Below is an insightful and timely article from John Stossel about one of the forgotten lessons from the First Thanksgiving in 1623. It highlights the failure of communal, collectivist economic structures at their most basic levels. His point is that the communal economic structure built by the first pilgrims nearly led to the death and destruction of their community because of the lack of personal incentive and ownership in that type of economy. Their fortunes improved when they began to extend personal property rights, responsibilities and the accompanying expectations to the community. He uses Gov. William Bradford’s diary as a primary source.
A few interesting quotes from the article:
“The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That’s why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.”
“What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. The problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.'”
“What private property does — as the Pilgrims discovered — is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there’s a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.” (John Stossel 11/24/10)
Read the rest of the article here.
These lessons are easily forgotten but we must learn from the history of our country in order to continue the survival and improvement of our economy and country.
commonsense85
Truth and Common Sense 
I really like John Stossel’s writing. His book titled Give Me A Break was one of my first introductions to libertarianism. I thought that it was odd to see your post title though. The way I learned it, the tragedy of the commons is used as an argument against free markets because common renewable resources will often be exploited until they are destroyed. Take the example of wild fisheries in international waters. This common resource is unregulated and therefore can be exploited by any number of fishermen. If demand for a particular type of fish is high, the fishermen will exploit the fishery to the point where it is unable to renew itself, therefore destroying the resource. Atlantic cod fisheries have collapsed for this reason. Renewable freshwater aquifers are another example of a resource which is at risk due to the tragedy of the commons. It would seem that only regulation can avoid this problem.
Thanks for clarifying that point. I honestly didn’t do any research on the actual term and will do some now.
I also have always liked Stossel since he usually focuses on common sense issues.