"The story of the Pilgrims begins in the early part of the seventeenth
century. The Church of England under King James I was persecuting
anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil and
spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastic authority and
those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down,
imprisoned, and executed for their beliefs.
A group of separatists first fled to Holland and established a
community. After eleven years, about forty of them agreed to make a
perilous journey to the New World, where they would certainly face
hardships, but could live and worship God according to the dictates of
their own consciences.
On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102
passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the
journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract that established
just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective
of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas
expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The
Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old
and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their
example.
But this was no pleasure cruise. The journey to the New World was a
long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in
November, they found, according to Bradford's own detailed journal, a
cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet
them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no
inns where they could refresh themselves.
And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During
the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife –
died of either starvation, sickness or exposure. When spring finally
came, Native Americans taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for
cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but
they did not yet prosper!
This is important to understand because this is where modern American
history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some
textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the
Natives for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of
gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New
Testaments.
Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the
Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London
called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and
each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of
the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the
community as well.
Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized
that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the
Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He
decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each
family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the
marketplace.
That's right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had
discovered and experimented with what could only be described as
SOCIALISM...and what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise,
huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative
and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone
else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation!
But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with
socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect
it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it
permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should
be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent
much needless suffering in the future.
"The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried
sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community
into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if
they were wiser than God," Bradford wrote. "For this community [so far
as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and
retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and
comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and
service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to
work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that
was thought injustice."
Do you understand what he was writing? The Pilgrims found that people
could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what
did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of free
enterprise by invoking the under girding capitalistic principle of
private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to
work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was
the result?
"This had very good success," wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands
industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would
have been." Bradford doesn't sound like much of a Liberal, does he? Is
it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the
1980s? Yes. Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41.
Following Joseph's suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on
Egyptians to 20% during the "seven years of plenty" and the "Earth
brought forth in heaps." (Gen. 41:47)
In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat
themselves. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the
Native Americans. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to
the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the
Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be
known as the "Great Puritan Migration."
Now, let me ask you: Have you read this history before? Is this lesson
being taught to your children today? If not, why not? Can you think of
a more important lesson one could derive from the Pilgrim experience?"