Spread the Word, Not the Wealth

Julia Shaw / November 24, 2010

Communism, it is often said, will work under the proper conditions. Though it might fail in a big country with millions of disconnected individuals, it should work in a small community of relatively close-knit comrades, who would thrive under a system of shared burden and harvest.

If you think that successful communism is small communism, the experience of America’s first settlers should dispel any romantic notions you may harbor on the subject.

Plymouth Colony, a small community of settlers struggling to survive in a new land, learned about the benefits of private property the hard way. When the colony began in 1621, all the goods and products were held in a “common stock.” All were to contribute equally and share equally in the community’s bounty—or lack thereof.  The governor of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, recorded the experiment of communal living in his journal. As he explains, there was little harvest and much dissatisfaction. Young men objected to working for the benefit of other men’s wives and children. The strong objected that they received the same amount of food and clothing as the weak. The older men objected to laboring the same amount as the young. The women objected to performing household chores for men other than their husbands, deeming it “a kind of slavery.” (more…)