I have always assumed the free market system and personal ownership of property was in effect in America. Since communal Utopias sound so good I should have realized it would have been tried here first. It achieved the same results we have seen in Cuba, USSR, Eastearn Europe, China and the rest.

A pity that we seem to want to return to a way of life that brought starvation with it.

- Early colonisation on the North American east coast took great advantage of an accident of history, that many populations had been decimated by new (to them) diseases which left much land only lightly defended or even empty without owners. (Something similar happened in southern Africa in the 19th century, only it wasn’t disease but a religious cult that did it.)

This requires the existence of decent farming land for the white capitalists to steal from the Indian People and enough Indian People with enough assets to trade to the white capitalists. The white capitalist’s problem gegan after Lincoln’s War and the fencing of the western lands. The White capitalists had to start stealing from the locals in Central and South America, Africa, India and China being already taken by the Brits, French, Dutch . . . .

It would be good to have more evidence of the linkage, and to see what other determining factors there might have been to bring even more credibility to the argument such as, for instance, was it also because they had learnt how to have enough fuel for the winter, or their immune systems were more resistant, or they had a bit of good providence, etc!!