Sharing Bit by Bit

by Raven

This is a blog devoted to income-sharing communities, and by extension, to income-sharing and to sharing in general, and to community living, which always, by its very nature, involves at least some degree of sharing.

I have been reading a lot about individualism lately, which runs very strong in American culture.  Each of us should be able to make it on our own. Developmentally this is important, because I believe that independence is a critical stage as we move from dependence to interdependence, but truthfully, no one makes it on their own.  Interdependence is a key feature of community living, since each of us has our own strengths and weak points and these differ from person to person.  One of the big advantages of community living is that in a community, each of us get to operate from the positions of our strengths, knowing that other people can support us where we are not strong, just as we support others where they have difficulties.  Together, we are much, much stronger than any of us is individually.

Is this sharing?  I strongly believe it is.  We get to share our strengths and we also get to share in other folks strengths, making it a lot less necessary for us to try to do everything.  Because we really can’t do everything.

What else can we share and do we share in community and elsewhere?  There are lots of possibilities, beginning with resource sharing of all kinds.  I’ve already written here about networks of “libraries” and mutual aid and gift economies.  

My point is that we don’t have to share everything and we certainly don’t need to start out by sharing everything.  Even Twin Oaks, which seems based on radical sharing, has ways to opt in and out of sharing, public and private options.  And some of us have been discussing (a discussion I’ve had with several folks over the years) the idea of doing income-sharing between houses, perhaps set distances apart.  Although my biggest dream is to live with lots of people, you don’t actually have to live communally to share income.

Which is my point.  While I’m all for income-sharing and radical sharing, we can create a society that’s based on sharing, bit by bit.  Each little bit of sharing moves us stronger in the direction of a more sharing centered society.  And, as I think I’ve said here, as much as I’m into income-sharing communities, I don’t think they work for everyone.   What I want to see is a variety of alternatives, a whole bunch of ways of sharing and working together, and I think that the only way to create that is by sharing, bit by bit.

IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME HERE…

We’re glad you made it!  This is a blog devoted to income-sharing communities, also known as communes.  It is a huge repository of information about communal living, income-sharing, and even sharing in general. It is not focused on other kinds of communities, although we do have some information about communities in general, as well as what you need to know about starting a community or joining a community.  For more information about other kinds of intentional communities or community living in general, you should check out the Foundation for Intentional Community.

For those truly interested in the idea of income-sharing and income-sharing communities, this site is a treasure trove.  We have over a thousand posts here on various aspects of communal living, including lots of reports about various aspects of life in the communes, as well as thoughts and essays about sharing income as well as life.  And pictures!  There are lots of pictures here.

For those who think that this is some idea that will never work and all the communes vanished with the sixties, you can read about Twin Oaks which has been up and running for fifty-eight years now, and East Wind which is celebrating its fiftieth-first anniversary this year. (2025)  Our goal here isn’t to convince you to join or start an income-sharing community (although that would be great).  Our goal is to let you know that income-sharing is not only possible, but it really isn’t that difficult.

If you are new here, we have a welcome page with more information about  what’s on this blog and how to use this site.

A reflection on the evolution of Twin Oaks

By Keenan (from Your Passport to Complaining)

Dining: 

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Llano is crowded, noisy, and filthy and should be condemned.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) ZK sets new standard in luxuriousness and cleanliness at Twin Oaks.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) ZK is crowded, noisy, and filthy and should be condemned. Dining should happen in Llano, but only if it has a less offensive name.

Visitor program:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Visitors housed in SLG’s.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Visitors housed in Aurora.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Visitors housed in SLG’s and Ta Chenerates housed in Aurora.

Degania:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Degania is built for childrens’ program.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Degania abandoned.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Degania used for childrens’ program and then Degania abandoned again.

Technology:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) No video allowed anywhere.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) No video allowed in bedrooms.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) No video allowed in public spaces.

Allowance:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Allowance is .75 cents a month
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Allowance is $35.00 a month
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Allowance is $115.00 a month

Behavior issues:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Behaviorism will deal with any problematic behaviors among members.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Behaviorism doesn’t work. Problematic behavior is dealt with through policy: feedbacks, support groups, process team, mediation, mental health team, and membership team.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) nothing works to change problematic behavior—reject all visitors who exhibit any potentially problematic behavior.

A/C:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Air conditioning kills the planet.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Air conditioning protects equipment, but is not for people.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Air conditioning kills mold and saves lives.

What is offensive: 

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Makeup and shaving are offensive.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Having babies is offensive.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Wrong pronouns are offensive.

Buildings:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Naming buildings after past communal efforts is uplifting and inspirational.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) No new buildings to name.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Naming buildings after past communities with problematic values is offensive.

Children:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) No children until the community is ready.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) The community raises children. Biological parents discouraged from caring for children. Censor children’s books to remove all mention of “mother” or “father.”
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Pregnancy approval process to ensure that parents really want to be parents. Parents raise children.

Labor:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Variable labor system (members work too much).
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Quota is set at 49 (members work too much).
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Quota is set at 42 (members work too much).

Taking a break:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Don’t leave the farm during a hammocks push.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) P.A.L. policy
• Twin Oaks 3.0) P.A.L., Suspended membership, Emotional LOA, Sabbatical, and Associate Membership.

Building design:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Members reject mainstream building practices, like proper foundations. All building labor comes from Twin Oaks members
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Members accept mainstream building practices and most building labor comes from Twin Oaks members.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Building labor is hired.

Income:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Hammocks is main income source. Concerns about Pier 1 as main account eventually prove accurate.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Tofu is main income source. Concerns about cost of upgrading tofu eventually prove accurate.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Seed Racks is main income source. Concerns…?

Decision-making:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Members involved in all decisions of the community.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Decision-making happens at the managerial level after much community process.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Members are sometimes, but not always, informed of decisions.

Ex-members:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Ex-members are treated like traitors to the values of Twin Oaks.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Ex-members are treated like old friends and welcome to come to parties.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Ex-members buy adjoining property.

Cleanliness:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Cleaning is a bourgeois middle-class affectation that focuses on appearance over substance.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Cleaning with chemicals is bad for the planet.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Mold kills! Scrub everything! Use bleach!

Trees:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) There are no trees near newly built buildings.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Plant trees to provide coolness and shade buildings.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Fight mold! Cut trees near buildings down! 

You are a long term member after…:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) 2 years
• Twin Oaks 2.0) 5 years
• Twin Oaks 3.0) 10 years

Longest term member at Twin Oaks:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) McCune
• Twin Oaks 2.0) McCune
• Twin Oaks 3.0) McCune

Communal networking:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Twin Oaks is isolated and focused on survival.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Twin Oaks helps build a national communal movement (Communities magazine, builds FEC, Leaves of Twin Oaks, welcomes national media).
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Twin Oaks helps develop a local network of communities in Louisa County.

Leaving Twin Oaks:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) You get nothing if you leave Twin Oaks.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) You get $50 and a hammock.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) You get nothing if you leave Twin Oaks.

Death:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) No need for a cemetery.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Cemetery in the woods on a hill.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Can’t keep track of buried bodies.

This is mainly satire, please don’t message the blamer…also…make your own additions to the evolution of Twin Oaks.

Agreements and Policies #7

by Raven

7:  Exit Agreements

I’ve written a whole post on this before, why you should create Exit Agreements, and how we were structuring them at Glomus. Here I would like to provide some context and some ideas and learnings about these agreements.  You should probably click on the link and read the old post before reading this.  I don’t intend to repeat myself much here.

In the list of posts that I said I would write on Agreements and Policies, we are at about the halfway point.  The earlier stuff was easier but important, mostly because in this second half I will be building on the earlier things.  For example, Exit Agreements builds on Membership which in turn builds on Vision.  Now we are into the trickier and more difficult stuff–much of it more difficult to think about let alone talk about.

Exit Agreements aren’t that difficult to talk about but they are something that most people who are starting a community don’t want to think about.  You’re just starting a community and trying to get people, why should you talk about folks leaving? Unfortunately, everyone who lives in a community leaves at some point, either because they want to, or because they have been asked to leave, or because they get sick or die, or because the community actually dissolves and leaves them.

Exit Agreements involve the easiest of the transitions–yes, things get a lot more difficult from here.  But, my hope is that you are creating a community (and especially if you are creating an income sharing community) because you care about people and want to do well by them.  Besides, it’s easier to get people into a community if they know they can leave at any point.  Making it easier for folks to leave actually makes it easier for them to stay.  (I’ll leave the details on disgruntled people for you to read in the linked post.)

Now, the details.  What would folks need in order to leave and do well after they leave?  I talked about what we came up with at Glomus.  I left Glomus and it was very easy for me, partly because I had money saved and money coming in, but also because the agreement I asked that they use the farm van to drive me and my stuff to my next house.  And they did.

A good place to start on building Exit Agreements would be for each person (even those who plan to stay ‘forever’) to imagine what they would need in order to leave the community and start over.  Of course, some things may be difficult for a new community to do, especially if they don’t have much in the way of financial resources.

The Exit Savings (see the linked post) may be the easiest to implement.  You can build this into your community’s financial structure.  It’s a basic savings plan for each member and builds equity for each person.  What I like about it is that it treats someone who stays for two months quite differently from someone who stays for twenty years.  Each person gets from the community in proportion to what they’ve given to the community.

Every community will need to figure out the details of this policy together, since a lot will depend on who’s in the community and what the community’s resources are.  And, of course, this will change over time.  Your Exit Agreement policy, like almost all of your community’s policies, should be looked at and updated. But the point is for you to figure out, collectively, how to do well by each other.

In the next piece on Policies and Agreements, I will talk about how to deal with disagreements, how to set up a Conflict Resolution Policy.  This is more stuff folks usually don’t want to think about but often regret it if they don’t.

Sharing Is Needed Now

by Raven

In spite of what I’ve said about the necessity of a mission statement, Twin Oaks doesn’t have a mission statement.  In fact, there isn’t a lot that everyone at Twin Oaks agrees on.  Probably the one thing that holds Twin Oaks together is an emphasis on radical sharing.  If they have it, they share it.  Not just income, but land, buildings, cars, and musical instruments.  Sometimes the sharing is optional (like with clothes and bikes) but the possibility of sharing is always there.

Zhankoye–Twin Oaks’ shared kitchen/dining area

I have been horrified by the news recently.  First, Russia decided part of Ukraine (or maybe all of Ukraine) belonged to them.  More recently, Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over whose land it is.  Now I’ve heard that Venezuela wants part of Guyana, saying that it belongs to them.  Meanwhile, China is eyeing Taiwan, there’s several wars over territory going on in Africa, and in Haiti and in Mexico, gangs are claiming cities and territories.  It seems like most conflicts are about who owns what.  What if everyone could just share everything?

I’m reminded of some of the lyrics of John Lennon’s Imagine: “Imagine there’s no countries, It isn’t hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for… Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger… Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world.”  

What is so hard about sharing?  Children are taught it in kindergarten but adults still seem to have trouble with it.  Imagine if we could share whatever we have–especially the land.  It seems such a strange concept that we can own pieces of the earth.

At Twin Oaks they’ve been doing this radical sharing for fifty-six years now and they are going strong.  I’ve been sharing income and other things many times now.  It isn’t hard to do.  Really.

This blog is devoted to income sharing communities, but I’m also trying to get out the word that all kinds of sharing are possible.  The more I read the news, the more I think that’s an extremely important message.  Sharing is truly needed now.

Breakfast, Catalog, Musical Ethics, and Income Scaring

by Raven

Our new posts on Facebook did very, very well on this week.

We began with Twin Oak’s post on a pancake breakfast.

This did incredibly well, with twenty-one likes and loves, four comments, and well over three hundred views.

And Acorn announced their new seed catalog was almost ready.

This was the low performing post for the new week and it didn’t do badly at all, with fourteen likes and loves, two comments, and nearly two hundred views.

Twin Oaks also posted about a book that featured the musical culture of the community.

Here is a link to the book from its publisher.

This post did very well also, although not as good as Steve’s pancakes. (Thirteen likes and loves, two comments, and two hundred and forty-seven views.)

However, the most viewed post of the week was a Facebook question. I’ve learned that if I ask a provocative enough question, we can get lots of comments and views. This time I asked:

And we certainly got enough comments (including some from me).

Reading all the comments is practically an education on what can go wrong and how to do income sharing right. I think anyone interested in the subject should read all of these.

And, yes, it did very, very, very well. Sometimes Facebook questions do. This got thirteen likes (not including all the likes, loves, cares, sads, and wows to the individual comments) and an amazing six hundred and sixty seven views (not to mention twenty-six comments). I have seen more views–but often they are to a Facebook question as well. And I’ve seen FB questions bomb. My rule is that questions do better when they are less often. I’m very, very happy with how this one did.

Agreements and Policies #5

by Raven

5:  Mad Money

If you are trying to create a community, once you have your labor and financial systems, if you hope to be an income sharing community, you will need to think about how to deal with the things that members may want but don’t need.  Some communities (especially small communities) have given their members the discretion to buy whatever they want–often as long as it’s under a certain amount of money.  More often, communities decide that some things are necessities and some things are luxuries, and they give their members a set amount of money each month (or week) to buy the things folks desire but don’t need.  You can call this a stipend, you can call this an allowance, or you could just refer to it as “Mad Money”, but it’s for those non-essentials that members want–and generally what those things are vary from person to person.

Often, the community doesn’t care or perhaps even want to know what this money is spent for.  It’s discretionary–you just get the money and can spend it for whatever you want. For some folks, these things go to support whatever they are addicted to: alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, drugs, etc.  Some folks spend it on books or comics or videos or art supplies or who knows what.  And some folks save it up–sometimes for a big expense, like travel, and sometimes just because they like saving money.

I’m not sure what the current amounts are in the bigger communes; I think that Twin Oaks recently had something like $75 or $90 a month but I do know that at one point in the past, they were giving something like $30 a month, leading one member to remark that this was one place where you could really say, “Another day, another dollar”.  I remember at Common Threads (in the 1990s) each adult member got five dollars a week and our two kids got a dollar a week and so once a week everyone got their ‘Allowance’.

The point is that every person is different and wants different things and having a fund for their desires makes income sharing a little easier.  This money should never go for things someone really needs, the community should provide for those things. Rather this is for those little things that make a bit of difference for each person. If you are trying to plan a new community, you may want to consider this as a way to accommodate individuality.  Of course, how much money each person gets is going to depend on the community’s budget–which is why you work on financial systems first.

Next, we’ll look at one of the most important things you can design for a community:  the membership process. 

Agreements and Policies #4

by Raven

4:  Money, Money, Money, Money!

Your commune can be as communist as you like; but if you live in the United States, you will have to deal with the capitalist system, and that means, your community will need money.

My suggestion is that after you figure out your labor system, you work on your potential community’s financial system.  No matter what kind of community you start, you will have food to buy and bills to pay.  If you are starting a non-income-sharing community (a co-op house or cohousing community, for example), you will still need to figure out how everyone will share expenses.  Who is going to pay the bills?  How will they be paid back?  Does everyone pay the same for everything?  (Examples of people paying different amounts include paying different amounts on the rent or mortgage depending on the size of each person’s room or apartment and creating a sliding scale for expenses depending on each person’s income.)  Is there a certain date everyone needs to pay by?

In an income sharing situation, things are both easier and harder.   They are easier because all income generally goes to a specific location and one or two people are responsible for paying for everything (and usually these are folks who like thinking about money).  It’s harder because it requires a certain degree of trust and some coordination (the more people, the more coordination is needed).

The first thing you need to know about setting up an income sharing system is the difference between income and assets.  Income is any money coming to anyone in the community after they join the community (as well as any money going to the community as a whole).  Assets are things (including money) owned by folks before they joined the community.  An example is if someone has (say) a million dollars in the bank (or actually any money in the bank) before they joined the community.  Unless they want to give money to the community, that money is theirs but they can’t touch it while they are in the community (because that would give them privilege over others who don’t have as much).  However, any interest that they get on that money once they’ve joined the community is income and should be communal and treated as any other source of income.

Income in a commune generally comes from one of two places, either income from individuals which is pooled together or income from a community business, and sometimes both. Most of the older communes get all their money from their businesses (East Wind’s nut butters and sandals, Acorn’s seed business [SESE], and a large variety of Twin Oaks businesses, including hammocks, tofu, and SESE Seed Rax–and several more).  Starting communes usually pool their money together, sometimes while developing a cottage industry.  (Glomus, for example, had a combination of money from their farming business as well as what individuals made through other means or at least that was the situation while I was there.)

I think that it’s important to have at least two people (who are not a couple or close friends) who will manage and keep an eye on the money and to have a transparent system that anyone can look at.  Regular reports to the community are important as well.  One thing to note is that many people in communes don’t want to have to think about money, which is fine as long as there’s at least a couple of people who do (as above).  Unfortunately, I know of two really bad situations where there was just one person doing all the financial work and, in one case, that person embezzled a whole bunch of money before anyone noticed, in the other, the person handling the money became depressed and didn’t look at the cash flow for months and when they did, the commune was in such dire financial straits that it didn’t survive.  You really need to have more than one person in a community watching and handling the money.

All this is to say that once you have your labor situation figured out, it’s time to think about how you will handle money.  Set up a simple system that anyone can look at (spreadsheets or Quickbooks or some clear way of watching income and expenses), have a couple of people who will do the financial work, and do regular reports on how the community is doing financially.  If there are problems, this is a time to get the whole community involved because a group will have more ideas and resources than any individual.

A last piece of the money situation is how to deal with “unnecessary”/”luxury” expenses.  In a commune, everyone’s ‘needs’ are met (although there are often disagreements about what is a need and what is a luxury).  But it’s important to find ways that individuals can also get things they want that they don’t absolutely need.  Call it a stipend or allowance or mad money, it’s what I will talk about in my next post.

Starting from Scratch #9

by Raven

9: Agreements and Policies

As I said in my last ‘Starting from Scratch’ post, I’ve just moved into an already functioning community. One of their major challenges was that they didn’t start with much in the way of agreements. In this post I want to look at a list of agreements and policies I think every community should have and I will briefly say why I think each of them is important. For many of them, I will write future posts detailing the particular agreement or policy. (I’ve written about agreements before, but mostly about why they are important. Here I want to list most of the agreements and policies you want to make. And as I mentioned in my previous post, I developed this list from my time working with Cotyledon and Glomus Commune as we were developing policies, as well as watching communities like Compersia struggle to create policies, and also after reading Yana Ludwig’s book on Building Belonging which has a good list of policies that starting communities should think about.)

Here is my list, along with a bit on why.

First of all, you need to decide how you will decide things. This is the first thing you need to do, because you need a way to collectively make decisions in order to create these policies and agreements. I will talk more in a future post about various methods of decision making.

Next, I believe, your group needs to create a Vision/Mission Statement. This is key because I believe that everything else, all your community’s policies, flow from this statement. Again, I hope to devote a whole post to this.

After this you can begin to create your community’s policies. Here’s my current list of what I think are important policies to have in place.

A Labor System: Everyone is going to need to work, at least in some capacity, to keep the community going. This is a lot more important in income-sharing communities, where work is the currency, but every community has some work involved, and to be fair, everyone needs to do some. How do you decide who does what and how much should each person do? Yes, this will be another post.

Financial Systems: How are you going to get money? How are you going to track the money you get? How are you going to budget? You can be as communist as you want but your community still has to survive in a capitalist system.

Stipend/Allowance/Mad Money: Income sharing communities take care of each members needs but it’s also good to have some money that each person has that they can spend on little extra items they might want, money that they can spend, no questions asked. How much? How often do they get it? How do you decide what’s a necessity and what’s a luxury?

Membership Process: How do you decide who is a good fit for the community? (I’ve seen communities try to go without having a membership process and I’ve also seen it backfire. Badly.) Like the decision making, this is tricky at the beginning. What do you do about the initial group of people? Make them go through the process or just grandmother them in?

Legal Structures: You have to deal with the outside world as a community and it’s good to have some kind of legal entity. Welcome to the world of LLCs, 501c3s, 501ds, housing cooperatives, and home owners associations. It’s as much fun as it sounds like. And yes, you are probably going to need to consult with a lawyer at some point. Hopefully only briefly.

Land Ownership: Who owns the land, the buildings, the property? In an “egalitarian community” it’s all supposed to be equal–either we all own it or no one owns it. (You can have a community where everyone is a renter.) Two interesting possibilities are land trusts and permanent real estate cooperatives.

Exit Agreements: It would be nice to assume that everyone is going to stay forever, but the reality is people come and go from communities. How do you make it easier for someone to leave if they decide to or need to? We take care of each other while we are living together and I think it’s important to take of someone when they leave, particularly if they’ve been a member for a while and put quite a bit into the community.

And those are the easy policies. Here are the ones that are trickier but you absolutely want in place because things will be worse if you don’t

Conflict Resolution Structures: Most people don’t like conflict. (I’m an admitted conflict avoider.) Having some kind of agreed upon way of managing conflict before conflict happens makes things a bit easier.

Violence Policy: Hopefully it’s not going to happen, but you don’t want to try to figure this out when you are dealing with a really difficult situation.

What to do if a member is sick, disabled, or dies: If your community is around long enough, it’s going to happen.

Finally, the two you really don’t want to think about and you really need to have in place: a Member Expulsion Policy and a Community Dissolution Policy. No one wants to think about expelling members and even less about dissolving the community but, like the violence policy, it’s going to be even more horrible if you are trying to come up with a policy under the high stress of one of these happening.

The good news is that these don’t have to be permanent policies. You can revisit them or change them over time. When we dissolved the Common Threads community, we had a policy in place which we basically ignored because another solution made more sense at that point.

Policies aren’t there to bind you if everyone can agree to something else. They are there as a fall back when you can’t agree. Fortunately, you already have something in place as a default. Having policies already can make a really hard time just a bit easier.

Ideas, Arrangements, Effects

by Raven

I just read a book that was filled with what I thought were a lot of useful concepts and I thought I would review it here.

This is not a book about communes or communities.  In fact there’s no mention of intentional communities anywhere in the book. But I believe that this is a book about the work that we are doing in building communities.

I’ve talked about communities as being “laboratories for social change”.  Ideas Arrangements Effects is a manual for social change focusing not on marches or direct action but focusing on changing the arrangements of daily life.  This is exactly the work that many communities, and especially the income sharing communities, do.

The title of the book outlines the basic premise of the book which they put as: “Ideas are embedded within arrangements which, in turn, produce effects.”  It’s easy to spot the effects: climate change, poverty, police violence, gentrification,etc, etc, and many activists and academics can point out the ideas and ideologies that cause them: capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, private property, gender roles, neoliberalism, etc, etc. However, what is often missed is the arrangements that keep the effects in place. Worse, instead of seeing ideas, arrangements, and effects, we often view it as ideas, people, and effects, and try to figure out who to blame, rather than trying to look at the arrangements that keep the effects in place.

As an example of how arrangements produce effects, the authors look at a classroom where straight rows of chairs face a teacher versus one where the chairs are arranged in a circle and people take turns leading the discussion and how different the two situations feel.  The authors of the book, Lori Lobenstine, Kenneth Bailey, and Ayako Maruyama, are part of the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) which have designed many interventions where they try new rearrangements of familiar things, like creating a Public Kitchen where a group of people cook together and share food (something very familiar to folks who live in communes and co-op houses) and setting up Social Emergency Response Centers to deal with social situations like “state-sanctioned violence against Black communities, … gentrification, Islamophobia, privatization, environmental devastation, and more.”  

A Public Kitchen

They point out “We are fighting hard for social justice, but we are not very good at impacting the larger social container of everyday life.”  They suggest we “Question the small arrangements that shape everyday life.  Imagine big arrangements and the impact we could have.”

Social Emergency Response Center Kit

Isn’t changing the arrangements the work that we are doing by creating new communities–especially income-sharing communities.  Income sharing itself is a totally different arrangement from capitalist culture.  Gender roles are also very different in communities like Twin Oaks, Acorn, and Glomus.  What would a predominantly working class commune look like?  Check out East Wind.  What about a BIPOC led community?  There are at least two attempts at creating BIPOC led communes in Louisa County.  Communes are “social change laboratories” precisely because we are trying out new arrangements.  Yana Ludwig, in her book Building Belonging, claims “Community is not just a high stakes place to be working out our cultural baggage, it is also a very good space for changing it.” 

Ideas Arrangements Effects is a book full of insights on how our society is arranged and thoughts of creative ways to change those arrangements.  It would be useful to anyone considering creating community who wants to think outside the box.  The book concludes with the statement “When we think with the audacity of world builders, we begin to see not just new ways of fighting for a more just and vibrant society, but whole new ideas about what that world might be like.”  Community builders are world builders.  We are building small models of a new society.

Ideas Arrangements Effects is probably not available from your local bookstore but can be ordered from the Design Studio for Social Intervention.