Socialism never works

Thanksgiving is an appropriate time to reflect on when socialism first was tried in America. The time was 1620-23 in the newly founded Plymouth Colony.

The original charter set up a “community store,” and each person had a share in it. Everything produced went into the store, and everyone had equal access to it. Many of the most able young workers felt it was unfair that the fruits of their labor were made available to the dependents of others without “due recompense” to themselves. The result was that a large percentage of the population refused to work, and the colony fell into economic chaos. Starvation seemed inevitable.

What saved them was Gov. William Bradford’s 1623 decision to allocate a plot of land to each family, and to allow them to do as they pleased with whatever they produced there. Within two years, the colony had a surplus of goods and food, and established the trading posts that were the beginning of the greatest commercial expansion in history.

Socialism never has worked well anywhere at any time in the past. To believe that somehow it will succeed at this time and in this place seems to require hope in change of a type that has failed to produce wealth and prosperity whenever and wherever it has been tried.

Tom Kneisley

Eugene