WEBVTT 00:06.350 --> 00:14.550 Welcome back to Radio Rothbard. I'm Ryan McMakin, executive editor at the Mises Institute, and I hope you're having an excellent Thanksgiving week. 00:15.410 --> 00:19.870 This week, I want to look a little bit about the the history and economics of 00:19.870 --> 00:23.970 Thanksgiving in contrast a little bit with communist ideas, 00:24.650 --> 00:29.590 family dining, and the family dinner just to give a 00:30.150 --> 00:33.170 greater contrast to how different things are 00:33.870 --> 00:35.870 in the West and 00:35.870 --> 00:36.390 where 00:37.230 --> 00:47.030 Western civilization has valued the idea of the family dinner and how many institutions of commerce have grown up around that as 00:47.690 --> 00:48.090 well. 00:48.870 --> 00:57.990 So we can begin by noting that in modern-day America, Thanksgiving is a holiday that has come to have very distinct iconography and rituals. 00:58.790 --> 01:03.470 Turkey, football, and the Thanksgiving Day parades are all part of this holiday, 01:03.770 --> 01:11.710 and in fact, many of these rituals, such as football and games and parades put on by department stores, are now a century old. 01:12.710 --> 01:18.810 Going back further though, we find that the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States has a rather diverse past. 01:19.450 --> 01:26.050 Part of the origins of the idea of a national Thanksgiving day lie largely in government attempts at pushing 01:26.640 --> 01:27.670 propagandistic narratives. 01:28.930 --> 01:36.770 For example, Abraham Lincoln demanded Americans be thankful for, quote, the advancing armies and navies of the Union, unquote, 01:37.370 --> 01:38.430 during the Civil War. 01:39.010 --> 01:43.990 George Washington instructed Americans to give thanks for the new Constitution in 1789. 01:44.930 --> 01:51.090 Andrew Jackson, in contrast, refused to boss around as constituents with days of mandatory gratitude, 01:51.090 --> 01:58.590 but proclamations of prayer and Thanksgiving have been used by many U.S. presidents, especially during times of crisis. 01:59.510 --> 02:08.550 In practice, however, what is now Thanksgiving Day involves mostly a celebration of domestic and family life, quite separate from any presidential imperatives. 02:09.270 --> 02:15.430 Moreover, Thanksgiving celebrations take place primarily within the private and commercial spheres of life. 02:16.110 --> 02:18.910 Preparing a Thanksgiving meal requires shopping for goods. 02:19.650 --> 02:25.910 Traveling to see friends and relatives often requires the purchase of various transportation-related goods and services. 02:26.630 --> 02:31.770 Enjoying the day is usually enhanced by consuming various forms of private sector entertainment. 02:32.470 --> 02:36.810 These holiday activities and rituals are not fundamentally different, however, 02:37.250 --> 02:41.810 from what countless human beings enjoy on a regular basis, a meal and leisure, 02:42.290 --> 02:46.050 activities with friends and family within a private home and domestic setting. 02:46.850 --> 02:52.170 These gatherings reinforce the status of the family as a fundamental building block of human society. 02:53.030 --> 02:57.330 They remind us that private meals, like a Thanksgiving meal, are something valuable 02:57.330 --> 03:00.670 and something distinct from public activities in public settings. 03:01.990 --> 03:05.110 Historically, not everyone has been pleased by such things. 03:05.670 --> 03:07.650 In the Soviet Union, for example, 03:07.650 --> 03:15.930 there were concerted efforts to abolish the very concept of the domestic space and notions of hearth and home 03:16.510 --> 03:20.570 by consigning citizens to communal kitchens and communal living spaces. 03:21.370 --> 03:28.030 The goal was to abolish the bourgeois family, which was so often grouped around a private kitchen. 03:28.890 --> 03:33.910 Naturally, this is greatly in contrast to Western ideals of the family dinner, 03:33.910 --> 03:38.850 taking a look at the political and cultural importance of Thanksgiving can help us understand 03:38.850 --> 03:45.650 this better. So where does Thanksgiving come from? As a holiday, Thanksgiving has gone 03:45.650 --> 03:50.130 through several different forms. As described in James Baker's study of the holiday, 03:50.550 --> 03:56.470 Thanksgiving, the biography of an American holiday, there had been a variety of Thanksgiving 03:56.470 --> 04:01.230 traditions practiced throughout the U.S., but few of them closely resembled the Thanksgiving 04:01.230 --> 04:07.810 we now know today. Moreover, the activities people adopted to commemorate the holiday 04:07.810 --> 04:13.230 changed significantly over time. According to Baker, in the holiday's early years, 04:13.390 --> 04:19.010 it served as the, quote, Puritan stand-in for Christmas, a holiday they rejected as 04:19.010 --> 04:25.530 non-cananical and pagan, an early winter time for feasting and pious hope before 04:25.530 --> 04:33.110 the long dreary months of cold and privation to follow, unquote. While a large meal was often 04:33.110 --> 04:39.070 had at the celebration, the holiday was mostly religious in character. The highlight of the day 04:39.070 --> 04:45.730 was a long stern sermon, presumably from a Calvinist clergyman. The holiday had long been 04:45.730 --> 04:50.810 celebrated in New England and other regions as a sort of harvest festival, but it did not 04:50.810 --> 04:56.290 commonly involve any narratives about pilgrims. That sort of thing was reserved for forefathers' 04:56.530 --> 05:02.750 day, which had its own commemoration in New England on December 21st. Needless to say, 05:03.210 --> 05:06.950 the rest of the country, especially those with little connection to New England, 05:07.450 --> 05:11.250 did not enthusiastically celebrate the establishment of the Plymouth Colony. 05:11.910 --> 05:15.630 Indeed, the use of tales about the pilgrims' first Thanksgiving 05:15.630 --> 05:22.150 did not become a widespread practice until the 1900s. It was a complete invention of the public 05:22.150 --> 05:28.490 schools, which then as now spent precious little time on academic skills in favor of concentrating 05:28.490 --> 05:34.610 on endless hours of busy work and cultural indoctrination. By the time the public schools 05:34.610 --> 05:39.530 were turning the holiday into a day about pilgrims, though the annual rituals of Thanksgiving, 05:39.530 --> 05:45.650 which persist to this day, had been established quite independently from the political agendas, 05:46.090 --> 05:52.090 far from being a national day to celebrate forefathers or the Plymouth Colony. By the 05:52.090 --> 05:58.510 early 20th century, Thanksgiving had already become a celebration of domestic life and family fun. 06:00.430 --> 06:05.390 In her history of Victorian America, called the Feminization of American Culture, 06:06.110 --> 06:10.930 Anne Douglas explains the transformation that took place as U.S. culture moved away from the 06:10.930 --> 06:16.430 hard-nosed theology and philosophy of the 18th century and something quite different. 06:17.170 --> 06:22.130 Rather, by the late 19th century, the U.S. was undergoing a domestic revolution. 06:23.690 --> 06:29.030 This change in social attitudes went hand in hand with the rise of Victorian culture in the 06:29.030 --> 06:34.190 United States. It combined with the new economy of mass production and mechanization 06:34.190 --> 06:40.390 to help create the nostalgic sentimental and consumption-fueled event we now think of as the 06:40.390 --> 06:46.530 Thanksgiving holiday. The meal, the family gathering, and the domestic setting for celebration that are 06:46.530 --> 06:52.590 all now familiar were established in this Victorian period. The biggest change over the years 06:52.590 --> 06:56.770 has been the addition of football, first viewed in person and then on television, 06:57.230 --> 07:02.750 as an additional family activity. The economic prosperity of the second half of the 19th 07:02.750 --> 07:09.450 century, the much maligned so-called Gilded Age, made this possible. Although the period is today 07:09.450 --> 07:15.030 badmouthed as an era of people suffering under the iron grip of robber barons, it was during 07:15.030 --> 07:19.870 this period that countless Americans were able to move out of poverty and into the middle classes 07:19.870 --> 07:26.550 for the first time. These changes made it easier for families to create a domestic experience 07:26.550 --> 07:31.470 with all the trimmings that Victorians valued, and which are now hallmarks of the standard 07:31.470 --> 07:36.650 American Thanksgiving celebration. Not only was food becoming more affordable for many, 07:36.970 --> 07:42.230 but more Americans could afford more and better versions of silverware, china, clothing, and 07:42.230 --> 07:47.470 furniture. They could afford more building supplies for nicer homes, and as was happening 07:47.470 --> 07:52.670 in Europe as well, more workers could afford to actually take some time off to enjoy recreational 07:52.670 --> 07:59.610 team sports a day at a park and other past times. Thanksgiving was no longer a religious 07:59.610 --> 08:06.230 holiday in which Americans contemplated complex theological truth, and much more so a holiday of 08:06.230 --> 08:12.670 consumption, recreation, and the domestic life of home and family. This new phenomenon of buying 08:12.670 --> 08:18.670 mass-produced goods to augment one's domestic enjoyment expanded into the early 20th century, 08:18.930 --> 08:24.230 so that by the 1920s, Thanksgiving was looking more and more like a holiday geared around 08:24.230 --> 08:32.370 buying things. Historian James Baker tells us, quote, a new holiday event emerged in the 1920s, 08:32.610 --> 08:38.690 the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Strictly speaking, Thanksgiving parades are not about Thanksgiving 08:38.690 --> 08:44.270 at all, but about Christmas. Yet they do provide a Thanksgiving Day activity that is enjoyed by 08:44.270 --> 08:54.210 millions of Americans in person or on TV. The first Thanksgiving parade was put on by the 08:54.210 --> 09:00.990 1920s. It consisted of 50 people, 15 cars, and a fireman dressed as Santa Claus who marched in the 09:00.990 --> 09:06.910 parade and then entered the Gimbal's toy department by a ladder. The central feature of the Gimbal's 09:06.910 --> 09:12.410 Thanksgiving Day Parade, like all similar parades, was the official arrival of Santa Claus, 09:13.250 --> 09:20.190 in his most marketable guise as patron saint of holiday commerce, unquote. Of course, 09:20.190 --> 09:25.470 department stores were themselves a creation of Victorian culture, first in England and later 09:25.470 --> 09:30.290 in the United States. In terms of economics, they offered a higher standard of living for 09:30.290 --> 09:35.550 their customers, and they offered many goods not available anywhere else. And what goods did they 09:35.550 --> 09:42.870 have were often at lower prices than at smaller stores. On a cultural level, the department 09:42.870 --> 09:47.790 stores were important as well. They offered unprecedented freedom for women who could 09:47.790 --> 09:53.430 use the department stores as a safe place to meet with others in public spaces, unescorted by men. 09:54.670 --> 10:00.330 Employment at these stores offered many young women an escape from farm work and factory work. 10:00.630 --> 10:05.730 And of course, for the primary managers of the household budget, which is what many middle 10:05.730 --> 10:11.790 class Victorian women were, department stores offered a new, clean and comfortable place to 10:11.790 --> 10:17.050 do business. Thus, it's no wonder that our modern practice of Thanksgiving is so wrapped 10:17.050 --> 10:22.270 up with the Victorian version of the holiday. It sprang from the 19th century spread of consumer 10:22.270 --> 10:28.230 goods and the social freedoms that came with them. The Thanksgiving that we know and which 10:28.230 --> 10:33.210 most of our grandparents knew is an apolitical holiday formed around the modern world or 10:33.210 --> 10:37.930 relative plenty made possible by the modern industrialized economy. 10:39.310 --> 10:44.270 The connections between family dining rituals and free commerce did not escape the 10:44.270 --> 10:49.890 notice of communists in either the 19th or the 20th centuries. It should not shock us to learn 10:49.890 --> 10:54.050 that communist totalitarians once sought to eliminate domestic meals 10:54.050 --> 10:59.830 as a common aspect of civilized life. The destruction of the family as a bourgeois institution 10:59.830 --> 11:05.190 was explicitly listed among Marx's priorities for implementing the communist revolution. 11:05.930 --> 11:10.550 After the communists came to power in what became the Soviet Union in 1917, 11:11.010 --> 11:16.070 the new regime sought to address what were then common housing shortages by placing 11:16.070 --> 11:22.690 Russians in state-owned communal apartments called communalki, where seven or more families 11:22.690 --> 11:28.730 were expected to share a single kitchen and bathroom. Driven by both ideology and economic 11:28.730 --> 11:33.710 necessity, the communists viewed domestic meals and meal preparation as wasteful 11:33.710 --> 11:38.210 activities. Both men and women, it was believed, would be better off spending their 11:38.210 --> 11:43.550 time in factories and other settings where the production of industrial goods could be maximized. 11:44.070 --> 11:49.650 Indeed, in 1923, Lenin's Communist released a propaganda pamphlet titled 11:49.650 --> 11:57.470 Down with the Private Kitchen. As recounted by Anja von Bremsen, the pamphlet explained how, 11:57.610 --> 12:02.630 quote, the traditional domestic kitchen was branded as ideologically reactionary, 12:02.630 --> 12:09.510 unquote, and ineffectual. The Soviet authorities pushed residents toward government-run cafeterias 12:09.510 --> 12:16.370 known as Stolavias, or dining rooms. This was believed to accelerate the process of conditioning 12:16.370 --> 12:21.610 Soviet citizens with communist propaganda. Eating became a political activity. 12:22.490 --> 12:27.530 In typical Soviet fashion, however, these new dining venues were anything but a pleasant respite, 12:27.530 --> 12:34.350 and they were, in fact, quote, ghastly affairs, unquote. But from the Soviet perspective, 12:34.550 --> 12:42.590 it was all quite necessary. Quote, they would like to have houses without kitchens, says Russian 12:42.590 --> 12:49.290 journalist Alexander Jenis. Because kitchen is something bourgeois, every family, as long as 12:49.290 --> 12:54.570 they have a kitchen, they have some part of their private life and private property, unquote. 12:55.250 --> 13:01.410 Many citizens, of course, continued to eat at home, and not in the state-run cafeterias 13:01.410 --> 13:06.110 during the hardest decades of Soviet social engineering, but this process involved its 13:06.110 --> 13:14.390 own trials and dangers. As NPR reported in 2014, kitchens became a source of tension and conflict. 13:15.430 --> 13:19.950 Quote, when relations between the neighbors were especially fierce, you could see locks 13:19.950 --> 13:26.970 on the cabinets, unquote. Families cooked in quick staggered shifts, quote, they cooked in 13:26.970 --> 13:31.990 the kitchen, but practically never ate there, says Marsha Karp, who was born in Moscow and worked 13:31.990 --> 13:38.610 as a Russian features editor for the BBC World Service. They would go with their pots along 13:38.610 --> 13:44.350 the corridor and eat in their rooms, unquote. With up to 20 families sharing a single kitchen, 13:44.970 --> 13:51.890 conflicts were sure to be common, and Jenis concludes communal kitchen was a war zone, unquote. 13:52.810 --> 13:58.710 But using the communal kitchen with other housemates present could also be a danger to life and limb. 13:59.110 --> 14:03.770 This was because any disloyal or bourgeois statements in casual conversation 14:03.770 --> 14:13.010 might end up being reported to the authorities. People would report on each other, Russian 14:13.010 --> 14:18.750 never know who would be reporting. Thus, in many cases, it was best to keep one's mouth shut and 14:18.750 --> 14:25.690 retreat to one's bedroom as quickly as possible. Now let's contrast the Soviet dining ordeal 14:25.690 --> 14:32.830 with the household dining spaces in America or in Western Europe. By contrast, a recent survey 14:32.830 --> 14:38.070 suggested that 78% of American homes have a separate dining room in addition to a kitchen 14:38.070 --> 14:44.690 dining area. This is all a symbol of modern-day Western affluence. Since the 18th century, 14:45.070 --> 14:50.350 domestic dining areas have become larger and roomier. In our modern age, in which 14:50.350 --> 14:55.170 many families eat out at restaurants several nights per week, and public activities and 14:55.170 --> 15:00.230 entertainment venues are extremely common, the importance of domestic sociability is often 15:00.230 --> 15:06.830 overlooked. Yet, as Thanksgiving demonstrates, the act of gathering and socializing in a 15:06.830 --> 15:13.550 private home remains important for many families. Moreover, in times of economic downturn, domestic 15:13.550 --> 15:18.490 entertainment and social gatherings become more important because they are relatively more affordable. 15:19.530 --> 15:24.250 Like so many market innovations that have improved the domestic living space, 15:24.950 --> 15:30.190 the enlargement of spaces dedicated to dining and entertaining have helped improve the lives of 15:30.190 --> 15:35.990 women most of all. It was during the 18th century when middle-class families could begin 15:35.990 --> 15:42.150 to aspire to having a separate dining area large enough for serving and entertaining groups beyond 15:42.150 --> 15:48.090 the nuclear family alone. By the 1820s, specialized dining rooms became almost common, 15:48.370 --> 15:53.790 making this all the more something that middle-class families could perhaps obtain. 15:54.990 --> 16:00.510 The social importance of dining rooms should be apparent. Even from the early days of the 16:00.510 --> 16:05.230 bourgeois middle-class household, the ability to entertain at home meant a greater ability 16:05.230 --> 16:10.810 for women to socialize. This is not to say that it was unheard of for women to socialize outside 16:10.810 --> 16:15.730 the home, as Catherine French shows in her research on late medieval bourgeois households, 16:16.290 --> 16:21.250 rising incomes and worker productivity gave women more options in terms of consumption. 16:22.010 --> 16:25.750 This indeed meant more opportunities to socialize with friends and public, 16:26.130 --> 16:32.390 including in taverns. Moreover, as is so often the case with the spread and democratization 16:32.390 --> 16:37.730 of goods and services in the marketplace, public drinking houses were associated with 16:37.730 --> 16:42.810 overturned hierarchies, quote-unquote, and social flexibility in general. 16:43.650 --> 16:48.090 These were places where married women lacking such spaces in the cramped quarters of their 16:48.090 --> 16:53.170 houses could gather on their own terms. This form of socializing among women 16:53.170 --> 16:57.810 was regarded with suspicion, however, and respectable women were often hesitant 16:57.810 --> 17:04.130 to be seen spending much time in ins and taverns, as even the better ones were sometimes associated 17:04.130 --> 17:10.150 with gambling, prostitution, and disorder. While rising incomes did provide greater access to 17:10.150 --> 17:15.330 social venues outside the home for women, and men too, of course, the new concept of the 17:15.330 --> 17:21.570 private dining room provided additional outlets, and ones that were unlikely to threaten one's 17:21.570 --> 17:28.090 respectability. After all, the domestic space had long been associated more closely with women 17:28.090 --> 17:35.770 than men, as men could more freely move outside the domestic sphere. As homes became more spacious 17:35.770 --> 17:41.830 and social spaces like dining rooms have become more common, women were more able to bring the 17:41.830 --> 17:46.290 outside world to themselves and avoid the socially taxing challenges associated with 17:46.930 --> 17:52.190 dining outside the home. These new social spaces made it possible for women to visit each other 17:52.190 --> 17:58.790 in their homes, reducing the relative social isolation endured by many women who lacked the 17:58.790 --> 18:04.210 economic means or hood spa needed to drink with friends and taverns. As an alternative, 18:04.730 --> 18:10.430 historian Barbara Catech notes, quote, during the 18th century, the domestic interior became 18:10.430 --> 18:16.050 an arena for polite social entertainment. Home became a focal point of polite culture, 18:16.270 --> 18:21.770 and simultaneously it became a pleasant place to spend time. The development of a feminine 18:21.770 --> 18:27.510 culture of house visiting, which started in the late 17th century, led to the advent of 18:27.510 --> 18:34.090 domestic sociability. Unquote. Community social events were no longer simply carried on either 18:34.090 --> 18:39.030 in public drinking spaces or in parish hall meetings. Social events now took place in 18:39.030 --> 18:44.810 private homes, which by the 18th century had finally become spacious and well furnished enough 18:44.810 --> 18:51.150 to support such activities. As custodians of the domestic sphere, it was mostly women who 18:51.150 --> 18:58.210 managed these private social events. Catech goes on. Women were responsible for mediating domestic 18:58.210 --> 19:02.930 sociability for the family. They had the knowledge and the power to create an environment 19:02.930 --> 19:09.170 within which that was possible. For example, when John Marsh, a gentleman musician and lawyer, 19:09.670 --> 19:16.090 relocated his family to Chichester in 1787, his family immediately set about ordering, 19:16.090 --> 19:21.730 well that is his wife specifically, immediately set about ordering suitable furnishings for 19:21.730 --> 19:25.950 their drawing room so that they could announce the family's arrival into local society 19:25.950 --> 19:31.550 by, quote, unquote, seeing company. It was essential for them to successfully announce 19:31.550 --> 19:35.150 their arrival by partaking in the polite culture of domestic sociability. 19:36.110 --> 19:41.510 Modern day social rituals have become far more flexible and the stakes are clearly now 19:41.510 --> 19:46.270 lower for women who have many more ways of securing social status or socializing 19:46.270 --> 19:52.150 in general and in public. Yet one could scarcely say that the role of the family dinner with 19:52.150 --> 19:56.790 family friends and neighbors has ceased to be important in the social life of the community 19:56.790 --> 20:04.950 overall and especially in family life. Clearly, this sort of thing contrasts greatly with the idea 20:04.950 --> 20:09.290 of the family kitchen in the Soviet Union, which the authorities sought to replace with 20:09.290 --> 20:16.250 factories and sparse state controlled cafeterias. Perhaps more so than any other day of the 20:16.250 --> 20:22.890 year Thanksgiving Day illustrates this clearly. On the one hand, we have the Leninist Stalinist 20:22.890 --> 20:28.310 drive for greater production and the minimization of unnecessary, quote, unquote, consumption 20:28.850 --> 20:34.930 in the name of industrializing Soviet society. The communists sought to ensure Soviets were, 20:34.930 --> 20:41.630 quote, liberated from fussy dining, unquote, so the new Soviet man could create it more rapidly. 20:42.770 --> 20:47.370 On the other hand, even a 19th century American Thanksgiving meal would appear to the 20:47.370 --> 20:54.230 Leninist ideologue as both consumerist and bourgeois in the extreme. Things are even worse 20:54.230 --> 21:00.550 by communist standards today. Moreover, most Thanksgiving meals take place in private living 21:00.550 --> 21:05.830 quarters, far from the prying eyes of police and other state enforcers. Rather than spend the 21:05.830 --> 21:11.570 day producing goods and services for, quote, unquote, society, countless millions of Americans 21:11.570 --> 21:15.870 instead spend the day consuming food and entertainment and enjoying leisure time. 21:16.650 --> 21:22.010 It's difficult to imagine a scenario more unlike that imagined in Down with the Private 21:22.010 --> 21:26.630 Kitchen by Lenin's people. And that's something to be thankful for. 21:27.930 --> 21:33.010 I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Radio Rothbard. We'll be back next week with more, 21:33.150 --> 21:34.370 so we'll see you next time.