“Hard work will give you power; being lazy will make you a slave." ~ Proverbs 12:24
We all know the Thanksgiving story
about the Pilgrims’ gratitude to God for a harvest season of blessing and
survival. But all was not happy in Shangri-La. They actually faced chronic food shortages -
but not due to harsh weather or their limited farming experience.
Before leaving Europe, the
Pilgrims entered into a 1620 contract with investors (called the
"Adventurers") who financed their trip. Simply put, they agreed to form a commune. All property, supplies and crops were
contributed into a collective pool and shared equally.
They called their structure a "Commonwealth" because all wealth and the fruits of their labor was held in common. Crops were brought to a shared storehouse and distributed evenly. Each person had to work, not for themselves as individuals or families, but for everybody else in the settlement.
Lacking any reward for hard work, the commonwealth approach bred
discontent and inefficiency. Nearly half
the settlers died. Gov. Bradford
recorded in his personal diary that “Everybody was happy to claim their
equal share, but output shrank over time.
Slackers showed up late for field work and the hardest workers resented
it. It’s called “human nature.”
The ‘community’ decided when and how much to plant, when to
harvest, who would do the work. It quickly proved an epic disaster. Facing chaos, starvation and death, the colony’s
elders led by Bradford abolished the system in 1623. He divided common property into private plots. The new owners could produce what they wanted;
then keep or trade it freely.
That simple change to private ownership, wrote Bradford, “…
had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more
corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Women now went willingly into the field, and
took their little ones with them to set corn, which [had] before alleged
weakness and inability.”
Soon they had such a bountiful harvest they could share food
with the native tribes. The benefits of
private, rather than common, ownership were quickly recognized by the Pilgrims
and later framed by our nation’s Founders in the Constitution 150 years later.
Surprisingly, I don’t recall ever getting that lesson in
school at any level.
Over the centuries, commonwealth schemes (i.e. socialism) have
crash-landed into regrettable policies too many times to keep count. No matter what they’re called: central
planning, wealth redistribution, progressivism, or government ownership – they
all incite envy and inefficiency.
Efforts to instill those ideas in our children through
mis-education and demagoguery continue to erode our liberties and productivity;
spewed by ideologues who as Gov. Bradford put it, have the "vanity of
that conceit … as if they were wiser than God."
Thank You Father, Father, for the freedoms
we enjoy today and for the people of faith who helped lay the Constitutional
framework for our nation. Thank You for
being the rock and fortress of this great country. For You alone are the shield
and horn of our salvation. Amen
