[tomder55]

Across the border in Pa. it's full steam ahead . Their former depressed region is experiencing a rebirth . Meanwhile the poor NY farmer looks across the border and wonder why they can't experience the same boom . The reason ? The new gentry of NY ,the liberal intelligencia snobs like Yoko Ono ,Matt Damon who live in multi million penthouse lofts in Manhattan ,trying to dictate what people upstate can do ...have the ear of our idiot Governor who does his Hamlet act on the issue.

[paraclete]

ah to be or not to be... outragous fortune and all that

[speechlesstx]

So, if you haven't taken the Obots advice and don't plan on picking a fight with your family over Obamacare, perhaps you'd like to print some gun control place mats via Bloomberg's anti-gun group instead for Thanksgiving.

[tomder55]

While they are eating on those place mats ,they can choke on their drum stick when they read John Stossel's op-ed today :

Had today's political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow's holiday would have been called "Starvation Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn't be alive to celebrate it.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.

Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That's why they nearly all starved.

When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.

"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, [I] [with the advice of the chiefest among them] gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."

In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic.

"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."

Because of the change, the first Thanksgiving could be held in November 1623.

What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. The problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."

If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free-rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty.

What private property does -- as the Pilgrims discovered -- is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there's a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.

Here's the biggest irony of all: The U.S. government has yet to apply the lesson to its first conquest, Native Americans.

The U.S. government has held most Indian land in trust since the 19th century. This discourages initiative and risk-taking because, among other reasons, it can't be used as collateral for loans.

On Indian reservations, "private land is 40 to 90 percent more productive than land owned through the Bureau of Indian Affairs," says economist Terry Anderson, executive director of PERC. "If you drive through western reservations, you will see on one side cultivated fields, irrigation, and on the other side, overgrazed pasture, run-down pastures and homes. One is a simple commons; the other side is private property. You have Indians on both sides. The important thing is someone owns one side."

Secure property rights are the key. When producers know their future products are safe from confiscation, they take risks and invest. But when they fear they will be deprived of the fruits of their labor, they will do as little as possible.

That's the lost lesson of Thanksgiving.

A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson | RealClearPolitics

[talaniman]

I don't see republicans passing out 40 acres and a mule, or making a parcel of land available for ones own use. Hell you can't even get your fat rich job creators to live up to their name. So spare me the nanny state song and dance and explain why the rich are doing better now than they ever have!

Can't be that socialist president and his policies since they work so well for rich guys, crony's or NOT.

[paraclete]

I don't see republicans passing out 40 acres and a mule,

you don't? I thought those fellows were supposed to be benevolent towards their fellow man and willing to give large charitable donations if they suffered lower taxes, What better donation to the struggling unemployed than to give them 40 acres and a mule. It's revolutionary, a place to live, a place to farm and something to eat at the same time and best of all those 40 acres could start with all that disused urban land in the rust belt

[Tuttyd]

Tom is this Stossel person some type of historical revisionist?

Collectivism and socialism are not necessarily one and the same. The Collectivist system that dominated that period was hierarchical collectivism. It involved a hierarchy of class in the broadest sense. This was sometimes know as, The Chain of Being.

This is not the type of collectivism we find in modern Communist and Socialism theories. The Pilgrims we not suffering from Communist or socialist collectivism. They were suffering from hierarchical collectivism. Why? Because this type of collectivism that was dominant at the time.

It is a pointless exercise to compare modern collectivist ideas with those ideas of the early 1600's

[tomder55]

as if there is anything vertical in 21st century socialism . Everywhere I look ,it's dominated by cadres of elites .

[tomder55]

(1). Collectivist production is impossible upon a democratic basis. It could only be directed by a hierarchical administration devoid of a democratic character, without liberty, equality or any guarantee against abuses of power.
(2). It suppresses nature and property: all matters of the same class are concentrated in a great social workshop working upon the principle of equal remuneration for the same time spent in labour, but with a democratic organisation individuals impregnated with perpetual flattery would not submit to the sacrifices requisite to effect the economics necessary for this development of the means of production. Those who possessed them would not be disposed to share their surplus with others.
(3). Supposing that it were possible to concentrate in one body all the branches of production on the basis of uniform labour and a uniform estimate of the time of labour and to set up complete local factories, that would be to act contrary to all experience in industrial matters.
(4). An increase of production could only take place subject to the following conditions: (a) strict administration, and (b) an increase in the activity of the workers. Now democracy cannot admit of compulsion and would have nothing with which to replace profits, risks and graduated wages, so that there would be no initiative, no responsibility, no interest and no motive for action.
(5). Social democracy has not discovered a method of apportioning to each individual the exact value of his social labour.
(6). If each individual be remunerated in proportion to the social value of his labour, inequality must reappear.
(7). But collectivists at the same time promise a distribution of products according to requirements. This is contradictory, but only one thing could be more impracticable, that is to declare all requirements to be equal.
(8). Democratic collectivism claims to abolish “the exploitation of man by man,” but the collectivist dispensation would involve the organisation of the exploitation of labour as distributed by the agents of the party in power, without recourse to any remedy for its abuse than to overthrow it. In proceeding to the control of the hours of labour, in fixing the normal quantities of products, in reducing complex to simple labour by a method of calculation, the triumphant parasites of Socialism would set about their work in a spirit so far removed from one of fraternity as to make Marx' vampire capital assume a highly respectable appearance.
(9). Collectivism claims to abolish over-production and want, but theorists will not explain how they propose to prevent good or bad harvests in the vineyards, the orchards, the corn-fields, etc.

Schoeffle's conclusion is: “Democratic collectivism is impossible and is unable to realise a single one of its economic promises.”
(Socialistic Fallacies by Yves Guyot)

[paraclete]

Tom we know collectiveism tends to fail because the worth of the individual isn't recognised. the Israeli's seem to have proved that it can work for a time, but the model really only works in dire necessity.

Communism was doomed to fail because of human nature, collectiveism fails for the same reason. We see even in my nation that these ideas keep a race of people poor.

having said that collectiveism has nothing to do with the provision of mutual assurance which is the basis of insurance schemes

[Tuttyd]

Tom, what has anything you posted got to do with Stossel's lack of historical understanding?

[tomder55]

not his ;yours .You speak of modern socialism being a form of vertical collectivism . Well in theory it may be .But in fact ,it is the very same hierarchal system you say Bradford adopted for the Pilgrims initially before he recognized it's a failure .Still waiting for modern collectivist statists to learn that lesson.

[talaniman]

The supply side business model is broken and doesn't work for many of us. When is that going to be recognized and fixed? We are no longer a country of farmers, and to compare those times with NOW is illogical.

[Tuttyd]

Not really, I'd say the lack on understanding belongs to you and Stossel.

If you read my posts again I actually said that 1600's collectivism was vertical collectivism (Chain of Being). I didn't say modern socialism was an example of vertical collectivism. Modern socialism can be regarded as a form of horizontal collectivism.

Where did you get the idea that modern socialism is an example of vertical collectivism?

[tomder55]

correct I wrote that wrong ....my point is valid with that correction ..I challenge you to find me an example of modern socialism being horizontal .

[talaniman]

Social Security, and Medicare.

[Tuttyd]

Tom. I'll go along with what was previously posted and pick social security as an example of horizontal collectivism. I see it as a good example from our perspective at least.

[tomder55]

I was speaking of nations and not specific programs. However ,I dispute that SS as it was written or how it evolved is horizontal. First ;it was designed as an insurance plan that was /is not redistributive . You get from it what you put into it in the proportion that you put in. The non worker does not qualify Now that may change of course as the top down elites who run the country make decisions like means testing and permitting people who don't contribute into the plan.
Now back to my premise . What society that is structured as a socialist state is horizontal ? None ,they are run by cadres of elites . The communists /fascists states have /had dictatorial power .The European model depends on a few privileged from select institutes of learning .

[Tuttyd]

Seems to be a couple of misunderstandings. When I was referring to "vertical collectivism" I was actually meaning hierarchical collectivism. More specifically, the type of collectivism found in feudal systems. This type of collectivism doesn't exist today ( except perhaps theocratic states).

On this basis vertical collectivism in the modern sense is somewhat different. There are few states that are entirely horizontal or vertical in the modern sense. What we usually find is a combination of both.

Our social security system evolved as form of horizontal collectivism. In other words, the sole judge of the rightness or wrongness of the system was and still is determined by the consequences of the decision.In our case the decision to dramatically expand social security was determined by a popular plebiscite.

Another way of saying this would be that it was based on a principle of utility. This principle is an example of horizontal collectivism. But yes, the administration of the system is of course not horizontal

[tomder55]

When I was referring to "vertical collectivism" I was actually meaning hierarchical collectivism

Yes that was what the Pilgrims were escaping from. However ,the original construct of the society Bradford imagined was a horizontal ,almost Marxist design. That type of system will always fail as the incentive to produce 'according to ones ability ' is not there .