I hope this clears it up for you.
Posted on 11/22/2004 9:31:00 AM PST by bobjam
I remember this from last year, and I think it's good to read it every year. Thanks.
They didn't want to starve to death.
It seems that most, if not all, groups/societies, have started out cummunal in nature.
Good article. Could be an annual tradition.
I think there's a difference between what the pilgrims did and what Karl Marx proposed. The pilgrims pooled their resources together to help out the whole community and the people voted on their leaders every year, so they had a closer hand in what was happening. In theory, it was to help one another through their early harsh winters. Marx gave authority to an authoritarian state to run and redistribute wealth and sold the plan to the workers as a way to get their hands on something that wasn't theirs. But you're right. Collectivism and redistributed wealth never works because it takes away incentive. The Pilgrims discovered that early on and made the appropriate changes. Marx wanted to create a hierarchy where he would be one of the top few in command.
Rush has something about this in his first book.
That's why Hayek called it atavistic socialism.
should be read in all public (and nonpublic) schools as part of elementary history and economics.
I'm not familiar with Hayek.
good post, I would encourage everyone to tune into Rush in the third hour on Wednesday, he'll read the real story of Thanksgiving that covers a good bit of this also.
Always worth reading.
Nice to see schools hop right on board to tell this side of history (not).
I hope this clears it up for you.
BTTT
Because it doesn't work. When people wake up and realize the masses are working their collective tails off so that the few can live like lazy kings, it ends.
Such communal resolve serves it's purpose at times. In early Neolithic communities, it was perhaps the only viable manner in which to exist. During severe warfare, socialistic tendencies arise in societies as a means of mutual protection for the culture in question. However, it is an inadequate means to sustain a society outside of severe circumstances.
As a society evolves there is less and less a cohesive force to bind a community to such behavior. Self interest and individuality develop further and those who produced are more inclined to focus on their individual family groups rather than the community. The betterment of one's own family group overrides the need to improve the overall state of the community.
Thus the ideals of Capitalism are so appropriate for an evolving society. Performance and excellence are rewarded by the enhancement of the quality of life for the individuals family group. Returns of such wealth to the community are made on a voluntary basis, but not made on the basis of survival for the community itself.
In this environment, Socialism and Communism are societal poison. The redistribution of wealth earned by the individual done for no other need than perceived "fairness" destroys one's motivation to strive for and achieve excellence. Under such conditions implied by socialism, a society begins to decay.
The Pilgrims apparently understood this. For the survival of their culture, they progressed into a more suitable system to not only promote the survival of their society, but to raise it to a level still yet undreamed of in some parts of the world.
Thoughts?
To read later
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