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Anyone here interested in starting a very low stakes commune of sorts? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 week ago by TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca to c/calgary@lemmy.ca

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

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[–] fort_burp@feddit.nl 1 points 10 hours ago

Hey, one more:

https://geo.coop/articles/introducing-coops4coops

[–] fort_burp@feddit.nl 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think you're starting out on a really great idea! You can go much bigger than that! How could you inject, for example, production into your idea? How about mutual aid (non-monetary)?

Have you read any books on the matter? Here's an excerpt from Slow Down by Kohei Saito:

A major strength of co-ops is that workers can work as they wish. Co-ops aim to advance a “social and solidarity economy” (SSE) that restores the regional community through workplace training and management practices. Through labor, workers can make investments weighted toward the long-term prosperity of the region. This amounts to nothing less than the democratization of the economy by making the realm of production itself into a form of commons. This might sound like a far-fetched dream to some. But it doesn’t have to be. Workers’ cooperatives of this sort are spreading all over the world. Spain’s famous Mondragon Corporation is a federation of workers’ cooperatives with a long history, boasting more than 74,000 members. In Japan, too, there have been workers’ co-ops in sectors like nursing, childcare, forest management, agriculture, waste disposal, and so on for close to forty years. Their collective reach amounts to more than 15,000 people. Even in the capitalist stronghold of the United States, workers’ co-ops have developed in remarkable ways. Notably, the Evergreen Cooperatives in Ohio, Cooperation Buffalo in New York, and Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi are examples of citizen movements to revitalize communities by addressing problems related to housing, green energy, food, waste disposal, and so on. Based on the successful model of Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain, these co-ops aim to build a network of democratic institutions to empower workers.

Democracy at Work by Richard Wolff is another good one.

Oh yea, and check this out too. From Humanizing the Economy by John Restakis:

In January 1997, Seikatsu Club, in cooperation with producers, inspected every consumer item in the market and adopted its own labeling system, which excluded genetically modified (GM) food, feed and additives.

...

Farmers contracted for a specified amount of produce based on pre-orders by co-op members. Produce was then delivered to co-op distribution centers where delivery trucks brought the pre-ordered products to the neighborhoods. Local Han would then coordinate the neighborhood distribution. The system was efficient, cheap to operate and subject to careful supervision by co-op members. It cut out the middleman, ending profiteering; it allowed farmers to plan and produce for a confirmed buyer, thereby avoiding the waste and risk associated with mass production for uncertain markets; direct distribution from farm to household eliminated the need for stores, warehousing and expensive packaging, thus cutting capital and overhead costs; and the system facilitated direct communication and collaboration between consumers and producers on how to improve the system and the products. Soon, with the support of producers, Seikatsu Club had established a milk company and its own production of miso according to strict quality controls. It now owns nine companies that produce products for its members. Over the last 30 years, this partnership with producers has brought 3,000 consumer goods to the market in accordance with Seikatsu specifications. Sixty percent of these are food items. And in contrast to supermarkets that stock up to 300,000 items, Seikatsu Club offers only one brand of each product it sells. This brand is usually superior to the rest, and the practice reduces unnecessary competition between brands and eliminates advertising costs that are passed on to the consumer.

Keep going, we are millions!

[–] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Heyy thank you for the response and the words of affirmation :)

You can go much bigger than that! How could you inject, for example, production into your idea? How about mutual aid (non-monetary)?

That is definitely something that I'm hoping for. However, I want to make this as modular as possible, in that the project doesn't become too big to interest anyone. As I have 0 experience dealing with stuff like this, I would like to start super small and low risk to see what it feels like and if it even works haha.

Have you read any books on the matter?

Nope.

Here’s an excerpt from Slow Down by Kohei Saito

I see that you like making direct quotations from books quite a lot through your comment history. Thank you for the excerpts you provided here :). They're kinda inspiring.

Keep going, we are millions!

I mean it doesn't feel like we are. I tried looking up irl leftist groups that do stuff like this here in Calgary, but it doesn't seem like anything remotely close to this exists. There is one non income sharing intentional community, but it's not accepting any new members. Are you in Calgary? Do you have any such groups/connections that could be used to build solidarity?

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Sorry chief, it won't work.

There's a variety of reasons but I'll give you the most compelling 2.

Firstly, I just don't see the benefits.

To your first advantage - everyone helps everyone make more money - you don't need to pool money and form a commune to do this. There are many different kinds of groups already doing this. There are business groups that refer customers to each other, and online communities sharing investment information, et cetera.
To your second advantage - collective bargaining power - there just isn't enough sorry. You need a much larger collective. Also, for purchases where it makes sense, you can join group buys online, and in some areas there are "co-op stores" which are the same idea.
To your third advantage - social gatherings - again you can do this without pooling your money.

Secondly, it's extraordinarily difficult to take a vote in order to select from a range of options. In a democracy you vote for representatives. Very occasionally you may vote on a more or less binary decision (in a referendum). In meetings of small community groups or shareholder meetings you can vote on "motions", but this is pretty seldom, everyone has a shared interest, and probably minimal personal direct benefits. If you're talking about a situation where people could vote on beer or bitcoin or groceries, people will naturally become disenfranchised.

I admire your enthusiasm, and I wish you well, but sadly I don't think this is the right way.

[–] leastaction@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

Voting isn't the only way, or even the best way to make decisions collectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making

[–] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

you don’t need to pool money and form a commune to do this. There are many different kinds of groups already doing this. There are business groups that refer customers to each other, and online communities sharing investment information, et cetera.

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.

collective bargaining power - there just isn’t enough sorry. You need a much larger collective. Also, for purchases where it makes sense, you can join group buys online, and in some areas there are “co-op stores” which are the same idea.

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.

To your third advantage - social gatherings - again you can do this without pooling your money.

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).

Secondly, it’s extraordinarily difficult to take a vote in order to select from a range of options. In a democracy you vote for representatives. Very occasionally you may vote on a more or less binary decision (in a referendum). In meetings of small community groups or shareholder meetings you can vote on “motions”, but this is pretty seldom, everyone has a shared interest, and probably minimal personal direct benefits. If you’re talking about a situation where people could vote on beer or bitcoin or groceries, people will naturally become disenfranchised.

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.

I admire your enthusiasm, and I wish you well

Thank you haha.

sadly I don’t think this is the right way.

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.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

there isn't much experimental data

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.

[–] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

For example, if you set aside the singing, clapping, and sky fairies you’re pretty much describing a church.

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.

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.

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.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

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.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can we do this, but at all the meetings we wear matching robes? And before business, we spend 30 minutes chanting in a language of our own creation?

[–] CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

And absolutely no human sacrifices... Well, maybe the occasional.

[–] GrindingGears@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago

I bet they might even have some Kool aid that's to die for!

[–] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't get the jokes about cults. Is there a meme or something I'm missing? Why does this sound like a cult to you? Aren't cults about worshiping something/someone? How is creating a mini-cooperative/commune similar to a cult?

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Cults often have members that live together but still work in the community earning wages. They just give all their earnings to the cult. Though cults are usually lead by single charismatic leaders than organized democratically. But the truth is there's a full continuum between co-op and cult. Depending how intense people are, there's a fine line between co-op and cult. That's where the cult jokes are coming from.