He divided common property into private plots, and the new owners could produce what they wanted and then keep or trade it freely.Ĭommunal socialist failure was transformed into private property/capitalist success, something that’s happened so often historically it’s almost monotonous. The disincentives of the socialist scheme bred impoverishment and conflict until, facing starvation and extinction, Bradford altered the system. Slackers showed up late for work in the fields, and the hard workers resented it. Governor Bradford recorded in his diary that everybody was happy to claim their equal share of production, but production only shrank. The “common property” approach killed off about half the settlers. I’m going to give a prayerful thanks for private property and the profit motive that has made abundance possible. Did they live happily ever after in this socialist utopia? For two years, every person had to work for everybody else (the community), not for themselves as individuals or families. Crops were brought to a common storehouse and distributed equally. In the diary of the colony’s first governor, William Bradford, we can read about the settlers' initial arrangement: Land was held in common. We should never forget that the Plymouth colony was headed straight for oblivion under a communal, socialist plan but saved itself when it embraced something very different. Four centuries later, they also provide us with one of history’s most decisive verdicts on the critical importance of private property. The first few years of the settlement were fraught with hardship and hunger. They, of course, became the mothers and fathers of the first Thanksgiving.
Next year at this time, Americans will mark the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 and the subsequent founding of the Plymouth colony by English Separatists we know as the Pilgrims.
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