The 1620s: A History of Socialism in America
Just a little history lesson for your socialist-loving uncle during this Thanksgiving holiday!
This article is a way of saying thanks to the intrepid English colonists who discovered the horrors of socialism before people like Bernie Sanders learned to exploit lobotomized college students who believe the suicidal economic system has never been tried in America. We owe the early settlers our undivided gratitude; they set the stage for societal success, being the New World’s first practitioners of the capitalist model. Without further ado, I present to you the Department of Education’s non-approved version of colonial America.
In 1620, Plymouth Plantation was founded as a “company colony” under the jurisdiction of a joint-stock company with private investors known as the Virginia Company of London. Under the decrees of this particular company, a “common storehouse” system was established; all types of resources, goods, capital, etc. produced by the residents of its sanctioned colony were forfeited to the “common stock” of the colony for the first seven years of its inception.
In other words, if you lived in Plymouth Colony as a farmer who grew crops, the fruits of your labor were to be redistributed to the population of Plymouth Colony as a whole for the “common good,” i.e. socialism. The concept of “private property” was nonexistent; everything belonged to the whole community. Rather than, “This is yours and this is mine,” a more suitable estimation would be, “Why do you have that?! It should be mine!!” I can almost picture Nancy Pelosi running the show—let’s just hope she survives the Salem Witch Trials.
The settlers in Plymouth Colony, having given their lives to God and country, did not protest these obtuse laws and regulations. They began to produce resources for their community they felt very attached to. It was these people who held the closest characteristics to the “altruistic, Robinhood-like humanitarian” liberals always attribute to their hypothetical utopian ruler who oversees the so-called “real socialism” that has supposedly never been tried before; the pilgrims tried it—it didn’t work.
William Bradford, who governed Plymouth for three decades, documents the socialist policies within his book, Of Plymouth Plantation. His observations of his fellow colonists depict the horrid outcome anyone with a cinch of sanity would expect. Here are Bradford’s footnotes:
Socialism was not a word yet, but Bradford provides a shockingly similar vocabulary to his descriptions, “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 … 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 if they were wiser than God…”
Bradford captures the fundamental attitude of those who practice socialist ideology. Socialists and communists tend to have an extensive superiority complex, one which infects their minds like a demonic possession. They become placated by their self-serving psychology, believing there exists no one in the universe as purely magnanimous as them; not even God Himself. This explains the tendency of socialists to subscribe to an atheist worldview. They are troubled by the greatest threat to their massive egos: A slightest implication that someone, somewhere is capable of doing more good than they claim to, coupled with their deepest fears of retribution from a high moral authority who has full knowledge of their sinister motivations.
Bradford describes several troublesome effects the socialist policies made on people within the colony:
“For the young men who were most able and fit for service objected to being forced to spend their time and strength in working for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense…”
“The strong man or the resourceful man had no more share of food, clothes, etc., than the weak man who was not able to do a quarter the other could. This was thought injustice.”
“As for men’s wives who were obliged to do service for other men, such as cooking, washing their clothes, etc., they considered it a kind of slavery, and many husbands would not brook it…”
Bradford describes a scene of complete chaos. Men spent long days in the fields planting, towing, and sweating, only to give the fruits of their labor to those who weren’t as ambitious. Hardworking wives completed chores of strangers, washing the clothes of other men and preparing their meals. Grown, able-bodied men wasted their days away so they could enjoy the grandeur luxury of pocketing food and spoils for “free.” As another leech on society would say, “You didn’t build that!” Why would they contribute their part anyway? If products of the colony are simply going to be redistributed for the “common stock,” why make a chore where there doesn’t have to be one?
Bradford stamps a self-evident indictment against the suicidal system of law that nearly decimated Plymouth Colony and its inhabitants, “Let none argue that this is due to human failing, rather than to this communistic plan of life in itself…”
This was socialism in colonial America.
As time passed, men who strained themselves in the fields began to grow frustrated at the colony’s execrable practice of legalized theft. Tired of providing for indolent men and their families, the hardworking decided that if they did not have the opportunity to enjoy their hard work, no one else could. Providing food, shelter, and clothing for their own family was hard enough; divvying more than half of their keep to a bunch of wastrels was a deficit. The frustration grew to a new level, causing working men to cease their laborious days in the fields, as their motivation was depleted. The most hardworking of the colony began to stop working, increasingly reducing Plymouth Colony’s resources each time the product was distributed. Colonists began to fall ill, starve, and eventually succumb to death due to a lack of food. It’s as if labor and cost is essential for the plentiful creation of resources, as opposed to the liberal myth of, “I feel like this is a human right, so it should be free, you capitalist pig!!”
Plymouth Colony had reached a boiling point: Either they were going to continue on with this deadly charade of “equality,” or they were going to establish a system that actually rewards those who put in the work, encouraging motivation. The colonists, along with Governor William Bradford, decided it best to implement a fairer system, one which reflects the quintessential free-market we all know and love today.
William Bradford describes the type of system adopted by the colonists in his book, “At length after much debate, the Governor, with the advice of the chief among them, allowed each man to plant corn for his own household … So every family was assigned a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number…”
Can I get a Hallelujah for property rights?
Every family in the colony was designated their own “parcel” of land according to the amount of people in each family. The funnest part about this smash bargain was the proclamation that if someone grew something, they were allowed to keep it for themselves and their family rather than handing it over to Jebediah the neighborhood sloth. On the flip side, this was not very popular with Jebediah the neighborhood sloth because he would no longer benefit from sitting and pondering why water is wet; it was either work or starvation. Isn’t it amazing how well telling people they are responsible for themselves transmogrifies them into Paul Bunyan?
As expected, Bradford praises Plymouth Colony’s newfound acceptance for free-market capitalist tenants, noting the immediate upswing of production of resources, “…This was very successful. It made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could devise, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better satisfaction … The women now went willing into the field, and took their little ones with them to plant corn, while before they would allege weakness and inability, and to have compelled them would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” As expected, allowing the colonists to keep the fruits of their labor inspired them to be more productive. Yes—even women and children were in the fields planting things. Work sounds amazing when whoever doing it gets to keep what it produces.
Lesson learned: Socialism makes people lazy while putting them at the mercy of an all-powerful government with its own interests in mind. Unbelievably, we’re sitting here 402 years later—iPhones and all—debating whether or not Fidel Castro was a contemptible human being. How many millions of innocent lives have to be lost on the pedestal of socialism before the dreadlocked drummers and “oppressed” college students at Occupy Wall Street are convinced the finer things in life are not just handed out like candy?
No matter what braindead message AOC spews from her long face, there is absolutely nothing in this world you can get for free, no matter how much of a “human right” you believe transgender surgery is. Someone, somewhere has to pay for it. Period. This standard is true for all things considered advanced or “prestigious,” such as healthcare and higher education. No university is ever going to simply hand you a Juris Doctor. If this were the case, what is the point of going to college? Anything handed out for “free” is essentially worthless, not only in terms of accessibility, but also quality. This is what Democrats mean every election season when they talk about how they gave 20 million Americans access to “free healthcare” via ObamaCare. Sure, people technically had healthcare, but just how good was it? This is like taking one piece of bread, dividing it (if possible) into 330 million crumbs, dispersing it equally among every American citizen, and then turning around to say, “I gave 330 million Americans a bite to eat.”
In terms of the pilgrims living on Plymouth Colony, everyone technically had a bite to eat, but it was not enough to subside their hunger. At the end of the day, we must face the facts: Real socialism has been tried; and it failed miserably, taking a section of history’s trash heap.
So, on this 402nd anniversary of Thanksgiving, take a moment to remember those who were brave enough to cross an ocean, establish a colony, and persevere through Hell and back to finally establish what is now an essential pinnacle of American society.