The Pilgrims were not communists or socialists. The Pilgrims, were more like the beginnings of the modern day corporation. They were bank rolled by investors and the pilgrims themselves, who by paying for a place in the community were in turn shareholders in the venture. They had a basic management structure with William Bradford acting as the on-site CEO, and a heavily religious, church lead group of "executives" (a turn you think the righto's would love), who worked in the trenches hand in hand with the workers to establish the community and get it going. And considering the community itself still stands today, one could argue they were a success.
The real problem the righto's have with the pilgrims are entrenched in the modern idea of what is a fair corporation. First is this idea that they would have to roll up their sleeves and get down next to the workers and sweat with them. In our modern world where being poor and having to work hard for a living is looked down upon by many wealthy people as beneath them, the idea of having to help build the community as opposed to sit back, pay someone to do it, and opting to have tea parties and tennis ladders seems like punishment. The modern righto takes no account of the realities of their arrival, only that some work is meant for the privileged, and other work, mainly physical jobs and menial labor, is meant to be preformed by people less fortunate than them. They label this socialism because the thought of their life being dependent on working hand in hand with people they deem beneath them is worse than death itself.
The other real problem for righto's is the lack of a for profit executive class earning 3 or 4 pumpkins for every 1 pumpkin the worker gets. Since Plymouth Plantation really was a basic corporate structure, with only a greedy bloated executive class missing, this has to be their major problem. It shows that the tea parties real objections are based in our modern time, that the vast majority of the population of the US today should be eagerly and happily doing everything within their power to make sure the small percentage of wealthy get wealthier.
The pilgrims were a success because they incorporated capitalism and socialism to build their community and, in turn, a country out of scratch. Plymouth, Jamestown and the other early colonies are still towns due to the idea that making profit is not the most important thing, but rather building the community is. That's not saying profit is a bad thing. The pilgrims made it a point that profit shouldn't come between the health and well being of the community, as opposed to modern right's version of today, where hunger and homelessness are treated with a "it sucks to be you" pithy comment, followed by an "out of my way loser" (I know there are many righto's who will say I give to my church or I donate to this organization or that organization. That's great, but how many people today say that the community is more important than profit? No, righto's will argue that unless profit is maximized, regardless of social problems within a community, the enemy wins. After all, "those people less fortunate than me are just lazy, deadbeat good for nothing syphons on the community." Sad and not very humble.)
Oh, and as we continue to digest the remains of our Thanksgiving feast, let's also not forget than none of the early European settlers would have survived with out "socialist" aid from the Native Americans.
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