I mentioned in a comment to this Webster's entry Jack Hampton's blatantly naked, false portrayal of the Mayflower Compact as America's first and failed attempt at socialism. I had determined, at that point and after some reflection, that it wasn't worth pursuing with Mr. Hampton a series of posts to correct him on his mistake, but changed my mind at length.
TM:
Jack Hampton wrote:
By the way the first experiment in socialism in this country came with the Pilgrims it was called the Mayflower Compact. It failed miserably.
Well, the Pilgrims did try socialism, and it did fail miserably as you say. But we don’t call that the Mayflower Compact. Or at least I don’t call it that.
Now, I don't think I was being disrespectful in the way that I challenged Hampton's false assertions about the Mayflower Compact. In point of fact, I was consciously doing my very best not to be disrespectful towards Mr. Hampton, albeit I did find his depiction of the Mayflower Compact to be ignorant at best, stupid at worst. But then again, given his uncanny ability to smell out a real racist 5,280 words off as demonstrated in his succinct, to-the-point reply to Lawrence Auster's post in the thread, what would make me think this uncannily sensitive nose of his wouldn't also pick up on the scent of the real motives beneath my 'respectful' challenge of his assertions on this particular point as well, notwithstanding my attempt to cover it up? Anyway, here is Mr. Hampton's wise-*ss reply to my critique of his comment:
Terry
That was what it was called. I guess you can call it a baseball game if you wish.
Well, I guess I had that one a-comin'. Nonetheless I replied in actual hopes of getting an answer:
No it isn’t what it was called. Who told you that?
And that's the question that I'd like to have answered -- where do these people get this stuff?
Well, after making my usual rounds this morning I got to thinking about it again and decided to pursue the question a bit further by Googling the search words "Mayflower Compact, America's first attempt at socialism." Below is a pertinent sampling of what came up:
zbdent (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-24-06 03:27 PM
Original message
Were you aware that the Pilgrims who died did so due to Socialism?
And not disease, nor the fact that a lack of good medical treatment, nor the fact that they landed in the Northeast at the early stages of winter and not being able to grow crops? (I've also heard about how they could have lived high on the hog if they didn't think that shellfish was evil - lobster, you know . . .)
This had the misfortune to print simultaneously in three Akron papers on Thanksgiving day, 2004 (Akron Beacon Journal, West Side Leader, and the Montrose Sun). Pretty much a "trifecta" . . . and all three papers printed it word-for-word, and had the exact same author.
Here's the drivel (which really dumbs things down to make a rightie point):"The story of Thanksgiving
This year, let's try to get the Thanksgiving story right. The Pilgrim fathers came to the New World so that they could be free to practice their religion the way they wanted to and to force everyone else to practice it that way, too. Before establishing their colony, they met together and signed the infamous Mayflower Compact, in which they pledged to work together, build common housing, till common fields, share alike in the resulting crops.
Not surprisingly, they found that this primitive form of socialism didn't work in practice. All were willing -- eager, even -- to share the output; but few were willing to work much for the benefit of others. Consequently, not much was produced, and all they shared were shortages and suffering. In fact, almost half of them died the first year from malnutrition and related illnesses.
Those who survived finally wised up, abandoned socialism and decided to let each family own and till its own fields and keep its own produce. This switch to a basically free-enterprise system paid off, and the resulting abundant harvests produced the country's first agricultural surplus. Then -- and only then -- they gathered together and celebrated the first Thanksgiving.
So let us not forget what this day really represents: a time to give thanks not only for the bountiful plenty that we enjoy; but also for the free-enterprise/free-market socioeconomic system that makes it possible."
We see in the first paragraph of the alleged article, allegedly printed in three separate Akron newspapers, Jack Hampton's understanding of what the Mayflower Compact was and what it entailed. Namely that it is responsible for the establishment of a tried-and-failed, and ultimately abandoned socialist system in Plymouth Colony. Indeed, the author of the alleged article goes further than Jack Hampton, attributing to the "infamous" Mayflower Compact these specific agreements between the signers -- that they pledged [therein] to work together, to build common housing, to till common fields, and to share alike in their resulting productions.
Methinks that Jack Hampton and the author of the article above would both do well to actually read the Mayflower Compact, rather than to rely on what they've gathered on the subject from various blogs and websites on the internet, then to arrogantly and dogmatically reverberate it as if it were indisputable documented fact. In which case, by the way, such people really do deserve, in my opinion, to be taken to the proverbial woodshed where they ought to, in a sane and just world, receive a good and thorough lashing for their apparent disdain of independent scholarship. After all, if there are no negative consequences for ill behavior, the behavior itself tends to get worse, not better.
Nonetheless, as I was reading the comments submitted under the post I was pleasantly surprised (pleasantly surprised because Democratic Underground is a far left message board, if you didn't already know it) to read a more accurate accounting in comment no. 17. To wit:
The Mayflower Compact did not create a socialist arrangement, it was a very short document for quasi-democratic rule, and was made on the voyage [TM: actually it wasn't made "on the voyage", which can only be taken to mean somewhere between Great Britian and the Eastern shores of America out in the middle of the Atlantic where the relatively healthy among them were preoccupied with taking care of the sick, and of generally trying to keep the Mayflower afloat] because of already existing factionlism. The agreement that made them "share" was the corporate contract with their financers, a joint stock company of Merchant Adventurers(in the original agreement most were not colonists), who were to supply the cost of their trip and manufactored needs, with payment from the colonists of all their work and specific trade goods, for seven year, at which time the corporate property would be divided. Many of the persons had no money to put up as part of this corporatist arrangment, so they were in fact signed indentured servants agreements for the seven years. Essentially this was originally a kind of Plantation organization, which the indentured servants didn't like much. This is where much of the strife and contention came from, and essentially they ended up with many financial woes and eventual reorganization of the joint stock company, where some of the colonist's bought up the shares. So far from socialism this was corporatist capitalism at it's worst.
Anyway, if you're a leftist, a 'moderate liberal' or some sort of right-liberal who has some kind of deeply ingrained adversarial opinion of the Mayflower Compact, what it allegedly states and the signers' reasons and intentions in organizing themselves into a civil body politic therein that some wild impulse tells you you have to share with everyone, allow me give you a free piece of advice that I think will serve you well: It might not hurt to read the actual document in conjunction with Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation before you go about exposing yourself, in front of God and everybody, as the ill-informed know-nothing that you are. In other words, take what you read on the internet and in the newspapers with a grain of salt. Trust but verify, as the saying goes, if in fact you feel you have any reason whatsoever to trust what you're being told in the first place.
But in any event, though I've yet to satisfactorily answer the question I asked in the title of the post, I may, however, have inadvertently established, within a fifty mile or so radius, the actual geographical position of Jack Hampton's residency, not to mention one or more of three newspapers that he reads with intense interest and credits with impeccably adhering to the highest possible journalistic standards of accuracy and truth in reporting. Pretty amazing stroke of luck, eh? Read More
