Pilgrim Governor William Bradford described in “Of Plymouth Plantation,†that sharing “all profits & benefits … in ye common stock,†regardless of how hard each individual worked, did not work: The failure of that experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men, proves the emptiness of the theory of Plato and other ancients, applauded by some of later times, – that the taking away of private property, and the possession of it in community, by a commonwealth, would make a state happy and flourishing; as it they were wiser than God. …