Written by guest columnist Llewelyn Moss
Has there ever been a socialist experiment in what would become the United States of America?
In fact, there has. Way back when the first settlers were leaving Europe for the New World.
We’ve all heard the George Santayana’s quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So it serves us well to look at the history of government in The New World.
Accurate history is no longer taught in America’s public schools and universities. If we study or research history on our own, from reliable sources, we educate not only ourselves, but we are able to share accurate history with others. This is especially important in regards to our own children and grandchildren.
Large majorities of younger people think that America is an evil place. They have been convinced that, from its inception, America has been and still is a flawed country.
Though they live in the most prosperous nation in the history of mankind, they erroneously believe that Capitalism is at the root of this evil.
As a result, the country’s younger generations now believe that our salvation lies in transforming our nation into a bastion of Socialism.
But a socialist style of rule has been tried in our earliest history. In fact, the Pilgrims agreed to live under a system of ‘’from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs!”
There is a good article on this very subject on the Townhall website. The article was first published in 2009. The push for Socialism has continued to grow stronger ever since.
Note what the writer, Meredith Turney, explains:
America’s first experiment with socialism wasn’t Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, nor was it Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal—although both made sweeping changes to the nation’s underlying government structure and entrapped America in the bureaucratic quagmire of collectivism. No, America’s very first experiment with redistribution of wealth occurred before America was officially a nation.
In 1620, the Puritan Pilgrims arrived in the “desolate wilderness” of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Seeking escape from religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans risked their lives crossing the Atlantic to establish a new colony in the wilds of America. The Pilgrims decided that their new community would practice collectivism (socialism). All labor was communal, with men raising crops for all families, not just their own, and women engaged in domestic chores for their neighbors.
Taken at face value, collectivism might sound like a noble undertaking. Most humans in general, and Biblically instructed individuals in particular, take no delight in the suffering of others. We see this even today. Individuals instructed in Judeo-Christian traditions tend to give to charities and to help their neighbors to a much larger degree than liberal thinking or atheistic minded people do.
But as the above example illustrates, even among a group like the Pilgrims, greed and sloth rear their ugly heads.
Meredith Turney continues:
The Pilgrims’ Governor, William Bradford, described the folly of embracing the theory of collectivism:
“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.
“For this community was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the 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. The strong had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors everything else, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.”
So, there you have it. The Great American Socialist Experiment. The early settlers saw the folly of their ways, and for 300 years, Entrepreneurship, Capitalism and Free Will made America Great. Only in about the last one hundred years has the faulty and failed theory of Socialism been pushed in The United States of America. Let’s hope that we can spread the story of failed Socialism so that we never again try a system of government that has a history of utter failure. Only then will we be able to KEEP AMERICA GREAT.
Part 2 of this discussion will follow in a couple of days, as we approach Thanksgiving.
