The True Meaning of Thanksgiving

Richard Ebeling emails:

I have posted a new piece on Northwood's "Defense of Capitalism" blog on , "The True Meaning of Thanksgiving: The Birth of Private Enterprise in America."

The Pilgrim Fathers came to colonial America to escapte religious persecution in Great Britain, but also to establish a new type of society in the wilderness. They were determined to follow Plato's model in "The Republic," and create a communist utopia.

It lead to economic disaster, which was only overcome through the Plymouth Colony elders admitting their error, and instead "privatizing" the colony's property. By doing so they set loose individual initiative and market-based incentives. The result: a bounty in the wilderness rather than starvation.

It was this bounty for which they gave thanks. It was the birth of private enterprise in the New World.

At a time when belief in collectivism and paternalistic government is threatening to diminish even more of our shrinking freedom, we need to recall that this has all been tried before. And how it is the free individual, secure in his right to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property that is the basis of any and all the prosperity that we have in America and around the world.

Read the article here.