Here's Benjamin Powell's piece from last year - the Pilgrim's were able to be thankful because they gave up on socialism. Economists know this story, but I think the world would be a better place if it could be replayed every year - like a Charlie Brown special.
Feast and football. That’s what many of us think about at
Thanksgiving. Most people identify the origin of the holiday with the
Pilgrims’ first bountiful harvest. But few understand how the Pilgrims
actually solved their chronic food shortages.
Many people
believe that after suffering through a severe winter, the Pilgrims’
food shortages were resolved the following spring when the Native
Americans taught them to plant corn and a Thanksgiving celebration
resulted. In fact, the pilgrims continued to face chronic food
shortages for three years until the harvest of 1623. Bad weather or
lack of farming knowledge did not cause the pilgrims’ shortages. Bad
economic incentives did.
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was
founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies
were held in common and then distributed based on equality and need as
determined by Plantation officials. People received the same rations
whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents
were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William
Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote
that this system was found to breed much confusion and discontent and
retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and
comfort. The problem was that young men, that were most able and fit
for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength
to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.
Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.
Faced
with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to
implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private
parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for
themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves.
While not a complete private property system, the move away from
communal ownership had dramatic results.
This change,
Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very
industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have
been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once
the new system of property rights was in place, 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.
Once
the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal
economic system and adopted one with greater individual property
rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the
first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights
that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the
corner.
We are direct beneficiaries of the economics lesson
the pilgrims learned in 1623. Today we have a much better developed and
well-defined set of property rights. Our economic system offers
incentives for us—in the form of prices and profits—to coordinate our
individual behavior for the mutual benefit of all; even those we may
not personally know.
It is customary in many families to
give thanks to the hands that prepared this feast during the
Thanksgiving dinner blessing. Perhaps we should also be thankful for
the millions of other hands that helped get the dinner to the table:
the grocer who sold us the turkey, the truck driver who delivered it to
the store, and the farmer who raised it all contributed to our
Thanksgiving dinner because our economic system rewards them. That’s
the real lesson of Thanksgiving. The economic incentives provided by
private competitive markets where people are left free to make their
own choices make bountiful feasts possible.
