by Raven
I have thought about this and mentioned it to people, but I consider Twin Oaks a communist community that has learned very well about how to succeed in a capitalist culture. I decided to make a Facebook post about it.
I got a bunch of interesting responses to this, starting with Rejoice sharing some of the comments East Wind got to a video about them.
.A few other people threw in their takes on this.
Then, Lavender Alex Bernosky shared their response, pointing out the danger of trying to “police” behavior in the communes.
I had to respond to this because I felt it opened up another avenue for the ‘dance’.
Finally, Zamin Danty added yet another take on the ‘dance’.
commune life 
As someone who rode The Farm’s “all things in common” until it was snatched out from under me, I appreciate this discussion from a different angle than most.
While we were officially all on the same financial basis, about $1/day/person ($5 in today’s money), not only people with “special needs,” but many people who were simply in a position to put their hands in the till did so. Ultimately, the people who were earning the community’s money decided that they’d be better off personally if they weren’t trying to support an experiment in large-scale communal living, and arranged to privatize the place.
I felt marvelously free in the years I didn’t have to think much about “earning a living for my family.” I’m grateful for those years of respite, and I was prepared to endure hardship to keep the experiment going. But the bosses of the community, perhaps prodded/aided by the US government, which took a dim view of our activism as “the flagship of the counterculture,” decided to end the game.
I’m glad to know there are people still working to keep some level of our experiment going. I think it really helps to have a spiritual practice of some kind that reminds one that “the best things in life are not things,” and of the virtues of voluntary simplicity. Good luck!
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