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Date Posted: 14:42:27 04/08/03 Tue
Author: Liberty
Subject: Re: Puritan Socialism
In reply to: Equity 's message, "Puritan Socialism" on 07:38:43 04/07/03 Mon

I'm afraid I am not familiar with "Puritan Socialism", however if there is anyone else on the board (this means you lurkers too :) ) who can share with us any additional information than that would be great.
Though I am not familiar with this particular bit of history, I am glad that it did fail. When the production and distribution of goods and services is owned collectively or controlled by a centralized government, the inevitable politicization and economic inefficiency follows. Now a capitalist economy does have it's rotten fruits. But they are few and far between compared to socialism which strip the people of competitive choice and individual responsibility. The idea of a government or society controlling my life from cradle to grave sends shivers down my spine.

>A few years ago I was listening to Alistair Cooke's
>"Letter From America". (Just to let you know this is a
>regular features broadcast by the BBC wherein the
>Eponymous Mr. Cooke gives a outline of events in the
>United States for a UK audience - with a brief
>explanation).
>
>At that time he spoke about some of the early Puritan
>settlers in the New World who initially attempted
>communal ownership of the land as a feature of their
>society. These failed and it was only when they
>adapted and engaged in individual ownership that they
>were able to produce enough to support themselves.
>
>Do you have any information on this period or books
>you can recommend?
>
>My reason for asking and the point of this post is
>that if there ever were a time for socialism to
>succeed it would be this one.
>
>(I am of the belief that the participants were
>dedicated - believing that they were doing God's will
>the levels of labour would be high and being puritans
>they would be unlikely to squander the gains on
>'worldly pursuits'. Also they had a high level of
>capital injection with the availability of land and
>other resources. Likewise any regime or opinion which
>was opposed to their thinking was many thousands of
>miles away so they would have little worries on that
>score. The indigenous population appear to have been
>ambivalent, even helpful, to the settlement and even
>if hostile it could be argued that the occasional
>Amerindian raid would have the effect of uniting the
>settlers. The only problem might be that of a lack of
>what is termed infra-structure so that would need
>investigating!)
>
>And yet despite all that, the experiment failed.
>Interesting!

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