I happened to stumble onto the fact that the Twin Oaks Intentional Community in Louisa, Virginia /US was started in the early 70's and remains fully operational. It was interesting to me that their commune accounting system is very, very post-Keynesian, and it seems to have been put together by people with liberal arts degrees, not econo-wonks. Generally speaking egalitarian projects tend to have an open door that seems to invite dysfunction and the dystopia in at the same time. The mythologizing of democracy seems to have a similar effect. Tadit On Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:30:22 -0500, Kevin Carson <[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
having lived in 3 (failed) communes myself, I would question any interpretation that only blames outside pressures ..
Michel: The problem is that communes are voluntarist efforts, lifestyle choices, that operate against the economic and material currents of outside society. Corporations have just as many dickheads and narcissists in them as communes. So why don't they go belly-up as a result of normal human foibles? The answer, I think, is that structural conditions tip the balance in a particular direction. Human society was organized primarily into localized economies, demographically stable communities, extended families, etc. -- basically the kind of stuff the commune movement tries to replicate, against the spirit of the age -- and that pattern survived despite the dickheadedness and narcissism of its human raw membership because the state didn't have its thumb on the scale in favor of centralism and hierarchy.