Some notable cases:
Colonial America
This article details the communal property structure that was established in Jamestown in the 1600s.
What was the result of this common pool system?
Russia/Ukraine
This article details some of the horror that Stalin unleashed on the people of the Ukraine by ordering all grain and food be collected from the people.
The result?
Communist China
During the Great Leap Forward Mao directs peasants on what to grow, how much to grow, where to grow it, etc..
The result?
Colonial America
This article details the communal property structure that was established in Jamestown in the 1600s.
In Jamestown, colonists were indentured servants whose first seven years' output was to go into a common pool. In Plymouth, all accumulated wealth was to be held in common, against colonists' objections, by sponsors worried they could not otherwise collect on their distant investment. In both places, the fruits of people's efforts went to others, with disastrous results.
What was the result of this common pool system?
Sixty-six of Jamestown's initial 104 colonists died within six months, most from famine. Only 60 out of 500 arrivals two years later survived that long. The consequences of this "starving time" included cannibalism. Plymouth's first colonists fared little better, with only about half surviving six months. Some, in desperation, sold their clothes and blankets to, or became servants of, Indians.
Russia/Ukraine
This article details some of the horror that Stalin unleashed on the people of the Ukraine by ordering all grain and food be collected from the people.
The result?
...it was dangerous for children to walk around alone – they were prone to be snatched, strangled, and cooked. In the town of Poltava an entire operation for the processing of children’s meat was discovered by the Soviet secret police (Conquest, 1986, 288).
Communist China
During the Great Leap Forward Mao directs peasants on what to grow, how much to grow, where to grow it, etc..
The result?
...the banquets at which the families had swapped children in order to eat them. I could see the worried faces of the families as they chewed the flesh of other people's children. The children who were chasing butterflies in a nearby field seemed to be the reincarnation of the children devoured by their parents. I felt sorry for the children but not as sorry as I felt for their parents. What had made them swallow that human flesh, amidst the tears and grief of others — flesh that they would never have imagined tasting, even in their worst nightmares?It will be interesting to hear what happened in North Korea for the last few decades after the communist regime collapses. I sure hope history does not repeat itself in this case.
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