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sabotabbyInstead of posting "Thanksgiving Prayer" by William S. Burroughs like the rest of you traitorous louts*, I went and found an article from the Independent Institute about the real meaning of Thanksgiving. I don't think I'm giving much away when I tell you in advance that the real meaning of Thanksgiving, like the real meaning of everything else, is "YAY CAPITALISM."
The Pilgrims’ Real Thanksgiving Lesson
Do click on the link, if only to scoff at the author's haircut.
November 25, 2004
Benjamin Powell
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.
Hey, I know this one! Exploiting the knowledge and generosity of indigenous people, only to slaughter them later.
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.
That's right, kids. The Pilgrims were commies.
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights.
See?
Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on “equality” and “need” as determined by Plantation officials.
For some reason, this strikes me as the funniest sentence in the whole thing, mostly because of the scare quotes.
People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food.
Translation: Child labour hadn't been invented yet.
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.
It didn't have anything to do with Whitey's incompetence. I mean, you'd think if they were starving to death, they'd get their acts together, economic incentives or not.
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.
At this point in the libertarian nut-job narrative, as in the mainstream American narrative, the land's indigenous residents are written out altogether, to reappear later in Westerns.
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.”
There's no incentive stronger than "Get those brats to work or you're all going to starve!"
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.
If you think child labour is great, you're gonna love slavery!
We are direct beneficiaries of the economics lesson the pilgrims learned in 1623.
And the direct beneficiaries of land theft.
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.
Some of us call that "taxes," but I think libertarians are supposed to be against those.
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.
This may be the first time I've ever seen a libertarian acknowledge that he's not an isolated and self-sufficient individual, despite still living with his parents. But while we're doing the thanking, how about adding in the migrant farm workers whose underpaid labour shields us from paying the actual cost of food, the Iraqis who gave their lives for the oil that fuelled the truck driver's vehicle, and the countless teeming masses whose poverty allows the select few, like Benjamin Powell, to enjoy their position of privilege while increasing numbers of Indian farmers kill themselves because they can't repay their debts.
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.
* Some conditions apply. Freedom of choice may be limited by class, skin colour, gender, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Freedom of choice may be taken away should it be found to interfere with national security.
* Just kidding.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lopukhov found a video of it! [Error: unknown template 'video']
The Pilgrims’ Real Thanksgiving Lesson
Do click on the link, if only to scoff at the author's haircut.
November 25, 2004
Benjamin Powell
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.
Hey, I know this one! Exploiting the knowledge and generosity of indigenous people, only to slaughter them later.
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.
That's right, kids. The Pilgrims were commies.
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights.
See?
Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on “equality” and “need” as determined by Plantation officials.
For some reason, this strikes me as the funniest sentence in the whole thing, mostly because of the scare quotes.
People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food.
Translation: Child labour hadn't been invented yet.
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.
It didn't have anything to do with Whitey's incompetence. I mean, you'd think if they were starving to death, they'd get their acts together, economic incentives or not.
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.
At this point in the libertarian nut-job narrative, as in the mainstream American narrative, the land's indigenous residents are written out altogether, to reappear later in Westerns.
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.”
There's no incentive stronger than "Get those brats to work or you're all going to starve!"
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.
If you think child labour is great, you're gonna love slavery!
We are direct beneficiaries of the economics lesson the pilgrims learned in 1623.
And the direct beneficiaries of land theft.
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.
Some of us call that "taxes," but I think libertarians are supposed to be against those.
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.
This may be the first time I've ever seen a libertarian acknowledge that he's not an isolated and self-sufficient individual, despite still living with his parents. But while we're doing the thanking, how about adding in the migrant farm workers whose underpaid labour shields us from paying the actual cost of food, the Iraqis who gave their lives for the oil that fuelled the truck driver's vehicle, and the countless teeming masses whose poverty allows the select few, like Benjamin Powell, to enjoy their position of privilege while increasing numbers of Indian farmers kill themselves because they can't repay their debts.
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.
* Some conditions apply. Freedom of choice may be limited by class, skin colour, gender, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Freedom of choice may be taken away should it be found to interfere with national security.
* Just kidding.
lopukhov found a video of it! [Error: unknown template 'video']
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 02:48 pm (UTC)And thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 07:49 pm (UTC)* Some conditions apply. Freedom of choice may be limited by class, skin colour, gender, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Freedom of choice may be taken away should it be found to interfere with national security.
Laughing my ass off. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 06:50 am (UTC)I need to go purge now.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-28 04:52 pm (UTC)