Cohousing-L Mailing List: Tragedy of the Commons

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Sorry about that last message. Here it is:

From Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, p 165:

The fall of 1623 marked the end of Plymouth [Plantation's]   
debilitating food shortages. For the last two planting seasons, the  
Pilgrims had grown crops communally -- the approach first used at  
Jamestown and other English settlements. But as the disastrous  
harvest of the previous fall has shown something drastic needed to be  
done to increase the annual yield,

In April, [Governor] Bradford had decided that each household should  
be assigned its own plot to cultivate, with the understanding that  
each family kept whatever it grew. The change in attitude was  
stunning. Families were now willing to work much harder  than they  
had ever worked before. In previous years, the men had tended the  
fields while the women tended children at home. "The women now when  
willingly into the field," Bradford wrote, "and took their little  
ones with them to set corn." The Pilgrims had stumbled on the power  
of capitalism. Although the fortunes of the colony still teetered  
precariously in the years ahead, the inhabitants never again starved.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Coauthor with John Buck of We the People
Consenting to a Deeper Democracy
A Guide to Sociocratic Principles and Methods
ISBN: 9780979282706
http://www.sociocracy.info