Our posts on Facebook were fairly diverse and did pretty well last week.
We started with a pretty picture from the Magnolia Collective.
While it didn’t do great, it got a couple of likes and did well enough for a simple photo of flowers.
And at Acorn, they are literally climbing the walls.
This got seven likes and did pretty well with views.
It was party time at LEF and Xander came prepared. (Incidentally, Dumpra is the communitarian’s dumpster deity.)
This got six likes and also did fairly well.
Twin Oaks posted about their labor system and their labor sheets.
It didn’t do quite as well as the last two posts on Facebook, but it also got six likes.
Finally, I haven’t posted a question on Facebook for a while, so I was hoping this would do well–and it did. My question was:
I was looking for something that might be controversial and might also get a bunch of comments, and this got a bunch of comments.
It only got one like and one love but it got seven comments and two hundred and fifty views (so far) and while there’s been several posts that have gotten a lot more views in the past, this is definitely in the high end–so I’m pleased.
I complained last week about Facebook switching things all around and making these compilations harder. Since then they’ve made more changes which made doing this (at least showing the statistics) even harder. Given that, this week I’m not going to even show the ‘Reach’ statistics from FB, but simply quote them. I’m not sure at all what I will be doing next week.
East Wind put up a little video clip about their geese.
That’s a still from the video. Click on this link if you want to see the whole thing.
It just did okay on Facebook with a Reach of 105 and just three likes.
Acorn put up a picture of Ira chopping vegetables.
Anything to do with Ira usually draws in folks and this did fairly well, with a Reach of 249 and 21 likes and loves and a couple of telling comments.
Twin Oaks published a picture of one of their outdoor tables on a nice day with people eating at it.
Twin Oaks reposts also generally do well and this was no exception. It had a Reach of 296 and twelve likes.
The Magnolia Collective posted a picture of their woodshed.
This did pretty good, too, with a Reach of 269 and seven likes and loves.
Finally, Living Energy Farm said Bon Voyage to a family that has gone on what looks like a working vacation.
Surprisingly to me (since LEF posts often don’t do as well as some others) this post did exceptionally well with a Reach of 343 and 25 likes.
Serenity Solidarity, which I think is one of the most exciting communal projects happening now, is having a work party. Here’s how they describe it: “We all know the issues of unaffordable housing in the Charlottesville area that people who have low (or no) income are facing. Serenity Solidarity has acquired 2 houses that are side-by-side that we are using to provide housing for vulnerable people. We are having a work party and lunch next Saturday, January 21st, from 11am to 2pm. We need to clean out these houses and do some renovations in order to make these houses safe and beautiful for the residents, who will move in on March 1st. Lunch will be provided!! Please call for the address 908-357-8858 or send a Facebook message to Serenity Solidarity.”
I was also impressed with their New Year’s Resolution: “Let this be the year we build a Black and Indigenous land power movement rooted in history, culture, respect, reciprocity, and freedom!
Last week’s podcast from a British Marxist about the communes was labelled Part 1, so I went over to YouTube to see if there was a Part 2 and there is–sort of. It says TEASER and it’s super short–two and half minutes. I guess there’s a longer version coming, but this is all that’s on YouTube now. It does talk a teeny bit about Acorn and other of the newer communes.
A Marxist podcaster wants to know what life is like in a “communist commune” so he interviews Sorrel, a former member of both Twin Oaks and East Wind. The host, Tim O’Brien, is very interested in ‘labor time accounting’ and the communes certainly have that.
I often point out to people planning to join a community that their first duty, once they get there, is to take care of themselves. This is important.
The main reason to take care of yourself (under any circumstances but especially in community) is not that you are a great or special person, but because every person in community is important and everyone has work to do and the only way to be able to do that work is to take care of yourself.
I’m currently living in a farming community. The farmers use certain tools to do their work and they take care of those tools because they need them to do the work that they want to do. In a sense, the tools of community building are the people who live there.
Many folks have heard the story of the announcement made on planes before take off. If the oxygen level in the plane gets too low and the oxygen masks drop from overhead, passengers are told to put the mask on their own face before helping anyone else out.
If you aren’t in good shape, you are not going to be able to help anyone else. And there’s a lot of work to do in any community but especially in an income-sharing community. In a commune, we need each person to take care of themselves first–just so that they can be in shape to take care of others and the community.
There’s a lot of work to do on a commune, but the first and most important work is to take care of yourself.
In a capitalist culture, money (which becomes the means to get what you want and need) is dependent on how much you work (unless you inherit money). Your survival in this culture generally depends on money and your acquisition of money depends on work. (Unless you are a “Moneyless Man“.)
If you live in an income-sharing community, however, your relationship to money changes. Since the community provides whatever you need (although usually not luxury items), money doesn’t mean much. (There is an oft quoted story that you can leave a $20 bill around Twin Oaks and find it just where you left it a week later. Don’t leave a candy bar around, though, and expect to find it again.)
Twin Oaker offering raspberries
Work is basically the currency in most income-sharing communities. Twin Oaks and Acorn Community have a requirement that most members work 42 hours a week. (Twin Oaks has a “pension plan” that allows long-time members to work one less hour a week for every year over 50.) East Wind requires 35 hours of work a week. Glomus Commune (and former communes Sandhill and Compersia) doesn’t (or didn’t) have a work hour requirement–but everyone is still expected to work, and at Glomus most folks work hard.
I’ve talked about income-sharing as a direct challenge to the idea that different people are worth different amounts. (The CEO of many corporations get six–or more–figure salaries. Many of their workers get minimum wage.) In an income-sharing community everyone (at least economically) is valued equally–regardless of race, gender, class background, or ability. Hierarchies are diminished, although there are still power dynamics. (The communes are working on that but human nature is stubborn.)
We’re all in this together
Money still exists within the communes because we are still embedded in a capitalist society. People get stipends/allowances to spend on “luxury items” (although it doesn’t work that way at Glomus where people can spend what they want on themselves–although they are encouraged not to spend too much). However, the stipend money is not dependent on how much someone works; basically everyone gets the same amount.
With the link between work and money broken, the communes are creating a very different economic culture, a culture where you don’t have to worry about where your next paycheck is coming from and how you will pay the rent, buy food, etc. We are creating places where people work and play and live together and enjoy life. We haven’t eliminated all worries–but the communes have practically eliminated most economic concerns.
commune life 