As we gather this Thanksgiving, it’s easy to get abundance for granted.  ,
Crumbs are almost guaranteed.
It was n’t always this way.  ,
For most of past, there were no Thanksgiving dinners. Hunger, if no hunger, was the norm.  ,
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Today, stores are stocked with wild food from all over the world. The majority of it is now more affordable than ever. Yet after President Joe Biden’s 8 % prices, Americans spend less than 12 % of our money on meals, half of what they spent 100 years ago.
Why?
Because free industry happened. Socialism happened.
Producers find new ways to grow more food on less territory when there is a rule of law and private property and people are confident that no one will steal their home. Cost-effective businesses can offer goods more quickly and efficiently. Customers have better alternatives.
But now, many Americans despise socialism and demand that everything be provided for equally.  ,
However, vacant store shelves and stronger people are present in nations where the government is most frequently intervening.
In communist Venezuela, cheap food is hard to find.  ,
In Cuba, federal was going to make all rich. But individuals suffered so much that, to avoid hunger, the Castros broke from socialist principles and rented out state-owned area to personal capitalists.
Around the world, there are still countless people who are hungry. The reason is often drought or “income disparity” or imperialism, but government control. Corruption, taxes, social self-dealing and short-sighted restrictions prevent food from reaching those who need it most.
This year, we celebrate the Pilgrims, who learned this lesson the hard way.
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When they first landed in America, they tried social life. The harvest was shared likewise. That seemed good.
But it failed badly. A few Travellers worked hard, but some did n’t, claiming “weakness and inability”, as William Bradford, the governor of the town, put it.  ,
They almost starved.
Determined, Bradford tried another technique. ” Every family”, he wrote, “was assigned a parcel of land” . ,
Personal house! Neoliberalism! Immediately, more travellers worked difficult.
Of course they did. They now have to maintain the products they created.  ,
Bradford wrote,” It made all hands pretty industrious”.
He spelled out the training” The loss of this study of social support, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men proves the emptiness of the theory… taking away of personal property, and the possession of it in community… would create a state glad and flourishing”.
Fast forward 400 years, and some Americans have forgotten what Bradford learned.  ,
I see why socialism is common. It seems good to have a large, pleasant social.  ,
But it brings crisis.  ,
Family meals already have plenty of disagreements– children combat, adults fight. Imagine how many outsiders may react to that.
Collectivist networks encourage dependency, restrict effort and spare resources.  ,
Similar to the collective conceit that almost starved the Pilgrims in China and the Soviet Union.  ,
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Most people will make as little as they may get away with when everyone is forced to follow the same program.
Economics call it the” horror of the parliament” referring to a typical plot of land, controlled by, say, animal owners. Each has an opportunity to breed more animal, which finally eat the common’s grass until all of it is gone, and all goes hungry.  ,
Each owner agrees to restrict the amount of grazing on his herd but that tomorrow’s sheep will have enough to have when the commons is divided into personal property.  ,
We thrive when people have a document to their home and are convinced that they can retain what they create, according to the same tenets that apply to many other aspects of our lives. Therefore they create more.
That’s what the Pilgrims learned: Opportunities problem. British abundance is the result of bourgeois ownership.
Every Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for free markets and personal home.  ,
They are the components of success.
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