Each year at this time somebody in the right-libertarian world, reenacting an obligatory Thanksgiving ritual, drags out the old chestnut about the Pilgrims at Plymouth almost starving from “communism” until private property rights and capitalism saved them. This year John Stossel (“We Should Be Thankful for Private Property,” Reason, Nov. 27) gets the honors.
In the received version the Puritans, motivated by a misguided idealism, initially set out to restore the primitive Christian communism of the Book of Acts, “holding all things in common.” Stossel characterizes the arrangement as sounding “like something out of Karl Marx.” When the obvious incentive problems entailed in this practice led to starvation, the settlers accommodated themselves to reality and divided up the land and worked it individually. Output skyrocketed, starvation was averted, and everybody was happy.
But that’s not the way things actually happened.
Richard Curl’s history of cooperatives in America, For All the People, fills in some missing details that change the meaning of the story entirely. Curl supplements Bradford’s history with material from J. A. Doyle’s English Colonies. According to Doyle, the agreement between the Pilgrim Separatists and the Merchant Adventurers corporation provided that
“[a]ll settlers … were to receive their necessaries out of the common stock. For seven years there was to be no individual property or trade, but the labor of the colony was to be organized according to the different capacities of the settlers. At the end of the seven years the company was to be dissolved and the whole stock divided.
Two reservations were inserted, one entitling the settlers to separate plots of land about their houses, and the other allowing them two days in the week for cultivation of such holdings. The London partners, however, refused to grant these concessions, and the agents of the emigrants withdrew them rather than give up the scheme.”
In the conventional narrative the apostolic zeal of the Pilgrims, who desire to recreate the communism of the early Church, is confronted by hard reality. But according to Curl, relations between the Puritan settlers and the Merchant Adventurers make more sense in light of an entirely different subtext — the English peasantry’s relations with the landed classes in the Old Country: “The colonists, most of them tenant farmers in the open fields of an old manorial hunting park in Nottinghamshire, considered that the investors’ demand essentially reduced them to serfdom. The settlers were asking for no more than was normal under England’s manorial system in effect since the Middle Ages. Peasants worked in the lord’s fields but also had time to work with individual plots for their household needs.”
The Plymouth story is sometimes compared to that of agriculture in the last days of the Soviet Union, where most of the food consumed came from private family plots — essentially kitchen gardens with some small livestock thrown in. Had the entire Soviet population been forced to subsist on the output of State and collective farms alone, the result would have been mass starvation — exactly like in Plymouth. This parallel is entirely accurate. What the received version of the Plymouth story leaves out, however, is that the role of the “collective farm” in the little drama is played not by the naive Puritan zealots seeking to “hold all things in common” but by a private corporation chartered by the English crown.
And as Curl describes it, the system of private plots adopted after the rebellion against the Merchant Adventurers wasn’t much like modern fee simple ideas of “private property,” either. It sounds more like the open-field system the settlers had experienced in Nottinghamshire: The family plots were ad hoc, to be periodically redivided, and not subject to inheritance.
So the proper analog to what almost killed off the Pilgrims is not, as Stossel says, “Karl Marx” or “today’s [presumably left-wing] politicians and opinion-makers.” It’s the lord of an English manor — or a Fortune 500 corporation. But the story as it actually happened is still a testament to the evils of statism and the benefits of voluntary cooperation. The Merchant Adventurers, like the Fortune 500 companies of today, was a chartered corporation that depended entirely on benefits and legal privileges conferred by the state. The living arrangements it attempted to impose on the Plymouth settlers were the same as the extractive arrangements that prevailed on an English manor, enforced by the legal privileges the state conferred on the landed nobility. And the new system the Pilgrims replaced them with were the age-old open field system that peasant villages had spontaneously created for themselves, in the absence of coercive interference, since neolithic times.
Translations for this article:
- Portuguese, Não, Stossel. Os Peregrinos Foram Levados à Inanição por uma Corporação, Não pelo Comunismo.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, No, Stossel. The Pilgrims Were Starved by a Corporation, Not by Communism., Before It’s News, 11/27/13
I agree mostly with what is written on this site about corporations. I have come to despise them and believe they have enormous advantages as a result of the existence of the state and use state power to limit competition from smaller companies and individuals. On the other hand I struggle with the fact that at least some enormous corporations like Google seem to me to have done more good than harm. That is hard for me to admit, but I'm not sure we would have been better off without Google. We can't know what our world would be like if corporations supported by the state never existed. I don't know. Is there anything good any of the authors here have to say about any large corporations?
Stossel should also study history again. The Pilgrims whom |Wampanoag Chief Massasoit treated venson & other foods were Separatists, not Puritans. Puritans arrived later in 1630 & Puritans later massacred Pequods, assassinated (?) Wamsutta, & killed Metacomet.
Right-wingers always wrongly remember history to serve their agenda to themselves & to us
"some enormous corporations like Google seem to me to have done more good than harm"
Even if true, that's a very paternalistic & thus morally bankrupt excuse for all the subsidies received by corporations each year, monopolistic privileges such as "limited liability," "intellectual property," zoning laws, grossly high startup capital requirements to open a business, conferred on them by state fiats.
"I'm not sure we would have been better off without Google" I surmise that we shall be better off without them.
Without eviction of farmers & subsidies for agribusiness to grow junk foods, we shall encounter less obesity.
Without "intellectual property," a euphemism for monopolistic control of OTHER PEOPLE's rights to use their own TANGIBLE PROPERTY because the INTANGIBLE IDEA on how to use the said TANGIBLE PROPERTY had been claimed as "property" by monopolists, prices shall go down & technology shall progress even swifter because inventors must compete with each other by constantly discover new ways to use their property inefficiently by learning from each other.
Without zoning laws, grossly high startup capital, we shall encounter more small business in the neighbourhood, reducing the needs for cars & highways, & increase the chance & urge to walk, thus also improving our overall health.
Without licenses, there shall no doctors' shortage which had been allowing existing doctors to charge grossly high prices for care. Nobody needs to go to a doctor if they can find a suitable practitioner who could easily take care of their body's needs (why should I go to a doctor & then get a 3-4 figure bill when I only had a small stomachache?) What about the quacks? If you decide to go by the perfectionist fallacy, then I can easily use it to point out that quacks exist in the current system, as long as they can bribe health department's officials? Moreover, many people resort to quacks BECAUSE in this system doctors charge too high a price for medical care? Of course quacks may appear in a post-state healthcare system, but the abundance of qualified health practitioners who charge reasonable price shall discourage people from going to quacks. & the abundance of information shall help them better avoid quacks
It takes a communist to pretend communism isn't communism.
Did Google begin to make itself useful before or after it became a mega-corporation?
@Stephen…
It may seem like a struggle but it's only because there's an existing paradigm that conflates the virtues of free markets with the evils of state/corporate-capitalism.
You should take a look at:
* "How To Do Things With Words" http://aaeblog.com/2010/12/26/how-to-do-things-wi…
* "Thomas Frank Almost Gets It" http://c4ss.org/content/6102
* "The Conflation Trap" http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/11/the-…
All the Phymouth colony's "commonly owned" lands were in fact exclusively claimed by a government-chartered private corporation, the Merchant Adventurers, who treated the colonists even worse than feudal landlords, because landlords, at least, had allowed peasants some private plots to cultivate for peasants' own sustenance.
It takes a corporate shill to pretend that state's crony corporations aren't state's crony corporations, and enclosure by such corporations are enclosure at all but just voluntary co-operative communism thought out by the Plymouth colonists.
Some corrections: Puritans came in 1628. & the Pequot people's name were misspelled.
So, if a state-chartered colonizing corporation required all participants to organize the colony along Marxian rules, then that colony would not resemble something from Karl Marx because it was a corporation that required it? Would it resemble something from Marx if Karl Marx established the very same colony under the very same rules?
The point is that the same incentive problems that plague Marxism also plagued the colony.
In that case Stossel must be a communist, since he pretends that what the Pilgrims replaced the original setup with wasn't closer to genuine peasant communism than what the Merchant Adventurers wanted.
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Use a diciontary lately?
I love how communists always make these broad assumptions of who their talking to. It makes me laugh. And it's exactly why they're the only group not worth a bit of serious attention.
A correction to a mistake: "It takes a corporate shill to pretend that state's crony corporations aren't state's crony corporations, and enclosure by such corporations are not enclosure at all"
Moreover, a corporation practices internal communism, from each worker according to his/her ability and to each boss, manager, and higher-ups according to his/her gr/need (All credits to James Tuttle, in "Why Am I Not A Communist")
You want a dictionary? This is what the "objective" Webster's definitions for "anarchy:" (Trigger warning: government interventions on behalf of politically connected capitalists are conveniently left out)
1
a : absence of government
b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority
c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2
a : absence or denial of any authority or established order
b : absence of order : disorder <not manicured plots but a wild anarchy of nature — Israel Shenker>
Capitalism
an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
"Communism:"
1
a : a theory advocating elimination of private property
b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2
capitalized
a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production
c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably
d : communist systems collectively
"So, if a state-chartered colonizing corporation required all participants to organize the colony along Marxian rules, then that colony would not resemble something from Karl Marx because it was a corporation that required it?"
Marx wasn't even born yet in 1621. And 2ndly, he never invented the Marxian principle. He even acknowledge that he drew much of his ideas from Proudhon & many other early laisser-faire thinkers. And lastly, I quote Apio Ludd:
"Communism is already here. Capitalism is simply market communism: “From each [worker] according to her ability, to each [capitalist] according to her need.” Thus, capitalism imposes service to the common good (i.e., to the ruling elite who represent “all”) on all those willing to remain slaves to a higher power. The community of capitalism surrounds us as a system of imposed relationships, and like all permanent communities, it feeds on the life blood of individuals, so long as those individuals succumb"
So right-wing libertarians never realize that they were in fact Communists.
Knew of the open field system or the obshchina/mir lately? If a warrior-aristocrat or a church official claimed lands commonly worked by peasants, then we called that social arrangement Feudalism.
But if a state's crony capitalist corporation, the Merchant Adventurers, claimed those "commonly owned" lands, then we just ignore the corporation's imposition, which ultimately failed, and called such an arrangement "communism" and pretended that the Plymouth Separatists willingly employed Communism themselves but failed.
If a capitalist claimed to own a factory in which all tools & raw materials are commonly worked upon by workers, whose activities are controlled by the capitalist in an authoritarian fashion, then we have "Capitalism." If the workers kick the capitalist away then we have "Communism." But even if the capitalist boss was replaced by government bureaucrats, & the workers shall have no control over the tools, the raw materials, & their own activities, we also have "Communism."
Your post is still incomprehensible. But whether or not the pilgrims were mass murderers, child molesters, or country western singers is all entirely beside the point.
Does Marxism espouse individual effort be directed to the collective? Yes. Did the colony's original program require individual effort to be directed to the collective? Yes. Does directing efforts toward the collective hamper production? Yes. Did the colony, for that reason, suffer unnecessarily (and disastrously) low production? Yes.
If you want to successfully attack a point, you must actually attack the point.
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"He pretends that what the Pilgrims replaced the original setup with" was more protective of private property and self-serving effort than both the original setup, and Marxian principles.
Alluding to the corporation administering the colony, or to any residual collectivist practices within the later colony, are obvious diversions unworthy of the usual intellectual rigor of this site.
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Stossel actually committed 2 historical mistakes: First, the Pilgrims are mostly Separatists, who were originally a sect of Puritans who wanted to practice their religion alone without interference. The Puritans proper were a notoriously coercive sect who wanted to impose their religion on everybody else. He confused the "laissez-faire" Separatist Pilgrims with the authoritarian Puritans proper. And 2nd, he forgot or chose not to mention the Merchant Adventurers, who had been chartered by the English government, claimed the land and imposed "Communism" on the Separatist Pilgrims (not the Puritans).
You want Communism? Apio Ludd will show you Communism: "Communism is already here. Capitalism is simply market communism: 'From each [worker] according to her ability, to each [capitalist] according to her need.' Thus, capitalism imposes service to the common good (i.e., to the ruling elite who represent “all”) on all those willing to remain slaves to a higher power. The community of capitalism surrounds us as a system of imposed relationships, and like all permanent communities, it feeds on the life blood of individuals, so long as those individuals succumb.
Within a capitalist firm, all the tools and raw materials are collectively worked on by the workers, and all the workers' individual efforts were directed towards the benefits of the head of collective-the capitalist.
The capitalist was the firm's ultimate central planner, & Kevin had argued elsewhere
that capitalist firms suffer the same incentive problem (why shall Dilbert work hard just to enrich the pointy-haired boss?) &
suffer the same knowledge problem (identified by Hayek) & internal transfer pricing problem (identified by Rothbard, incidentally): "Internally the corporation replaces market exchange with central planning. The simulated prices used by its internal accounting system, necessarily, are largely fictitious. Even when they use outside market prices as a proxy, the conditions under which those outside prices are set do not match the relations of supply and demand within the corporation. But more often, internal transfer prices are assigned to goods for which there is no outside market, like intermediate goods unique to a firm; in that case, the prices are based on cost-plus markup. (Hierarchy or the Market)
Lastly, no Viking warrior wore horned helmet in fight. Does the designer know that or shall s/he just resort to state sanctions so as to crush other competitors who depict Vikings realistically?
"Alluding to the corporation administering the colony, or to any residual collectivist practices within the later colony, are obvious diversions unworthy of the usual intellectual rigor of this site."
The Capitalism is highly collectivistic for the benefit of the collective's ultimate head, the individual capitalist.
If Viking Vista say that collectivism suffer the incentive problem (why shall I work hard so enrich somebody else, a boss, a government bureaucrat, or even my co-workers? so every one works less enthusiastically & all become poorer), then I find it quite funny that he attacks voluntary communism but he
(1) never minds that fact that most families are voluntarily communistic and many collectivistic workers' horizontal co-op work even better than many capitalist wage mills.
(2) He tries to deny that the Plymouth experience, wherein a government-chartered private corporation imposed collectivism on colonists, was actually crony capitalism, not individualist anarchism.
Murray Rothbard confirms Curl’s analysis. In chapter 18, volume 1 of _Conceived in Liberty_, he writes: “The Pilgrims formed a partnership in a joint-stock company with a group of London merchants, including Thomas Weston, an ironmonger, and John Peirce, a clothmaker. … Until that division, as in the original Virginia settlement, the company decreed a communistic system of production, with each settler contributing his all to the common store and each drawing his needs from it — again, a system of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ … A major reason for the persistent hardships, for the ‘starving time,’ in Plymouth as before in Jamestown, was the communism imposed by the company. Finally, in order to survive, the colony in 1623 permitted each family to cultivate a small private plot of land for their individual use.” (emphasis added)
"Marx wasn't even born yet in 1621. And 2ndly, he never invented the Marxian principle. He even acknowledge that he drew much of his ideas from Proudhon & many other early laisser-faire thinkers."
You guys are amazing. What the hell does that have to do with Stossel's comments or to anything that I posted, least of all my response to you? The diversions here astounding.
The principle of pursuing collective ends over individual ends is atemporal. All that matters is that it is principle of Marxism, it was a principle of the colony, and it did lead to great hardship for the colony due to underproduction, just as it has numerous times in overtly marxist communities.
It is incredible that you believe Marx's principles somehow worked differently pre-Marx than post-Marx.
It really doesn't matter that Stossel "forgot" to mention irrelevancies. He also didn't mention the Soviet space program or the NY Mets.
Your description of capitalism is absurd, but it is also quite irrelevant to the topic, so I'll not fall for your diversion.
Stossel's point is simply that the colony followed a marxian principle (they indeed did, and it matters not why they did or what they did afterwards), that it was the following of that principle that caused their hardship, and it was falling back from that principle that helped alleviate it. You have yet to directly attack Stossel's thesis (copied as it is, Stossel being a talk show host, and not a researcher).
"no Viking warrior wore horned helmet in fight."
Seriously? Look up "relevant" in a dictionary and tell me if it has ever applied to you.
"I find it quite funny that he [Viking Vista] attacks voluntary communism"
Where specifically? Do you find unicorns amusing as well? Or is it safe to say that the core of your error is not your inability to identify or follow an argument, but rather your odd belief that marxism is "voluntary communism".
"never minds that fact that most families are voluntarily communistic and many collectivistic workers' horizontal co-op work even better than many capitalist wage mills."
Exactly right. Unlike you, I "never mind" irrelevancies.
"He tries to deny that the Plymouth experience, wherein a government-chartered private corporation imposed collectivism on colonists, was actually crony capitalism, not individualist anarchism."
Again, where? Wherein do these odd notions in your head arise? Why would I even entertain the concept of "individualist anarchism" WHEN IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STOSSEL'S POINT.
It seems like you might have something interesting to say, but unless you put it into a relevant context, it just sounds like a thought disorder.
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But do most corporations require that women do household chores for men other than their husbands? Do most corporations require that workers all be paid equally?
In communism, people must unconditionally accept the distribution of goods by the elders of the commune (whether apostles of Jesus, nomenklatura or prophets) while in capitalism, workers can by harder work or investments come to own a bigger share of the corporation either through higher pay or higher benefits or quite literally through the accumulation of stock certificates. The result for this difference is that in true communism, individuals not only lack private property in ordinary goods but also lack private property in the commune itself since the elders whether democratically elected or not hold everything as a common trust, making a corporation a commune by eliminating individual prerogatives. (Thus when an Israeli kibbutz or 19th century American commune ends its communism once and for all, it does so by issuing stock certificates to its members.)
The colony followed Marxist principles? I know it's probably just semantic imprecision, but the aforementioned colony was settled in the early 1620s. Karl Marx was not born until 1818.
Nevertheless, you're missing the point of the analysis. Kevin is arguing that the policies of the colony were a reflection of the socio-economic relationships of the Ancien Regime (Old Order) wherein the manor's lord directs activity without input from those actually involved in production. He then argues that such a state of affairs is essentially what you have with the state-backed corporations of today.
I'd imagine the reason for this piece is that "libertarians" like Stossel tend to elevate modern corporations as the paragons of the "free market," when they are actually parasites on the belly of leviathan. People like Stossel then trot out historical examples like that of Plymouth to argue in favor of the current economic system, substituting some later development like Marxism for the real problem that just so happens to closely resemble the institutions of today. In other words, the old feudal order essentially gave itself a face lift and exists as modern corporate capitalism. But Stossel chooses to ignore that and pretends that an ideology that didn't even exist at the time is the cause of all the problems. This article is not a defense of Marxism. It is two things: a refutation of the notion that socialism was the problem with the colony and an argument that the real problem was an economic system that is a mirror image of what we have today.
No one is trying to refute the incentive problem. This isn't a defense of Marxist-style communism. What's being said is that typical feudal arrangements resemble typical modern corporate arrangements. The situation at Plymouth aligned along the typical feudal arrangements, which caused the problems in the colony. Hence, the problems at the colony were caused by arrangements that resemble modern corporate capitalism.
So corporate fishing boats are inefficient? I thought the general consensus amongst the left and amongst environmentalists is that they are too efficient (think overfishing)?
Overfishing is inefficient in the long run, if Garrett Hardin heeded your mentioned what should he have written? "Tragedy of the commons politically imposed on subordinate members of the commons to benefit the commons' heads?"
"WHEN IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STOSSEL'S POINT." What if it has?
(1) Common usage of productive means (e.g. lands, tools, etc) by workers exist under feudalism ("owned" by feudal lords), slavery ("owned" by slave-owners), capitalism ("owned" by capitalists), and bureaucratic Soviet-style communism ("owned" by all but "managed" by central-planners on "the people's" behalf).
When a state-charted, privately-owned corporation coercively imposed "Communism" upon the Plymouth colonists (forced them to hold all lands in common), Kevin rightly pointed out that this was closest to feudalism, when kings allowed lords to "own" lands commonly-worked by peasants (But if you study feudalism's history you should've known that peasants had been owning the lands, commonly and privately (both working out equally well), until kings "transferred land-ownership" to lords).
(2) Today governments always collude with privately-owned corporations to impose capitalism, in which all the productive means shall be "owned" by pointy-haired bosses and commonly worked on by Dilberts for the corporations' stock-holder, the pointy-haired bosses' benefits, so that's why the next closest example to Plymouth shall be crony capitalism, not USSR Communism.
(3) Communism was imposed by the Merchants Adventurers upon Plymouth colonists, not the colonists themselves, no where had Marx advocated imposing Communism upon workers, but rather that that workers will voluntarily embrace Communism (e.g. Communist Manifesto "proletariat organised as the ruling class," associations of free and equal producers" came from Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council (1866) and The Abolition of Landed Property (1869), so how can you blame Marx?
The definition of capitalism as Communism for the benefit of the Central Planner only, the capitalist, was by Apio Ludd, not me. Ludd was ironically pointing out that capitalism was highly collectivistic, all the productive means are "owned" by the collective's head-capitalists , and all other colletive's members must submit them selves to Herr Boss ueber Alles, who will reap all the benefits instead of distributing the benefits according to need (as in pure communism, coercive or voluntary).
The distinction between coercively-imposed capitalism and coercively imposed communism lies precisely in only that: the workers cannot get all their hard work's fruits: most of which will be robbed by the boss-central planner (within coercively-imposed capitalism) or will be distributed by the central planner according to need (within coercively imposed communism).
@HiddenAuthor:
"In communism, people must unconditionally accept the distribution of goods by the elders of the commune" Not always.
Yea, after years of toiling to enrich the state-backed pointy-haired bosses, many Dilberts can hope to "by harder work or investments come to own a bigger share of the corporation either through higher pay or higher benefits or quite literally through the accumulation of stock certificate," the same way a slave, by harder work to enrich the his owner, could've bought his freedom or even to become a slave owner himself; as a serf, by working harder for his landlords, but could always have fought for his landlord, to become a free knight, or even become a landlord himself.
Social Mobility justifies State-Imposed Inequality, eh?
And what about limited liability, a govt-sanctioned corporate welfare which only force corporations to pay not the full costs of their misdeeds, but only up to their individual members' investments? Head they reap windfall of profits, tail they lose.. not much.
"more protective of private property and self-serving"
Can you not read what Carson had written: European peasants, the Plymouth colonists' ancestors, had been working under the feudal system on both their lords' fields and their own fields (either pirvately or even commonly owned (think of the communal grazing lands)). Plymouth colonists preferred the system their ancestors had been enjoying, rather than being imposed communism by a government's crony corporation. Plymouth colonists hated not Communism per se, they hated coercively imposed Communism, whether by landlords (feudalism) or state's crony mercantile corporation (capitalism). So they worked less hard for the corporation, not for themselves, individually or collectively, and starved themselves.
Right-wingers like Stossel always left out the Corporation and never mentioned that Plymouth colonists enjoyed a mixed individualism-communism economy.
All of this reminds me of a quote:
“History is full of the chameleon qualities of the rich. How quickly the feudal Baron is metamorphosed into the landed aristocrat, and the landed aristocrat into the mine owner and the railway director. We find often the same family names cast for these varied parts across the centuries. And these people will control the new bureaucracy. They know which way the wind is blowing, and they are preparing for the change of direction.” —Oliver Brett, A Defence of Liberty, 1921
I suspect corporate fishing is quite efficient. (I'm not that familiar with it, but I do imagine there are plenty of layers of state aid and subsidy that makes it such.) However, I'm not so sure that efficiency should be our main criteria of whether or not something is desirable. Law enforcement would be much more efficient if we housed a cop in everyone's abode, but I suspect there wouldn't be many libertarians on board with that plan. Ultimately, I think that's the inherent problem with utilitarian ethics; it can lead us to conclusions that are just so painfully counter intuitive.