The history of Thanksgiving’s origins is instructive for modern times in several respects.
It is widely known that the first Europeans to set foot in the Americas faced severe hardships. Nearly half of them starved to death as agriculture failed in their new lands. Today, we no longer confront the hunger endured by the first pilgrims. On Thanksgiving, we celebrate the unity of our families and our harvest, which in modern times means economic welfare, health, and all the benefits of the year’s toil.
What we are lacking is a celebration of the harvest in most general terms – and I do not mean the GDP and its growth. I mean the harvest of our neighbor, and of all those who serve us throughout the year by providing sustenance of life, material products, and services. It is the harvest of ordinary households and great estates, of family businesses and vast corporations.
In the early years, the newcomers worked the land communally and experienced all the challenges of collective ownership. From the year 1623 onward, however, all were allotted plots of land, and private farming began. This was the second turning point after landing on the new continent. Knowing that everyone would eat what they grew, people began to work harder, and productivity increased in manifold ways. The result was a multiplication of yields.
Today we all work in our private domains and the harvest we celebrate today is not only nutritional sustenance, – but also new structures and vistas, vast sectors of technologies, such as electricity, transportation, and communication, institutions, such as commerce, industry, and academics as well as a wide range of services that make our lives not just bearable, but comfortable, meaningful and lasting. Harvest includes all kinds of income, dividends, and profits.
Yet, it is so difficult for many fellow citizens to celebrate the income, dividends, and profits of their neighbors in the marketplace, of the others.
Just as nature itself gives us the principle of fertility, productiveness, and reproduction – to sustain life and continue human lineage, so does profit ensure the continuity of each specific activity, product, or service an entrepreneur provides. Profit paves the way for capital investment, connects producers, consumers, investors, and ensures the efficient allocation of resources in a society.
What we produce and hope to reap as a harvest in the end must be bought and paid for by someone. In the same way, what we give up in order to obtain goods made by others – be they bicycles, mattresses, or breakfast rolls – confirms our need and yields a harvest for them. What is income to one is an expense to another. What is an expense to one is an income to another.
We want our income to be as high as possible and our expenses to be as low as possible – it is written into human nature. It is on this paradox, unfortunately, that many people are tempted to slip, being thankful for their own harvest while resenting that of others. Taking a broader view, we discover a firm, if at first sight paradoxical, law: if we want to be generously rewarded, so does the seller of buns, mattresses, and computers. So does a news platform that offers a subscription to its readers.
The same logic also applies to the market trader and the private medical institution, for whom profit means being able to continue their activities next year. And for all of us, it means that next year we will still find the person bringing our favorite tomatoes from afar, our private doctor, and the designer of our clothes. Just as harvest meant life for those who landed in America, so in our time, everyone’s income means livelihood and continuity of work. Every consumer needs this as much as those who provide products and services. Learning to live without getting angry with all those who serve us every day – isn’t that the perfect gift for a harvest festival? This is probably one of the most needed forms of peace in a modern society.
The indigenous approach to farming, known as “Three Sisters,” teaches us to get along not despite our differences, but because of them. The three crops cultivated by the Native Americans – maize, beans, and squash – produced bountiful harvests precisely because they were grown together. Sounds strange? The corn stalks provided the perfect support to lift the beans toward the sky. The squash foliage covered the stony ground, kept the moisture in, maintained a microclimate favorable to all three plants, and protected against weeds. And the beans’ ability to fix nitrogen and increase the soil’s fertility also served all three ‘sisters’. There are lessons here for humans.
Americans’ habit of giving thanks for a good harvest nurtures a mindset that strives for a good harvest again the following year. So we, too, who cultivate different “crops” on our own small plots and serve one another with our efforts, can celebrate not only the harvest itself but also social harmony. As Abraham Lincoln once established Thanksgiving as a national holiday, it is timely to renew it as a feast on which we celebrate our own harvest and the harvest of those who serve us, and honor unity not only within our families, but also within our wider community.
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