I've always been interested in the concept of intentional communities and communes. However, the scope of things to go wrong there seems waaaaay to much. For example, they seem to be concentrated in operating a singular business in rural areas with almost full income sharing and so on. Plus, they kinda don't exist in Alberta. I have a full time job (minimum wage, but a full time job nonetheless) that I don't want to leave just to "try something out". I believe there might be a few folks here in the same boat as me.
At the same time, I've been looking for leftist in person communities to socialize with here in Calgary, but they kinda seem non-existent too.
So here's a little proposition. What if we have a super low stakes "commune"? What we do is, we organize a little community which has a fund. Contributions to the fund by each member are decided as a percentage of their income. Say 1% to start with. We don't have to live under the same roof. We don't have to work at the same employer. All that we do is this: contribute an x% of our paycheck to this fund. Every week, we meet and democratically decide where and how we spend the fund.
We could spend it on something like grocery credits (each member receives 100 dollars on groceries), x amount for a phone plan and so on. What are the advantages of doing this?
Here's how I envision a hypothetical commune like this to work:
- Members share a percentage of their paycheck. The size of the fund is dependent upon the income level of every member. This way, every member is incentivized to help other members increase their own respective incomes, as that translates to larger funds.
- Collective bargaining power is always good. We could buy stuff in wholesale much more easily. We could negotiate with service providers to get better deals, thus saving all of us money.
- Weekly meetings mean a nice little socialization thing.
Anyway, you probably have quite a few/many questions that I might or might not have answers to yet. You probably think this is a terrible idea. Or maybe you find this interesting.
Here's what I'm hoping to happen. We meet at central library or somewhere and discuss trying out a very short term, low stakes economic experiment. We decide that we contribute a very small percentage (say 2%) of our income for one month to a little fund. We then create a budget for the month on how to allocate that fund.
I'm interested to observe how this would actually work in person. Would there be total gridlock? How would legislation for this work? How would the spending priorities for the fund look like?
If we find out that it actually seems to be beneficial, we could go ahead with bigger and bigger percentages. If not, it could still be a fun little experiment that would last for a month!
What do you think? Anyone interested in trying something like this out?
But there's no financial incentive for anyone to do that, is there? For me, if you are a commune member, I would be more incentivized to see you earn more money, as that would mean increased contributions to the fund, meaning more welfare for me.
Agreed to a certain extent. But group buying also means creation of a safety net. If I get less hours of work from my employer this week, and if grocery is socialized, I don't have to worry about thinking what to feed myself. The collective fund could look into extended healthcare like pharmacare, vision care and so on. Again, the safety net advantage shows up here.
There would likely be a contract length for what one agrees to contribute a percentage of their paycheck. Tiers of membership would be decided based on the length of the contract. Higher length memberships could see advanced welfare like the aforementioned extended healthcare, or even funds for upskilling like an undergrad degree and so on. Again, I'm not talking about having welfare programs like these NOW. I'm talking about conducting an experiment with very low contributions (say 1-2%) for one month and seeing what happens. That's all. Basically, I want to test my hypothesis in a probably fun manner.
True. But in my opinion, pooling money is a step up from simple "accomplice" level relationships. Giving and receiving help feels good (if consensual). This is just an organized way of doing that I suppose. But again, these are simple hypotheses which mean nothing till they're actually tested out. Maybe this is a horrible idea. Maybe it isn't. Maybe people are way more cooperative than one would expect. Maybe they are not, and quite difficult to work with. We won't know for sure till we actually try something like this out (in a very low stake manner obv).
The structure of the commune and its size would play a big role here. I personally think that the disenfranchisement issue would start creeping up with commune size. Till then, direct democracy would work very well imo. But again, we need hypothesis testing to know for sure.
Thank you haha.
I appreciate your opinion. However, I believe that there isn't much experimental data to have an acceptable conclusion (for me at least). I've been reading about communes of different types irl and in fiction, which is what interests me a lot in them. I would've gladly joined an intentional community if it wasn't for the massive risk of leaving friends, family and job behind to potentially end up in a horrible place. This seems like a pretty low risk experience of understanding what human group dynamics look like in a setting like this. Of course, this is not an "objectively good idea" that everyone would enjoy being a part of.
It's just a little experiment where I'm looking for like-minded-ish individuals to try something out with.
Ok so there may not be "data" in a form like... 100 groups tried this in 100 cities and this was the outcome.
However, all kinds of small groups are analogous to what you're describing. For example, if you set aside the singing, clapping, and sky fairies you're pretty much describing a church. I provided several other examples in my first answer.
In my experience, which is not overwhelming but not nothing, a group like you're describing wouldn't be able to stay cohesive for very long.
Not Christian, so don't know what church life looks like. But isn't the financial side of church spending basically charity? Is it democratic? Does the church like have a board of directors that is democratically elected? Or is direct democracy used? I'm pretty sure that there isn't a requirement for folks to contribute proportional to their income.
I kinda expect something similar. Although, I'm very interested in seeing how the breakdown happens if it does. Is it because of internal groups that start not liking each other? Is it because of folks with authoritarian tendencies? I'll be honest. I've been lately attending some queer socializing events here in Calgary. The folks that I've met have been nothing but nice. I'm kinda interested in knowing how far someone's niceness and cooperation can go. Can it go far enough to form a commune?
At the same time, I've seen communists parade the idea around quite a lot. I want to make up my mind about its viability by actually seeing it and experiencing it myself in a way that won't hurt too much if it goes wrong.
Ok so churches collect 10% of members income. It's a biblical concept called tithe. In some churches it's a recommendation but in others it's monitored.
The majority of the money is spent constructing and maintaining the churches facilities, salaries for staff, and the regular services for members.
Far beyond sunday morning, churches hold gatherings for social groups every day of the year.
If by "charity" you mean "using church money to help those in need", there's very, very little of that in most churches.
The control structure will vary between churches but basically yes, representatives are elected who form a board. For a church I audited for several years the board members were called elders and the board was called the eldership. Yes, they were all male, pale and stale.
I'm sure sometimes some form of direct democracy is used but generally there aren't many contentious decisions.
Oh wow, I didn't know about tithe. What do church events look like though? Aside from the cultey "worship sky man" and all that, what does the socialisation look like? Is the community "close knit" or whatever?
There's probably less "worship sky man" than you might think, or maybe it's different to what you'd expect, never having experienced it.
Some churches have very little "woo". There's no miracles or weird stuff. Other churches have all the woo. Like faith healing and talking in tongues and whatever.
A sunday service is usually 30 minutes of singing and housekeeping type notices and whatever, then a 30 minute talk from someone.
Other social things are kind of special interest meetings. So a church might have several friday evening groups for kids, then teenagers, then 18 to early 20s. These are usually activities like bowling, or fishing, or parlour games, or whatever fun activity the leader can dream up.
There's also bible study groups, music groups or bands, community outreach groups like catering for elderly people or young families, there's one here with a community garden.
I went to church with my parents until I was about 18. When I stopped I said it was an ideological thing (as in I no longer believed in fairy tales). That remains true but I think the reason I stopped going was because I just didn't fit in socially. I just wasn't equipped for that type of social community with no drugs or alcohol or special interest to lubricate the wheels.