The True Story of Thanksgiving

[Paradox]

For those Americans among us, we've all heard that nonsense about Pilgrims and Indians trading popcorn recipes over a nice turkey dinner.

Most of us heard that story during history class when we were in elementary school. Most other elementary classes taught the basics of a subject to be expanded upon later in the upper-level grades (addition/subtraction give way to multiplication/division, which in turn give rise to fractions...that sort of thing.) Unfortunately, the childrens' story of Thanksgiving is one topic that is never revisited in more depth as we age.

In light of this, I present to you the more complex tale of Thanksgiving, as told by Paul Schmidt

"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"


So basically, Bradford established a system of everyone doing their share, then bringing their goods to a central storage unit. Whatever you need, you took from that storage. Sadly, the lazy bastards among them realized that they could let the other pilgrims do the work while they simply took the fruits of their labor from the storage place. This obviously didn't work out, so Bradford did away with that system, opting instead for a private system of "you grow/make/produce it, you keep it".
The pilgrims realized that they could trade their now-privatized goods. Further research will reveal that they did so with the local Indians, which is how they came into the picture.

A more in-depth explanation can be found here:

Hoover Digest: How Private Property Saved the Pilgrims

[Revolverman]

Saw this on LewRockell.com

[Paradox]

Seriously? I'll have to go check it out. I'm glad someone else around here has heard of it.

[Revolverman]

Seriously? I'll have to go check it out. I'm glad someone else around here has heard of it.

Its a good site, tho its quite extreme (anarchists)

[Paradox]

Heh, yeah, I noticed that as soon as I opened the site.

Oh well, the story itself has nothing to do with anarchy.

[Revolverman]

Heh, yeah, I noticed that as soon as I opened the site.

Oh well, the story itself has nothing to do with anarchy.

True, its a good story too.

[The Overlord]

A note about communism since the topic was brought up-

As citizens of the USA, we've been hardwired over the past several post-war generations to believe communism is the ultimate evil.

The thing is, communism is based on 'socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general', egalitarian being 'a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights.'

The thing is, communism isn't evil, it just doesn't work. Even if the population is made classless, you still have a governmental structure, which by very nature is going to be a ruling elite with ambitions to have more. And of course, somebody is never content just to have an equal share of the pie, no they'll want yours too.

We've been hardwired to believe communist nations must be the enemy, but the revolution in Russia was to get out under the rigid caste system in place under the czars. I believe Marx was perhaps genuinely concerned for equality in society, but didn't do his homework. He may have been a study in politics and governing, but I think his studies of human nature was rusty.

Communism doesn't work for the very reason that capitalism works, at least for a little while longer: In the words of Gordon Gekko, greed is good.

Even China for instance; the media likes to call out China as the next red menace, but it's just got a bunch of hardline A-holes running it. They have their poor and the boom that China is experiencing is creating an inflating middle class. China isn't communist, at least not like communist should be. That's the thing, I think capitalism recognizes human nature and is the fuel for it.

Just a thought I had. Happy Thanksgiving to all who will be celebrating it, and if you don't have a good day anyway.

...now I'm about to do the traditional thing, turkey, stuffing, rice, etc., we're taking off in a bit to go to my grandmother's house.  :)

[Paradox]

Believe me Overlord, I don't blindly follow the "communism is the devil" credo. I know it's just a flawed system. Good in theory, terrible in application. This wasn't supposed to be an attack on communism; rather, I just wanted to enlighten people on the origins of the holiday. The author is the one who brought up communism in the course of his writing, not me  :P