Say Anything Blog

Caroline Baum has a great column at Bloomberg.com today, which I was put onto by Ken from As I Please:

One of the traditions the Pilgrims had brought with them from England was a practice known as ``farming in common.'' Everything they produced was put into a common pool, and the harvest was rationed among them according to need.

They had thought ``that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing,'' Bradford recounts.

They were wrong. ``For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte,'' Bradford writes.

Young, able-bodied men resented working for others without compensation. Incentives were lacking.

After the Pilgrims had endured near-starvation for three winters, Bradford decided to experiment when it came time to plant in the spring of 1623. He set aside a plot of land for each family, that ``they should set corne every man for his owne particular, and in that regard trust to themselves.''

A New Way

The results were nothing short of miraculous.

Bradford writes: ``This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other ways would have been by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave far better content.''

Ahhh, the triumph of capitalism over communism. Victory, is indeed, sweet.

Its interesting to draw a comparison between this scenario the Pilgrims were faced with and our nation's recent departure from basic capitalist values in the last few decades. With college tuitions that are sky-high and rising many college students enter the job market only to discover that their new paychecks just aren't going to cover rent, food, student loans, vehicle loans and credit card bills. This is what happens when we rely on the government to pay for things for us.

When I watch TV I don't think an hour goes by that I don't see a commercial advertising a credit counseling service or debt consolidation loans. The reason there are so many of these companies out there now is because it is so easy to succumb to the heavy debt load heaped on us at the begining of our lives. A person simply cannot get by anymore without having some sort of loan. Its impossible.

So our young adults start their lives behind the eight ball, they work hard yet never really seem to make any money. So where's the incentive to work?

I know I'd find it hard to get up and go to work everyday just to see my paycheck fly out the window to a variety of creditors.