We are in the 250th year of America. Of course, on July 4, 2026, we will celebrate the birth of the nation, because two-and-a-half centuries earlier to the day, 56 men in the 2nd Continental Congress in Philadelphia unanimously agreed by voice vote to accept the final wording of the Declaration of Independence.
Our nation’s birth certificate notes famously that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. The “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
But since that time, anti-Christian ideologies---most notably communism---have arisen, declaring there is no Creator. And ultimately, what have they given us? Death, tyranny, and the pursuit of the border (to flee).
One of my favorite indictments of communism came from two former “fellow travelers.” Former communist Eugene Fox-Genovese, who, along with his wife Elizabeth, had been the editor of Marxist Perspectives.
When the Soviet Union finally imploded, Eugene told interviewer Frederica Mathewes-Green in National Review (2/24/1997): “When it all collapsed, the question was, after seventy years, what do we have to show for it? Especially when it became clear that, even on a basic level, the system didn’t deliver the goods, the one thing it was supposed to do. So what we had to show for it was tens of millions of corpses.”
A quote attributed to Winston Churchill says, “Capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth. Socialism is the equal distribution of misery. And communism is socialism with a gun at your back.”
Sooner or later, all socialist schemes have to involve force in order to be implemented. As Dr. Paul Kengor, noted author on communism, told me recently in a radio interview that when it comes to socialism, here is their modus operandi: “First they suggest. Then they shove. Then they shoot.”
Amazingly, there was a type of communism or socialism imposed on the Pilgrims, who settled Plymouth in December 1620, by those who lent them the money for the voyage of the Mayflower. And as always, it didn’t work. And it caused some to starve to death.
One of the stipulations of the London Adventurers who had lent money to the Pilgrims for the expedition was that everyone in the colony was to receive exactly the same amount…the same amount of reward, no matter how much work he or she did. The problem with this imposition is that those who worked hard were paid just the same as those who chose not to work at all. This common-store stipulation undercut productivity immensely.
In a short video segment I made for Providence Forum on the Pilgrims and socialism, guest Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, remarked: “The Pilgrims did experiment with socialism or communalism, and they realized it didn’t work. They embodied this. It didn’t take long to realize that doesn’t work. It is against human nature. The moment you tell people that the community will take care of you, they work less. It undermines character.”
In 1989, for a Coral Ridge Ministries television program, I had the privilege to interview an elderly Pilgrims descendant and historian, Dr. Robert M. Bartlett, at his home in Plymouth.
In his 1971 book, The Pilgrim Way, Bartlett summarizes well the Pilgrims’ experiment in socialism: “The communal system set up by the Adventurers proved a fiasco. The young men did not want to work for the wives and children of the older men. The good worker received no more than the poor worker. The wife disliked washing clothes and dressing meat for others outside her home. The idea of all to have alike and do alike led to discontent and confusion.”
He continues, “So in 1623 [Plymouth Governor William] Bradford and his assistants decided to assign every family a parcel of land to cultivate on their own. The new system was an immediate success. Even the women and children went into the fields to plant and reap. Thus, private enterprise initiated a new era.”
Historian Bill Federer quotes the conclusion Gov. Bradford came to after this disastrous economic experience foisted on them: "The failure of that experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years [1620-1623], 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 it they were wiser than God.”
In contrast with socialism and its entitlement mentality---the state owes me something, regardless if I work or don’t---is the thanks-giving mentality. God is the source of our blessings. To Him we should all give thanks. It’s a timeless lesson. Why do different generations seem to have to learn it over and over again? Thanksgiving is not a by-product of socialism.
