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Fall Festivals
I love fall and harvest festivals. Cool weather, good food, corn mazes, maybe a small amount of beer or wine, music, games, rides, friendly people, entire families enjoying themselves together, artisans showing their various skills. You can find such festivals all over the world, in small towns to big cities. Even county and state fairs have their origins in the harvest festivities of times past.
There is one aspect of fall festivals which is rarely to never discussed. This is the fact that fall festivals largely have a basis in some level of Socialism. Of course, capitalists will argue against this concept but their arguments will quickly fall flat in the face of the evidence.
Through most of history, when harvest time came around, the harvest was not simply a bounty for a farmer. Nor was the labor only for the farmer or farm workers. Communities thrived or died based on a successful harvest. Entire religious belief systems arose which included strong superstitions and sometimes brutal practices including animal and human sacrifice to insure a good harvest.
If farmers did not have a good harvest, that could mean not enough food for the entire community. Likewise, it meant less to trade with other communities. One bad harvest could destroy a community entirely.
