Fewer than half of the population of England and Wales have described themselves as Christian for the first time, the 2021 census has revealed.  The census question broadly asked “what is your religion” – referring to people’s affiliation, rather than their beliefs or active religious practices.

 “Where is the essence of humanity when every single day Roma people are excluded from society?” –  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

Roma in Europe have a lower life expectancy and a higher child mortality rate than non-Roma people, according to a new report by the European Roma Grassroots Organization.

It documents the living conditions of Roma and Sinti communities shows they are Europe’s largest, and most disadvantaged, minority.

The report notes that Roma experience significantly unequal treatment in the health care sector. One in five members of the Roma community suffers from chronic disease, while one in four does not have health insurance. The data was drawn from national studies and found that the Roma community has severe difficulty accessing health care services in numerous EU member states.

Conditions have not improved since the 2020 EU Roma Strategic Framework for Equality, Inclusion and Political Participation. In fact, the COVID pandemic appears to have exacerbated the situation.

 Living conditions in Roma communities were indicative of how state bodies functioned, said Elvis Memeti, the national Roma contact point for North Macedonia.

“The gap in living conditions, infrastructure, education, organization and functionality of the system in provision of public goods and services between Roma and non-Roma is increasing,” he said.

Adriatik Hasantari of the organization Roma Active Albania in Tirana pointed out racism and antiziganism were still prevalent throughout the system and handed down from one generation to the next, independent of political convictions.

“Imagine a kid who was evicted from its home already several times by the age of five,” said Hasantari. “How should this person ever build trust in the system or contribute to it later?”

Dejan Markovic from the Serbian Roma Forum in Belgrade pointed to data from the recent report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.

“Today still more than half, 61%, of the Romani population has no access to adequate housing or water, one third, 31%, of the children suffer because they don’t have proper food to eat,” he said. “The reason is the lack of political will to really make a change.”

Aleksandra Bojadijeva from the Regional Cooperation Council added that to date, only symptoms — not the root causes — had been addressed.

“It’s high time to tackle antiziganism, as it is the root cause of everything that has happened to Roma in the past centuries.”

Roma, Sinti report exposes discrimination, political inertia – DW – 11/27/2022

Videos that went viral in China last month showed FoxConn workers fleeing factories in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, to escape lockdowns ordered due to COVID-19. FoxConn is a Taiwanese-owned company that plays a large role in global iPhone production and is one of Taiwan’s major tech giants. FoxConn founder Terry Gou is one of Taiwan’s richest men and has made forays into politics in recent years, such as seeking the Kuomintang’s presidential nomination in 2020. 

In light of China’s continuing COVID-zero policies, migrant factory workers at FoxConn’s massive Zhengzhou complex were to be quarantined last month after traveling home by bus. But to avoid quarantines, some workers have instead taken to walking home, trekking across fields and roads on foot. 

For its part, FoxConn stated that it will not prevent workers who want to leave their factories from doing so. Local governments have urged workers to inform them that they are departing, but FoxConn workers feared being tracked down by state security forces. Some local residents set up stations to help traveling FoxConn workers. 

FoxConn has 200,000 workers at the Zhengzhou complex, which is responsible for close to half of global iPhone production. It is not clear how many workers have COVID-19 and are to be quarantined. Zhengzhou has a population of six million. Other cities in central China, including Wuhan, have seen COVID waves in November, as have Hainan and Xinjiang Provinces. 

Since the wave of FoxConn workers fleeing their jobs, however, the situation further escalated earlier this week, with workers clashing with state security forces.  This was in reaction to new regulations requiring workers to stay in their positions until March 2023, working through the Lunar New Year holiday, or else forfeit their bonuses.

The situation facing FoxConn workers illustrates the precarious situation of migrant workers during COVID-19. Given China’s adherence to COVID-zero, migrant workers have been locked away in crowded dormitories, in unsanitary conditions, as a response to clusters of COVID-19 cases. 

This perhaps more broadly points to how migrant workers are treated as disposable sources of labor by capital. Migrant workers were treated much the same way in Taiwan after clusters appeared at electronics factories in Miaoli, with migrant workers remaining confined to their dormitories even after the clusters subsided. There was a clear racial component to this treatment, seeing as migrant workers in Taiwanese electronics factories were mostly from southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, in either context migrant workers are treated as disposable “low-end populations” to be thrown away when providing for their care proves inconvenient. 

The treatment of migrant workers in China has made international headlines several times in recent years, such as the mass evictions of migrant workers in November 2017. This took place after a fire that killed 17, subsequently used as a pretext for migrant worker evictions at a time when the Chinese government was aiming to institute population controls in Beijing. 

In the case of FoxConn, the Chinese government has intervened to benefit the Taiwanese tech giant by facilitating its mass recruitment of migrant workers. This is a case of collusion between the state and capital at the expense of workers. Indeed, FoxConn simply seeks to maximize its profits at the expense of workers, Taiwanese or Chinese alike. After police told people not to chant “no more lockdowns” they began chanting “more lockdowns” and “I want to do COVID tests” pic.twitter.com/R8Y29TRFwa— Vivian Wang (@vwang3) November 27, 2022

Since the Zhengzhou clashes earlier this week, the situation escalated further following a fire killed residents in an apartment block in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Province. People were especially angry that firefighters were unable to enter the building, whose residents were locked inside as part of restrictive quarantine measures. 

In the wake of the Urumqi fire, public outrage has spilled out into demonstrations in major Chinese urban centers. Protests have taken place Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Urumqi, Szechuan, and other places. Many demonstrators have taken to holding blank sheets of paper, seeing as the Chinese government has punished people holding signs with slogans. 

In Shanghai Urumqi Street was a major site of protest. City authorities responded by removing street signs showing the name of the street, evoking much mockery online. Images of the protests have quickly become iconic, including an image of a lone man and woman confronting amassed police. 

Both the Zhengzhou protests and the Urumqi blaze were precipitating events for the current protests. Outrage is directed against the restrictions associated with COVID-zero policies, with protesters calling for an end to testing and lockdowns. Particularly in light of the fact that Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang, the fire also shows how underprivileged groups, such as Uyghurs and migrant workers, have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-zero policies.

Some protests have spilled over into demands for democracy and freedom of speech and calls for Xi Jinping to resign. It is probable that multiple demands overlap within the present protest, including more direct opposition to the CCP and specifically an end to COVID-zero. The protests are thought to be the largest demonstrations in China since the 2011 Wuhan protests and perhaps since Tiananmen Square in 1989. 

That the protests have not yet been put down may indicate that the CCP leadership is evaluating its options. Spontaneous solidarity rallies have been held in Taiwan and other countries.  

At this movement in the chilly winter night, Shanghai people are chanting on the downtown street: “We don’t want dictatorship, we want democracy.” After 3 years of suffering from lockdown & control of society, people are angry.  pic.twitter.com/AZRFh6bbiE

— Vivian Wu (@vivianwubeijing) November 26, 2022

While the Chinese government may be pushed to relax COVID-zero policies, this will necessarily lead to an uptick in cases, which China is less equipped to deal with because the authorities do not appear to have spent the time bought by adhering to COVID-zero to build up medical capacity in preparation for an eventual transition away from COVID-zero and because Chinese-produced vaccines are less effective. Major Chinese cities were already seeing an uptick of cases before the protests broke out. Moreover, the Chinese government has tried to avoid importing more effective Western vaccines – a manifestation of “vaccine nationalism.”

It may have been the hope of the Chinese leadership to maintain COVID-zero indefinitely, since it may fit their purposes to put increasing distance between China and the rest of the world. The economic shockwave that results from the eventual uptick in cases will have large ramifications and deal a further blow to the political legitimacy of the present CCP leadership, which has staked so much on COVID-zero. 

Thus, whatever the outcome of the protests, unrest can be expected to continue.

Source. Brian Hioe, Protests Take Place Across China, New Bloom: Radical Perspectives on Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, 11/28/22. 

Protests across China – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

 According to UNICEF, Pakistan has nearly 19 million child brides. 

The UN children’s agency estimates that around 4.6 million were married before the age of 15 and 18.9 million before they turned 18.

Yasmin Lehri, a former lawmaker from Baluchistan’s capital Quetta, said almost all girls in rural and tribal areas of the province were married before the age of 18.

“In urban areas, because of growing awareness, girls are married at 18 or older but in the rest of the province the situation is very grim,” she said. 

Lehri explained that poverty and economic factors played a significant role, with young girls often exchanged between families to work as laborers.

Pakistani lawmaker Kishwar Zehra said the country’s religious right was the biggest opposition to a law stipulating a minimum marriage age.

“When a bill setting an age limit was presented in the national assembly’s committee, it was strongly opposed by religious-minded lawmakers,” she explained.

Maulana Sherani, a former chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, has publicly opposed any law setting the minimum age of marriage for girls. The council advises the government on the compatibility of legislation with Islam. In 2014, the council declared child marriage restraint laws “un-Islamic.”

When a bill establishing a minimum age was presented in the Baluchistan assembly, religious parties also opposed it.

Why underage marriages are still prevalent in Pakistan – DW – 11/27/2022

 “A toxic mix of crises — conflicts, climate, skyrocketing costs, and the ripple effects of the Ukraine war – are inflicting a devastating toll on the forcibly displaced. This is being felt across the world, but women and girls are particularly suffering,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, explained.

Many refugees and internally displaced people are unable to meet basic needs, owing to inflated prices and limited humanitarian assistance precipitated by disrupted supply chains and shortfalls in funding.

Displaced women and girls are often the most vulnerable. Faced with food shortages and surging prices, many women and girls are being forced to take gut-wrenching decisions to survive.

“With savings depleted, many are skipping meals, children are being sent to work instead of school and some may have no options but to beg or engage in the sale or exchange of sex to survive. Too many are facing heightened risks of exploitation, trafficking, child marriage and intimate partner violence,” said Grandi.

There is a shocking, pernicious cycle of hunger and insecurity, each exacerbating the other and fuelling risks to women and girls, as harmful coping strategies are adopted across communities. Reports of girls being forced into marriage to allow the family to buy food are especially shocking. In the East and Horn of Africa, child marriages are on the rise, as a way of alleviating the strain on household income. Sexual violence risks are also aggravated by the drought, with women and girls being forced to trek longer distances to collect water and firewood.

Among refugee populations in Algeria, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Niger, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo and Zambia, UNHCR has recorded serious nutrition concerns. These include acute malnutrition, stunting, and anaemia. Across eastern and southern Africa, more than three-quarters of refugees have seen food rations cut and are unable to meet their basic needs. 

Inside Syria, 1.8 million people in displacement camps are severely food insecure, while nine in 10 Syrian refugees in Lebanon are unable to afford essential food and services.

Across the Americas, half of those forcibly displaced eat only two meals a day, with three quarters reducing the quantity or quality of their food, according to UNHCR data.

 Major deteriorations in food security are projected in Yemen and the Sahel, and millions of internally displaced people in countries like Somalia and Afghanistan live in situations where 90 per cent of the population are not consuming enough food.

UNHCR warns rising tide of hunger, insecurity, and underfunding worsening gender-based violence risks – World | ReliefWeb

 The vast majority of households in some vulnerable groups – including some 70% of pensioners – will be spending a tenth or more of their income on fuel from April, when support for energy costs will be reduced. 

However, the number of households paying 30% or more of their income on fuel will double from April, from 1.6m now to 3.8m. 

The number of households paying a fifth of their income on fuel is projected to rise from 3m to 7.5m. 

Overall, two-thirds of British households will be spending 10% or more of their income on fuel within the next six months. 

96% of lone parent families with two or more children and over 85% of all couples with three or more children will be in the same situation by April spending 10% of their income on fuel – seen by some as the benchmark for fuel poverty. 

“People are worse off and 2023 is going to be worse than 2022,”  former prime minister Gordon Brown, warned. The figures produced by York University’s social policy unit he said showed a “scale of the increase is staggering”, and that a “black hole in provision” remained.

Brown said 2023 was shaping up to be a year of far worse hardship across the UK than 2022. “Moving from October’s hardships to even more austerity in April will be very painful for the majority of families,” he writes in a forthcoming pamphlet called How To Survive This Winter.

Nearly 7 million of Britain’s poorest people are paying extra for these basic goods and services. This “poverty premium”, including areas such as the price of credit, prepayment meters and shopping in smaller amounts, could be costing such families about £480 a year, according to a study by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) thinktank. It found that a third of low-income households pay more for their electricity because they use prepayment meters or pay upon receipt of a bill, compared with 20% of all households. They are twice as likely as the average family to shop in pricier small supermarkets. About 29% of those paying at least one poverty premium say they are skipping meals to afford fuel.

Even the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said there was “something deeply unsettling about those with the least having to pay more than those with the most for life’s most basic essentials”

Millions of households will be spending nearly third of income on fuel by spring | Fuel poverty | The Guardian

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) exposes that the most deprived areas of England are being hardest hit by the cost of living crisis as the consumer prices index inflation rate hit 11.1% in October.

Those in England’s most deprived districts more frequently reported spending less on food and essentials in the fortnight up to 20 November, 58% saying so compared with a third of those living in the least deprived areas.

The ONS used the index of multiple deprivation (IMD) to classify areas into five groups, ranging from the most deprived to least deprived fifth of areas. The IMD takes into account key factors such as income, education, health and crime to determine the deprivation of an area – with cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Hull and London being home to some of the most deprived neighbourhoods.

People living in the most deprived fifth of areas in England were more likely to be worried about the rising cost of living, at 84%, compared with 70% of those in the least deprived areas.

 More than three-fifths among those living in the most deprived fifth of areas of England said they found it difficult to pay energy bills in the latest period in November, and a tenth said they were behind on their bills.

While, just over a third of people living in the most affluent areas said they faced affordability difficulties, and only 2% said they were behind on their bills.

Earlier this month the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, said higher inflation was hitting lower income households harder because a bigger proportion of their spending went on essentials such as food and energy. He said: “Inflation is bad for the least well-off generally and this inflation is particularly bad. The reason is that it’s concentrated on energy and food – these are the essentials of living.”

Cost of living crisis hitting England’s most deprived areas hardest, ONS says | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

Figures for 2020, just released by the European Environment Agency, show Fine particleair pollution led to 238,000 premature deaths in the European Union.

The same report says exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) above the WHO’s recommended threshold led to 49,000 premature deaths in the EU in 2020.

Acute exposure to ozone (O3) caused 24,000 people to die early.

In 2020, 96 percent of the EU’s urban population was breathing concentrations of fine particles above the WHO’s limit of 5 microgrammes per cubic metre of air. Fine particulate matter is the technical term for microscopic dust grains spewed into the atmosphere by car and aircraft engines, and by coal-fired power stations. The tiny size of the particles enables them to travel deep into the human respiratory tract, worsening the risk of bronchitis, asthma and lung disease.

Air pollution kills 238,000 Europeans prematurely (yahoo.com)

From the March 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

OUR OBJECT:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

This is a clear definition of socialism. Nothing to do with rationing everything out so that we all get exactly the same. Nothing to do with sharing a coat, eating off the same plate, living in a commune or going back to primitive times. What will be commonly owned will be the means and instruments that produce the things all human beings need to live: land, factories, mines, energy resources, transport, machines, tools, raw materials. Social ownership is the only proposition entirely in line with the technological age: everything else is hopelessly inadequate and antiquated.

Socialism is a society where everyone will stand in equal relation to everything that is produced; where everyone will be able to contribute to running life according to their own willingness and aptitude and take freely from the available wealth. It has long been possible for this next stage in human evolution. A society with no leaders, no governments, just a totally democratic and harmonious administration for the good of all. No buying and selling, no exchange, no money. A society where goods are produced solely for use and not for sale and profit as today.

OUR PRINCIPLES:

1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e. land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

This is a straight definition of the world system we live under: capitalism. There are basically only two classes. If you are dependent on an employer for a wage or salary in order to maintain your standard of Living, then you are working class (whether you wear a tie, overalls, uniform or whatever). The capitalist class, the owners of the means of production and distribution, have no need to work because they live off the profits they obtain from the wealth produced by workers. There is in reality no such thing as the middle class: it is a myth.

2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.

One section of society, the vast majority, always have to struggle to maintain or improve their standard of living; the other small owning section, the capitalist class, is always doing its utmost to keep wages down so as to keep profits up. And there can be no doubt whatsoever that this difference of interests exists. Trade unions prove the point. Strikes, lock-outs, go slows, works to rule, overtime bans. All workers—brain labour-power and manual labour-power—are forced at some time or other to consider taking some kind of action to back up wage claims, claims which are always resisted by the employers. It is perpetual antagonism the world over.

3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

All efforts to try and make the capitalist system work in the interests of all people have failed. A glance at the history of the last 150 years bears this out. In fact, these principles—unaltered since their introduction in 1904—prove that nothing in the structure of society has fundamentally changed. Many varieties of the capitalist system have been tried and all have failed to serve the needs of the majority. Absolutely none of them works; not one of them provides a fulfilling and rewarding existence for even a sustained period of time. Labour, Liberal, Conservative, Communist . . . every single one is a disaster because very single one is trying to run an inhumane system. The only logical thing to do is to reject the whole useless and out-dated system, a system where most people in a world of potential abundance have to constantly worry about money, have to do without one necessity so as to afford another; where old people die of cold because they can’t afford fuel; where desperately ill patients suffer because they can’t afford treatment. A system where millions are malnourished and even starve to death because they can’t afford food, which is often deliberately burned or dumped as unprofitable; where thousands go homeless because they can’t afford the rent or can’t obtain a deposit and yet there are bricks, sand, cement, tools, machines and manpower in superabundance. A system where millions are bored sick unemployed and bored sick in employment. How can there honestly be anything said in the system’s favour?

4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.

Once the majority of the working class—which, remember, means everyone who works for a living—realises its own position and acts accordingly, then it will mean the freedom of everyone whether black, white, yellow, man, woman and child. Simply because it is the wage-slave class — the class you and we belong to — who make up the vast majority of the world’s population.

5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

The capitalist class doesn’t need another system—it’s doing alright with this one. So it’s clear that the employers are not going to bring it about. And neither can some kind of enlightened elite or arrogant intellectual working-class-hero types masquerading as leaders bring it about for the rest of us either. It’s just not possible. That’s why socialists totally reject all concepts of leadership and why we are one hundred per cent a democratic organisation, where each has an equal right to contribute opinions. Only knowledge and understanding coupled with conscious, democratic political commitment by the large majority can possibly bring world socialism about. To believe otherwise is to delude yourself.

6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of a nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

Once the majority understand and want socialism, have deliberately organised within the socialist movement, and have placed in Parliament—and its equivalent in other countries—democratically elected delegates, then there will be absolutely no problem. It will be as simple and straightforward as that. For how could a minority capitalist force stand the remotest chance against the socialist majority? Who would do their fighting for them? This is why we reject political violence, not on pacifist grounds but because it is completely unnecessary, damaging and futile. The act of voting is the only way, since this is how affairs in the new society will be conducted. Forget all about ends justifying means; power obtained by violence can only be maintained by violence and force. The truth is that the means condition the end.

7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

You cannot be on two sides at once. You either want, work and vote for socialism alone, or you want capitalism one form or another. Vote Labour, Liberal, Tory, Communist or any of the left-wing groups and you will get capitalism. So instead of wasting your time and energy tampering about with the system, go straight to the root cause of nearly every problem you can think of capitalism itself and concentrate solely on its global abolition and replacement with socialism.

8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain therefore enters the field of political action, determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality and slavery to freedom.

It is war—a class war—and we are the only socialist party in this country (there can only be one socialist party in any country), no matter what others may call themselves. We are in total opposition to all other parties because not a single one of them can ever abolish this system, no matter what they claim. Ours is not a war of bombs, bullets, street-fighting or any form of mindless violence, but a war in which our weapons are irrefutable facts. We expose all who deal in myth, illusion, ignorance and deceit. No problem is fully solved under capitalism by the time one is half-solved another presents itself, and by the time this one is half dealt with the original is festering again. Poverty, war, hunger, homelessness, hardship, monotony. So long as capitalism lasts so will these.

So there you have it—clear, straight and uncompromising. You agree that socialism is a highly desirable proposition. You agree that it is a straight choice. You agree that this new world can only come about when a majority understand and want it. Now make your choice. Join us and help to bring a sane and harmonious society all the closer. Don’t wait for others to do it—they may be waiting for you. 

Paul Breeze

History does matter, which is why people in power put so much energy into controlling it. Now is the time to embrace truth, dispel the mythical fairy-tale of Thanksgiving, and reveal the harsh reality of land-grab, betrayal, brutality, and genocide. The Thanksgiving holiday is meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of America is a result of the pillaging and plundering of an entire people for their resources.

In 1620 the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod in Massachusetts with 102 men, women, and children. They are presented as religious dissenters seeking freedom to worship, but they had already enjoyed that liberty for almost a decade in the Dutch city of Leiden. What drove them to cross the ocean was the search for economic opportunity and they obtained permission and funding from the London Company of Virginia to establish a colony.

One of the commonly accepted stories of Thanksgiving Day has it that the early settlers at Plymouth first had a system of collective ownership of farmland, which led to famine. So they discarded this system in favor of private ownership, which made farming more productive. The harvest was bountiful and a feast was held in celebration of free enterprise.

In 1623 the system of collective ownership known as the ‘common course’ was indeed abandoned in favor of private property — not, however, because of a famine but because the settlers wanted to make more money.

William Bradford, the colony’s first governor, writes that the communal lifestyle was ‘found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment … for the Young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.’ After every family was assigned their own parcel of land to farm, ‘this had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’

Historian Nick Bunker explains in his book Making Haste From Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World that ‘all the land in the Plymouth Colony, its houses, its tools, and its trading profits (if they appeared) were to belong to a joint-stock company owned by the shareholders as a whole.’

He says: ‘Under the terms of the contract … for the first seven years no individual settler could own a plot of land. To ensure that each farmer received his fair share of good or bad land, the slices were rotated each year, but this was counterproductive. Nobody had any reason to put in extra hours and effort to improve a plot if next season another family received the benefit.’

While Bradford assigned plots of land for the use of individual families in 1623, actual private ownership of land in Plymouth had to wait until several years later when the colonists had paid off the mortgage held by their financial backers in London. Thus no private freehold property was owned by the colonists in Plymouth before 1627.

Plymouth’s private property began not in 1623 but in 1627–28. The rearrangement of land distribution in 1623 did not grant property; it assigned non-rotating usage rights for an unspecified period that ended four years later (when the grants were continued as private property). The Pilgrims’ trip to the New World was financed by the Merchant Adventurers, an English company that sought to profit off the colony.

But the plan was in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than members of a socialist society.

‘It was directed ultimately to private profit,’ says Richard Pickering, another historian of early America and deputy director of Plymouth Plantation, a museum devoted to the Pilgrims’ story.

It was the powerful English capitalists to whom the Pilgrims were indebted. Later settlements were funded by the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth. The Pilgrims, regardless of their deep-seated religious beliefs, would never have been able to travel across the ocean were it not for the blessing of business elites. As Marx pointed out, it was not the quest for religious freedom but the discovery of gold and silver in the Americas that led to their colonization, which began well over a century before the Pilgrims even arrived.

The settlers at Plymouth were rebelling against the conditions set by their sponsors, not against the strictures of some collective farm or religious commune.

Pickering, an expert on the Pilgrims, points out that the ‘common course’ was abolished not because it did not work — it actually worked just fine — but rather because the colonists simply did not like it.

Pickering attributes the colonists’ discontent mainly to ‘the fact that the Plymouth colony was bringing together settlers from all over England at a time when most people never moved more than 10 miles from home. They spoke different dialects, had different methods of farming, and looked upon each other with great wariness.’

Moreover, the Pilgrims later became more prosperous not because they became capitalists but rather because they had learned how to farm new crops on new land to which they had only just moved a few years before. They were not used to growing food in a different climate and in a different kind of soil. Were it not for the help of the local Wampanoag tribe, many Pilgrims would have succumbed to hunger. The newcomers learned how to survive from people who had no private property and worked collectively for the common good.

The Wampanoag, ‘people of the first light,’ paid a heavy price for providing help. They were an obstacle to the Virginia Company’s plan. Later Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop had a solution: steal their land. Naturally, they did not like that idea and resisted. Winthrop then devised a simple policy: mass murder. English colonist John Mason oversaw the slaughter of entire villages.

Thanksgiving became an official public holiday during the Civil War, but none of the essential narratives of today’s celebration was mentioned in Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation: not the Mayflower, nor the Pilgrims, nor the Natives, nor any shared feast. 

Thanksgiving Myths – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)