Posted on 11/18/2006 12:29:36 PM PST by FreeKeys
When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, they established a system of communal property. Within three years they had scrapped it, instituting private property instead. Hoover media fellow Tom Bethell tells the story.
There are three configurations of property rights: state, communal, and private property. Within a family, many goods are in effect communally owned. But when the number of communal members exceeds normal family size, as happens in tribes and communes, serious and intractable problems arise.
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Thirty years old when he arrived in the New World, Bradford became the second governor of Plymouth ... and the most important figure in the early years of the colony. He recorded in his history the key passage on property relations in Plymouth and the way in which they were changed. His is the only surviving account of these matters.
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The colonists hoped that the houses they built would be exempt from the division of wealth at the end of seven years; in addition, they sought two days a week in which to work on their own particular plots (much as collective farmers later had their own private plots in the Soviet Union). The Pilgrims would thereby avoid servitude. But the investors refused to allow these loopholes, undoubtedly worried that if the Pilgrimsthree thousand miles away and beyond the reach of supervisionowned their own houses and plots, the investors would find it difficult to collect their due.
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By the spring of 1623, the population of Plymouth can have been no larger than 150. But the colony was still barely able to feed itself, and little cargo was returning for the investors in England. On one occasion newcomers found that there was no bread at all, only fish or a piece of lobster and water. 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, Bradford wrote in his key passage on property.
Having tried what Bradford called the common course and conditionthe communal stewardship of the land demanded of them by their investorsBradford reports that the community was afflicted by an unwillingness to work, by confusion and discontent, by a loss of mutual respect, and by a prevailing sense of slavery and injustice. And this among godly and sober men. In short, the experiment was a failure that was endangering the health of the colony.
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The problem that inevitably arose was the formidable one of policing this division of labor: How to deal with those who did not pull their weight?
The Pilgrims had encountered the free-rider problem. Under the arrangement of communal property one might reasonably suspect that any additional effort might merely substitute for the lack of industry of others. And these others might well be able-bodied, too, but content to take advantage of the communal ownership by contributing less than their fair share. As we shall see, it is difficult to solve this problem without dividing property into individual or family-sized units. And this was the course of action that William Bradford wisely took.
PROPERTY IS PRIVATIZED
Bradfords history of the colony records the decision:
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; in all other things to go in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number.
So the land they worked was converted into private property, which brought very good success. The colonists immediately became responsible for their own actions (and those of their immediate families), not for the actions of the whole community. Bradford also suggests in his history that more than land was privatized.
The system became self-policing. Knowing that the fruits of his labor would benefit his own family and dependents, the head of each household was given an incentive to work harder. He could know that his additional efforts would help specific people who depended on him. In short, the division of property established a proportion or ratio between act and consequence. Human action is deprived of rationality without it, and work will decline sharply as a result.
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Property in Plymouth was further privatized in the years ahead. The housing and later the cattle were assigned to separate families, and provision was made for the inheritance of wealth. The colony flourished. Plymouth Colony was absorbed into the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and in the prosperous years that lay ahead, nothing more was heard of the common course and condition.
(This is an excerpt. Read more at http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3507051.html )
Copy this and email it to everyone you care about -- and ask them to do the same:
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The Real Story Behind Thanksgiving Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative? William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept. The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent. Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively. The results: a bountiful early harvest that saved the colonies. After the harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving -- on August 9th. Unfortunately, William Bradford's diaries -- in which he recorded the failure of the collectivist system and the triumph of private enterprise -- were lost for many years. When Thanksgiving was later made a national holiday, the present November date was chosen. And the lesson the Pilgrims so painfully learned was, alas, not made a part of the holiday. Happily, Bradford's diaries were later rediscovered. They're available today in paperback. They tell the real story of Thanksgiving -- how private property and individual initiative saved the Pilgrims. This Thanksgiving season, one of the many things I'm thankful for is our free market system (imperfectly realized as it is). And I'm also grateful that there are increasing numbers of Americans who are learning the importance of free markets, and who are working to replace government coercion with marketplace cooperation here in America and around the world. Paul Schmidt PS: A special thanks to long-time Advocate volunteer Cris Everett, who told us about this neglected bit of history several years ago, and who celebrates Thanksgiving on -- you guessed it -- August 9th. -- copied from http://FreedomKeys.com/thanksgiving.htm which was copied from the Nov. 20, 1997 issue of THE LIBERATOR ONLINE at http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-02-num-21.htm for more detailed accounts see Find some actual excerpts from Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford's diary:HERE: http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1678 And finally, for those of you unfortunate enough to have to deal with primitive, fanatical self-righteous altruists, check out THIS page: http://snipurl.com/kj23 AND THIS page: http://FreedomKeys.com/paradox.htm#pcdt
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." -- President John Adams, direct descendent of Pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." -- Thomas Jefferson "Private property is the most important guarantee of freedom." -- F.A. Hayek "No freedom is secure if your property rights are not secure." -- Neal Boortz "It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree."-- Ayn Rand "If you can't own (and use) property, you are property." - Wayne Hage >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> HAPPY THANKSGIVING! >>>>>>>> Also see Tasty Trivia:here: http://FreedomKeys.com/fascinating.htm- -- ENJOY! and Please PASS IT ALONG ------------>
-- -- make a cleaner copy by going to this page and copying it or sending it as-is: http://FreedomKeys.com/thanksgiving2.htm -----------> -----------> |
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Thanks!
Thanksgiving ping
Liar! We stole everything from the Indians, then we gave them noogies and forced them to open casinos.
I lernt it in scrool.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.
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A THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION!
http://www.truthusa.com/ThanksGIVING.html
heh.
Seriously, good post. Most people never hear this stuff.
Granny, a ping for the true meaning of Thanksgiving!
Thanks for the ping. There is little which means so much as declaring, "This is mine." Whether it is one's soul or property being claimed, it connotes one's individuality.
" the real story of Thanksgiving -- how private property and individual initiative saved the Pilgrims..."
bump
" Having tried what Bradford called the common course and conditionthe communal stewardship of the land ...
So the land they worked was converted into private property, which brought very good success.
The colonists immediately became responsible for their own actions ..."
MUST-READ for all Americans--pertains to private property vs. eminent domain/communism etc.
They tried everything. Communism, too, is an American institution.
That's commune-ism, but not as we know it...
The failure that was Pilgrim commune-ism wasn't about world domination by deception and military force.
Capital-C Communism is most definitely NOT an American institution. Of course, it's a failure too but that hasn't stopped those who PROFIT from imposing it from continuing to try imposing it...
Must-see great resource for students, parents and teachers!
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