America's First Socialist Republic
Two years ago, at this time of year, Scott Johnson at Powerline posted on my behalf the following -- which seems as apt today as it did then:
On Thanksgiving, it is customary that Americans recall to mind the experience of the Pilgrim Fathers This year, it is especially appropriate that we do so–as we pause, in the midst of an economic maelstrom, to count our remaining blessings and to reflect on the consequences of our election of a President and a Congress intent on “spread[ing] the wealth around.”
We have much to learn from the history of the Plymouth Plantation. For, in their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims conducted an experiment in social engineering akin to what is now contemplated; and, after an abortive attempt at cultivating the land in common, their leaders reflected on the results in a manner that Americans today should find instructive.
William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony, reports that, at that time, he and his advisers considered “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.” And “after much debate of things,” he then adds, they chose to abandon communal property, deciding that “they should set corn every man for his own particular” and assign “to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end.”
The results, he tells us, were gratifying in the extreme, “for it made all hands very industrious” and “much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” Even “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; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”
Moreover, he observes, “the experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years . . . amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times . . . that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing.” In practice, America’s first socialist experiment “was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”
In practice, “the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.”
Naturally enough, quarrels ensued. “If it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men,” Bradford notes, “yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And [it] would have been worse if they had been men of another condition” less given to the fear of God. “Let none object,” he concludes, that “this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”
The moral is perfectly clear. Self-interest cannot be expunged. Where there is private property and its possession and acquisition are protected and treated with respect, self-interest and jealousy can be deployed against laziness and the desire for that which is not one’s own, and there tends to be plenty as a consequence.
But where one takes from those who join talent with industry to provide for those lacking either or both, where the fruits of one man’s labor are appropriated to benefit another who is less productive, self-interest reinforces laziness, jealousy engenders covetousness, and these combine in a bitter stew to produce both conflict and dearth.
A day later, Michele Bachmann reposted the piece.
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Hey, at least the Plymouth settlers survived.
The Jamestown setters were not quite so fortunate.
May '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
What's so impressive about this example is that the Pilgrims scored incredibly high on the idealism scale. If ever socialism had a chance of succeeding, it was with them.
Edited on November 23, 2011 at 6:04pmJul '11
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Quite right, I can't think of a more unified, motivated group of people to make this work. Given the relative smallness of their colony, I can't help but wonder how much waste is present in a modern day 'functional' commune. It makes you think.
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
In my experience, the only place that socialism works is in the family -- and there it requires a certain authoritarianism on the part of fathers especially and mothers as well that we would not want to see in the public arena.
May '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Rush tells this story every year under the title of something like "The real story of the first Thanksgiving."
Dec '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
My father often reminded me that I did not live in a democracy in his home but under a benevolent despot.
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
The King Prawn
My father often reminded me that I did not live in a democracy in his home but under a benevolent despot. · Nov 23 at 10:17am
L'etat, c'est moi.
Aug '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
The mythology rolls along. Remember the one about the Indians teaching Pilgrims how to plant corn by using a dead fish and a seed for each plant ? Anyone ever stop to consider how many pounds of fish that would require ?
I am afraid to peek at the new history books to see the version of collectivist grit and nativist hatred that formed the first Thanksgiving dinner which ended in the poisoning of our hosts and the introduction of smallpox in a petit-four.
Edited on November 23, 2011 at 8:04pmApr '11
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Misthiocracy: Hey, at least the Plymouth settlers survived.
The Jamestown setters were not quite so fortunate. · Nov 23 at 7:29am
The incredible thing is how often this story was repeated. Jamestown is another example of the same narrative. Settle with communal property rights; experience starvation and horror: move to private property rights (in Jamestown after 6 years); experience plenty. Not being the first example, perhaps the Pilgrims should have known better.
In their defense, Howe's What God Hath Wrought notes that of the many attempts at communes in early C19 America, it was the religious ones that fared better, particularly the more cult like ones. It turns out that to make a commune work, you generally need to be reasonably wealthy and able to start off with a reasonably easy life; communes are less efficient, but you can make life in a kibbutz work acceptably well because the diminution in quality of life is from such a high standard. When attempting a heroic feat like the settlement of Virginia or Massachusetts, a lower efficiency means serious horror and death. Brigham Young was a kind of badass exception to this general rule.
May '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
It would seem that this story might have an application to the recent discussion about establishing an extended family commune.
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Indeed.
May '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
James Of England
Misthiocracy: Hey, at least the Plymouth settlers survived.
The Jamestown setters were not quite so fortunate. · Nov 23 at 7:29am
The incredible thing is how often this story was repeated. Jamestown is another example of the same narrative. Settle with communal property rights; experience starvation and horror: move to private property rights (in Jamestown after 6 years); experience plenty. Not being the first example, perhaps the Pilgrims should have known better.
Hi - Jamestown went through the similar "Starving Times" and a communal stage as Plymouth, as James of England mentioned, AND it survived as the first permanent English colony. Jamestown, Virginia was the first. Plymouth, Mass. was the second. Roanoke failed. Croatan.
Mar '11
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
I raised the issue of early American pilgrim settlements in that discussion. Some people simply won't budge from the notion that if the motivation is right, communes can work. Astounding that such attitudes are found at a place like Ricochet.
May '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Those who forget the lessons of history will be condemned to repeat them.
Nov '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Brigham Young was a badass exception because of draconian rule. Like Saddam Hussein was an exception to systematic religious persecution in the Arab world. Didn't work for Stalin or Mao, though.
On the matter of self-interest, I'm always amused at the critics of Adam-Smith's economics on the basis that self-interest on the part of private enterprise may be interpreted as greed, and greed, being one of the seven deadly sins is ... sinful.
What they don't seem to understand is that the same impulse leads socialists to strive for equality on the basis of an even more deadly combination of greed and envy. Socialism is systematic envy that demonizes those envied ... at least in Marxian theory, which sets up enmity between socioeconomic classes; so it also derives its motivating force from Hate. The Dark Side, for Star Wars fans.
It's such an easy case to make I'm surprised -- shocked, even -- how often we conservatives let the "capitalism is greed" narrative dominate, when socialism should find little solace in discourse about deadly sins.
Nov '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Fredösphere: What's so impressive about this example is that the Pilgrims scored incredibly high on the idealism scale. If ever socialism had a chance of succeeding, it was with them. · Nov 23 at 8:49am
Edited on Nov 23 at 09:04 am
Agreed. A related, but separate point to make: Socialism requires a uniform culture; small ethnic subcultures, particularly any whose ethos embodies a belief that they are systematically disadvantaged, oppressed or, alternatively, privileged or superior, will kill any efforts toward benevolent creation of equality through general entitlement. Examples abound of those who feel "their group" is owed something by society who are eager to take advantage of public largess.
With that in mind, consider that few societies ever reach a degree of homogeneity akin to that of the Pilgrims. Not only had they a tremendous, albeit very severe, sense of morality and personal responsibility, they had an unusually strong common spirit. No more perfect environment for socialism exists today; and yet it failed spectacularly.
Apr '11
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Caroline
James Of England
Misthiocracy: Hey, at least the Plymouth settlers survived.
The Jamestown setters were not quite so fortunate. · Nov 23 at 7:29am
The incredible thing is how often this story was repeated. Jamestown is another example of the same narrative. Settle with communal property rights; experience starvation and horror: move to private property rights (in Jamestown after 6 years); experience plenty. Not being the first example, perhaps the Pilgrims should have known better.
Hi - Jamestown went through the similar "Starving Times" and a communal stage as Plymouth, as James of England mentioned, AND it survived as the first permanent English colony. Jamestown, Virginia was the first. Plymouth, Mass. was the second. Roanoke failed. Croatan. · Nov 23 at 4:02pm
I thought that Mistheocracy was referring to the greater casualties in Jamestown, which took longer to realize that America is no place for commies.
Aug '10
Re: America's First Socialist Republic
Paul A. Rahe
The King Prawn
My father often reminded me that I did not live in a democracy in his home but under a benevolent despot. · Nov 23 at 10:17am
L'etat, c'est moi. · Nov 23 at 10:36am
It's has only been a few short years since I abandoned a diet of conservative Evangelical locusts and honey, and I am still stupefied by what a monarchist the Lord Jesus Christ actually is. Similar principal, but on a universal scale.