According to Richard Maybury with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the popular Thanksgiving story we celebrate today is largely mythological. The harvest of 1621 in Plymouth Colony was not a bountiful one, and the Pilgrims who survived the deadly winter of 1620-21 did not live happily ever after. The real story is a witness to the absolute failure of socialism, and the miraculous prosperity that appeared in 1623 after the Pilgrims adopted free-market capitalism.