Organizations and Markets

A New Institutional Thanksgiving

22 November 2006 at 1:15 am Peter G. Klein 2 comments

| Peter Klein |

Tomorrow we Americans celebrate the traditional Thanksgiving meal. As we gather for family, feasting, and fellowship, let us remember the real leitmotif of the Thanksgiving drama: property rights.

As Ben Powell reminds us:

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.

Tom Bethell, author of the highly recommended The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages, provides a more detailed account here.

Update: Don’t miss Murray Rothbard’s typically insightful and engaging account, from volume 1 of his Conceived in Liberty.

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Classical Liberalism, Food and Agriculture, Institutions.