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December
02
2024
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As You Are Waking Up.....
Some of you might remember my usual annual Thanksgiving missive, in which I put forward facts that many do not know, and which is only taught in schools where actual history is the subject of, well, history class. Studying history is an important -- indeed critical -- part of the human experience. We have long-wave cycles that approximate one human lifetime, or two generations, in large part because we do not pay attention to history or adulterate it to suit whatever preference might be going around society at a given time. This is a serious mistake because many times what we do as humans has undesirable -- or even disastrous -- consequences. If we memorialize this in some indelible form and then make sure others have access to it, and the next generations seek it out and consume it, there is a decent chance of avoiding having the same bad thing happen twice. Of course there are also good things that have happened and learning from them is desirable as well. But it is the disasters we should learn about and understand first if time is limited, simply because a pleasure you miss may be a disappointment, but a disaster averted may well be the difference between life and death. And thus it was with Plymouth Colony. The pilgrims had hoped to take two ships but complications meant only one actually went. Aboard were 101 passengers; of them 41 signed The Mayflower Compact. They voyage had originally intended to reach Virginia Colony but wound up at Cape Cod, battered by storms. The Wikipedia page is rather sparse on some of the details, as are many other Internet resources. But William Bradford's diary, the Governor, was not sparse in detail at all. The original bargain in the Compact was that the land was all to be in trust of the Colony, owned in common, and every person was accorded a share of common production of the colony. All were expected to participate in improving and producing upon it. If this sounds like socialism that's because it is; one is entitled merely by being, rather than only by doing, and the two are not coupled together in that if one produces less -- or nothing at all -- they are still entitled to their "fair share." As it turns out men did not wish to work to pay for another man's family when the other refused or was slower, whether intentionally or not, or simply had more mouths in his home than the other. The outcome was that those who were most-industrious and capable had no reason to excel as they received no additional reward for it. Fully half of the colonists died during the first winter from starvation and disease as a direct result of flagging productivity and the inability of the colony to feed itself. Facing near-certain extinction if another year went by under this scheme Bradford tore up that deal and instead accorded each remaining colonist an equal slice of the land to do with as they wished, and deemed that the production from said land and each Colonist's effort was their property rather than being owned collectively by the whole. Productivity wildly increased, the colony stabilized and grew, the colonists were rapidly able to retire their debt to the merchants across the ocean who had financed the crossing and soon attracted more immigrants forming a great migration from England. In fact the colonists became so prosperous that they had extra food in the late fall which they shared with those they were trading with in a large feast, mostly native Americans, as doing so would in no way endanger their survival where to have done so previously would have sealed their extinction. Indeed of those at the feast the majority were native Americans; the best estimate is around 90 of them, and since more than half of the 102 who landed at Plymouth perished in the first winter its clear that the Pilgrims were rather-roundly outnumbered. But they were not saved by that feast, they in fact threw it themselves, with Edward Winslow, one of the colonists, recording that they were "quite excited" to be out hunting geese and docks for said dinner and he bragged that the bay was full of lobster, so it is likely they were on the menu as well. History is not an exact science, and of course many people record the same event and in doing so often have differences of interpretation. Nonetheless it is a fact that the Pilgrims originally constructed a socialist society believing it would be a superior form of social and economic organization, it killed half of them and threatened to kill the rest, they decided to reject that path and by adopting instead the principles of capitalism and private property rights rescued themselves from all-but-certain extinction -- and instead found and maintained prosperity. America exists, all the way back to 150ish years before the Declaration of Independence, in no small part as a result of that decision and that is why today is called "Thanksgiving."
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I am making my way to Knoxville for the annual Turkey Trot after which I shall engage in the debauchery of good food and better Scotch.
Mr. Denninger is the former CEO of MCSNet, a regional Chicago area networking and Internet company that operated from 1987 to 1998. MCSNet was proud to offer several "firsts" in the Internet Service space, including integral customer-specified spam filtering for all customers and the first virtual web server available to the general public. Mr. Denninger's other accomplishments include the design and construction of regional and national IP-based networks and development of electronic conferencing software reaching back to the 1980s.