material wealth. Moreover, it is becoming clearer how a person’s work is naturally interrelated with the work of others. More than ever, work is work with others and work for others: it is a matter of doing something for someone else. Work becomes ever more fruitful and productive to the extent that people become more knowledgeable of the productive potentialities of the earth and more profoundly cognisant of the needs of those for whom their work is done.
Yes private property is good and is acquired through our labor, but both our labor and property are not merely for our benefit. They are the necessary condition for one’s personal and familial autonomy with the caveat that such autonomy is not sought as an end in itself but is for the sake of the common good.
Michael I.–
Why do you say interesting but provocative things without explaining what you mean or why you said them?
He just likes to put on the provocateur act; it’s like his pretense of being a big-government “anarchist.”
Michael I.–
I understand the phrase “property is theft”, as it was meant by P.J. Prodhoun. As someone who has strong sympathies with mutualism, I tend to agree with him. Of course I also agree with him that individuals owning their own home and workspace is not in the same class of property that he calls theft.
I also understand the conservative free market story about thanksgiving and private property.
I just don’t see how you connect the two.
I cannot wait for the M. Friedmann Christmas tales.
I hear that Acton Institute, in conjunction with Ignatius Press, will be re-publishing them this year. ;-p
Michael – Although I quoted Proudhon, and I too agree with him though with the exception you noted, my point was much more simple: that the economics involved in what we celebrate at thanksgiving amounted to the simple theft of land and resources. That’s all.