In an article on Charisma News, Dr. Eddie Hyatt explains how when the early Pilgrims landed in the US in 1620, they were arguably the first group to try socialism in America and the first to demonstrate how it would fail.

As they say, if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

A group of English businessmen had provided funding for the Pilgrim’s journey to America on the Mayflower, and as part of this financial arrangement for them as a group, the Pilgrims had to live with everything in common.

They worked on a plantation and everyone took home an equal share of the crop. They also equally shared anything that was attained through other forms of work such as fishing, trapping, and hunting.

And we know how well this system worked from a report provided by one of the colony’s early governors.

“William Bradford, who served as Governor of Plymouth for over 30 years, told of the challenges of this socialist system.” Hyatt explains. “Young men, he said, resented getting paid the same as older men when they did so much more of the work. As a result, they tended to slouch and give only a half-hearted effort since they knew they would receive the same, no matter how hard they worked.”

“The older men felt they deserved more honor and recompense because of their age and resented getting paid the same as the youngsters in their midst,” Hyatt continues. “Bradford said that the women often refused to go to the fields to work, complaining of headaches, and to have compelled them to go would have been considered tyranny and oppression.”

The system began to break down and threatened the very survival of the colony because it destroyed innovation and hard work.

After much prayer, the group decided it needed a different approach, that would require them to break from their previous financial arrangement if the colony was going to survive.

Similar to what happened when Israel entered the Promised Land, each family was given an allotment of land to work and develop, with the resulting harvest serving as their personal reward.

This change dramatically transformed the community, and the young men, older men, and women were now willing to work because they saw a tangible benefit to their labor.

They produced so much harvest that there was excess, allowing them to trade with each other and the Native Americans living in the area.

Some have suggested that the early church practiced socialism in Acts 4 and 5, when we are told that they had everything in common.

However, this was not an expression of socialism, but rather of generosity. These properties were not community-owned, because the individual believers still owned their own homes, businesses, and land.

But from time to time, they would sell their extra properties and bring the proceeds to the church for distribution to the poor, such as Jonas, a man from Cyprus, who sold land and gave it to the church (Acts 4:33-36).

Others undoubtedly did the same, but the individual members still owned the properties and gave from their wealth.

For Hyatt’s full article, READ: The Pilgrims’ Devastating Experiment With Socialism

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