Today, we celebrate the most capitalist of holidays!
Four centuries ago, when the Pilgrims first settled in the New World, they arrived with a plan for collective property ownership. They believed that farmland should be worked communally, and the harvest shared equally among everyone.
Unsurprisingly, they starved. As Lawrence Reed wrote for the Foundation for Economic Education, “Everybody was happy to claim their equal share of production, but production only shrank. Slackers showed up late for work in the fields, and the hard workers resented it.”
After two years of death and misery, they made a critical change:
They divided the common property into private plots.
Owners could produce what they wanted and freely keep or trade it.
According to reports from the time, this change “made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” Suddenly, there was enough food not only to feed themselves but also to share with the Wampanoag.
Thanksgiving isn’t just a day of gratitude and togetherness—it’s also a reminder that pursuing self-interest, within the framework of freedom, is one of the greatest ways to benefit others.



