What follows is a true
story – actually, two true stories, or the same story that occurred in two
different places in very different times and circumstances. Read on to find out
where.
They had been discussing amongst themselves in pairs and
small groups for months, concerned with their poverty and lack of progress in
improving crop yields, so important to feeding themselves and building a
thriving community. What they’d been doing, it seemed, should have succeeded.
They all worked the same fields together – clearing, tilling, sowing, weeding,
and reaping – everyone in the same fields at the same time. Anyone who might be
weak in one skill should have had that weakness made up by others working
beside them, with everyone benefitting from everyone else’s unique abilities.
They all had a common purpose. But for the occasional
troublemaker, present in every community, they liked each other, helped each
other, and took care of each other when some among them fell ill. And,
everybody got an equal share of the yearly harvest, accounting for family size.
But something was amiss. Their harvests were meager, more meager than the
farmers knew they should be.
So they were finally all together, in the same room,
discussing the problem and deliberating what to do about it. They all agreed it
was not a problem of bad soil. Their problem was not a lack of knowledge or a
lack of skill. With accusations flying back and forth, they realized that none
of them was truly working as hard as he was capable of doing. But why?
Because they got the same share of the yearly output
regardless of their personal effort. It was easy to let others do the work and
still get a share, but since everybody saw it the same way, nobody was working
to their full capabilities.
The solution was simple. They’d divide the fields and work
their own plots individually, keeping the gains for themselves.
The next year, the harvest was bountiful, the best, in fact,
they’d ever seen. And since most had produced more than they could eat,
everybody had more because of trade.
_________________
This story has likely played out many times in many settings
for ages, but one instance is especially relevant for Thanksgiving because it
involved the Pilgrims,
that community of religious zealots who wanted to separate from the Church of
England and who founded Plymouth Colony. For three years, they practiced a form
of extreme socialism where all work was shared, including household chores
where women were assigned to cook communally and wash other families’ clothes. William
Bradford, the colony’s repeatedly re-elected governor, described this
briefly in his history, based on his diary. He relates no detail concerning
their deliberations before they decided to move away from socialism and to free
enterprise except to say that,
“after much debate, the Governor, with
the advice of the chief among them, allowed each man to plant corn for his own
household… So every family was assigned a parcel of land… This was very
successful. It made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was
planted than otherwise would have been… The women now went willingly into the
field, and took their little ones with them to plant corn, while before they
would allege weakness and inability; and to have compelled them would have been
thought great tyranny and oppression.”
Bradford continued:
“The failure of the experiment of
communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men
proves the emptiness of the theory of Plato and other ancients, applauded by
some of later times, — that the taking away of private property, and the
possession of it in community, by a commonwealth, would make a state happy and
flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For in this instance, community of
property (so far as it went) was found to breed much confusion and discontent,
and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit and
comfort.”
A year later, Bradford went on describe their circumstances
after moving to a free enterprise system:
“But before I come to other things I
must say a word about their planting this year. They felt the benefit of their
last year’s harvest; for by planting corn on their own account they managed,
with a great deal of patience, to overcome famine… The settlers now began to
consider corn more precious than silver; and those that had some to spare began
to trade with the others for small things, by the quart, pottle, and peck,
etc.; for they had not money, and if they had, corn was preferred to it.”
_____________
A continent and an ocean away, 355 years later, the same
story played out in a little village in China called Xiaogang. The same
communal service, at least in farming, was practiced, imposed by China’s
authoritarian Communist Party rather than by idealism. The same meager harvests
were suffered. The farmers grumbled and debated for years in the same way. And
they knew they were capable of so much more. So one day, after the farmers met
and decided to divide the land and farm individually, they wrote a contract.
Unlike the Pilgrims, who were self-governing, Xiaogang’s
farmers had to be concerned about what would happen if the Communist government
found out they were not farming collectively. So the contract had to be made
and signed in secret. Among its agreed provisions was a promise that if any of
their number were arrested for rejecting communal farming, the others would
raise the arrested man’s children.
The farmers of Xiaogang worked very hard, with renewed enthusiasm,
secretly competing with each other to produce the largest yields. When
Xiaogang’s harvest broke records for how plentiful it was, Communist
authorities knew something was amiss and investigated. But as it happened, Mao
Zedong was dead. Deng Xiaoping
was in power, and when the contract came to light, instead of being punished,
the farmers were held up as an example of a new way for China to proceed.
Today, that contract is held in reverence.
____________
These two stories, 355 years and thousands of miles apart,
teach us that all humans respond to incentives and are self-interested. Thus,
giving everyone equal shares as a way to guarantee security actually results in
poverty and insecurity. As William Bradford put it, rather than socialism, “God
in His wisdom saw that another plan of life was fitter for them.”
Byron Schlomach is Director of the 1889 Institute and can be reached at bschlomach@1889institute.org.
The
opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily
reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.