Not to belabor the point, but I do wonder what the material requirements are to have a successful long-term commune.
The first need that comes to mind is an economic base. A lot of utopian socialist projects fail because they try to skip to “moneyless society” without undergoing industrial development. I can see the argument that a commune that participates in the capitalist market economy is a contradiction of terms, but that doesn’t seem like a realistic definition even under a socialist economy. From a practical perspective, I would say that a commune just needs to have enough contributions/income available to its members to cover its costs.
The trouble with this loose economic conception of a commune is that a lot of things kind of look like a commune if that’s your only criteria. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe all you need to “make a commune” is shared housing, a willingness to cooperate on household maintenance, and shared food and storage space. I lived like this successfully for many years, but only some of my friends who stayed with me (ironically MLs) recognized it as a kind of commune.
I’m curious how others would define a commune. I also apologize if this is an annoying or unwanted analysis.
Not to belabor the point, but I do wonder what the material requirements are to have a successful long-term commune.
The first need that comes to mind is an economic base. A lot of utopian socialist projects fail because they try to skip to “moneyless society” without undergoing industrial development. I can see the argument that a commune that participates in the capitalist market economy is a contradiction of terms, but that doesn’t seem like a realistic definition even under a socialist economy. From a practical perspective, I would say that a commune just needs to have enough contributions/income available to its members to cover its costs.
The trouble with this loose economic conception of a commune is that a lot of things kind of look like a commune if that’s your only criteria. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe all you need to “make a commune” is shared housing, a willingness to cooperate on household maintenance, and shared food and storage space. I lived like this successfully for many years, but only some of my friends who stayed with me (ironically MLs) recognized it as a kind of commune.
I’m curious how others would define a commune. I also apologize if this is an annoying or unwanted analysis.