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Podcast: Townhall Review | Commentaries
Episode: Jerry Bowyer: The Colonists' Early Lesson on Economics
Description: The origin of Thanksgiving goes back to the Plymouth plantation, founded by the Pilgrims in 1620. You may have learned that in school, but I bet you didn't learn this in school: the original Thanksgiving came after the settlement abandoned socialism in favor of capitalism. It appears that the original charter adopted a form of communal ownership and required equality of income. You're probably not surprised that this led to starvation and, as a consequence, plague. After two years, the colonists did something which few socialists since have ever done since—they learned from their mistake, and instituted pr...