Despite current industry woes, this Thanksgiving Day we have a tremendous amount to be thankful for. In addition to health, family, friends and freedom; we also have capitalism. While slightly out of vogue, this tarnished system is still the best one going and its concepts are heavily ingrained in our collective history. Take Thanksgiving for example.
When the pilgrims tripped over Plymouth Rock in 1620, they brought with them the concept of "farming in common." Here, as a community, farmers tilled the land together and shared equally in its harvest. This would make for a nice grade school lesson in sharing, except it didn't work. As any red-blooded American banker can surmise, thrifty individuals that worked hard resented those that did not. Discontentment and underproduction reigned, until finally, after 3 winters of near-starvation and the loss of half the colony, a new experiment was tried.
The mayor of Plymouth drew up a map and gave each family a plot of land to call its own. Of course, production increased by a factor of 5 the first year. As was noted at the time, "Private land made all hands industrious" and "Each family, attempting to better its standing in the community, increased the hours worked on each plot." After the first spring of this experiment, by the fall of 1623, families had enough extra crop production to share in a "day of thanksgiving," "proclaimed to thank God for good fortune." The following year, families specialized even more and produced such a bountiful harvest that, in addition to having the traditional feast, they started trading excess corn and wheat for furs, spices and goods. Commerce flourished and the concept of private land (and nascent capitalism) was solidified in American tradition.
On this Thanksgiving Day, we are thankful for our health, those around us (including our readership) and for our good fortune. We also acknowledge our most basic desire to get ahead in life, which helps create much of the bounty we enjoy. Like the Pilgrims back in 1623, sometimes harvests are simply a matter of putting in place the proper incentives.