Thanksgiving: Celebrating the Birth of American Free Enterprise

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Mises Institute

Thanksgiving: Celebrating the Birth of American Free Enterprise

3 HOURS AGO Richard M. Ebeling

This time of the year, whether in good economic times or bad, is when Americans gather with their families and friends and enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together. It marks a remembrance of those early Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the uncharted ocean from Europe to make a new start in Plymouth, Massachusetts. What is less appreciated is that Thanksgiving also is a celebration of the birth of free enterprise in America.

The English Puritans, who left Great Britain and sailed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620, were not only escaping from religious persecution in their homeland. They also wanted to turn their back on what they viewed as the materialistic and greedy corruption of the Old World.

Plymouth Colony Planned as Collectivist Utopia

In the New World, they wanted to erect a New Jerusalem that would not only be religiously devout, but be built on a new foundation of communal sharing and social altruism. Their goal was the communism of Plato’s Republic, in which all would work and share in common, knowing neither private property nor self-interested acquisitiveness.   

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The Christian Ethics Behind the Pilgrims' Rejection of Communism

1 HOUR AGO Shawn Ritenour

Historically, Thanksgiving has been a feast day during which Americans are called upon to thank the Lord for the many blessings he has bestowed upon us. Richard J. Mayburyand Gary Galles both explain the economic lessons to glean from the experience of the Pilgrims and both note that the primary reason for God's blessing them with relative prosperity after years of famine and hunger was a shift away from socialism and toward private property. In their essays, both authors draw upon William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation to get the story straight from the source.

One misconception that is still with us is that the Pilgrims adopted socialism out of religious conviction, as if Christian ethics requires a Platonic communist utopia. Galles notes that this is a misconception, but it is beyond the scope of his essay to provide the full historical back drop to that initial fateful economic design.      https://mises.org/wire/christian-ethics-behind-pilgrims-rejection-communism

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The First Thanksgiving Was Nothing Like What You Were Taught

Most Americans were taught a cartoonish version of the first Thanksgiving, but the history of the Pilgrims and Indians was far more complex—and harrowing.

By John Daniel Davidson NOVEMBER 22, 2017

Whether we realize it or not, we all have an image of the first Thanksgiving that’s more or less a cartoon we were taught in grade school. In the autumn of 1621, a plucky group of black-clad, buckle-shoed Pilgrims and stoic yet friendly Indians feasted together after a successful autumn harvest, heralding a promising new friendship between their two peoples.

The actual history of the first Thanksgiving is of course nothing like the grade-school story—it’s far more interesting and complex. While it undermines the bowdlerized, multicultural narrative of peaceful Indians and well-meaning Puritans living together in harmony, it also informs a radically more nuanced understanding of the world the Pilgrims found when they landed at Plymouth in December 1620.         http://thefederalist.com/2017/11/22/first-thanksgiving-nothing-like-taught/