When Good Communes Go Bad: A Guide
~By Tom (Tet)
I figure that now is as good a time as any to do my article on my past experience with the various forms of small-C communism, anarchy and off-the-grid living. I was, as some of you know, one of the hippies back so very long ago. I watched experiments in social structures ranging from an alternative City Council in Champaign-Urbana to Stephen Gaskin’s Farm in Tennessee. Virtually all of the ones I knew are gone now, major failures. Even Gaskin’s Farm stopped being Communistic in 1983, switching to a system where each family was expected to support itself with its own income.
I’ve lived in a multi-adult household during the early period, as well as a successful 5-10 person city block/purchased house group during the last decade. Why have the ones I’ve been part of been successful while others have failed? There are various reasons that I’ll cover in the rest of this article.
Reason #1:
Hierarchy and Coercion.
Celine’s Second Law states that Communication is Only Possible Between Equals. This means that success in social interactions only occurs when there is no coercion on either side. Two of the mistakes made by unsuccessful communes were due to this principle being ignored. There is first of all the despot/guru model where the spiritual leader makes the rules with or without input from the populace. The most extreme example of this type, of course, was Charles Manson’s Family. A number of the surviving communes still have this structure.
The opposite extreme was the democratic model where major terms of discussion were put to a vote. These deteriorated rapidly, since the unity was quickly broken down into power blocs and cliques, sort of like 7th Grade School elections. Almost all of these communes are gone now. (If anyone knows of any that are still operating at this time, let me know, I’d love to study why.)
The successful communes I have seen have worked on a veto principle that resembles neither of the above. In order for anything controversial to happen, there has to be a unanimous consent between all of the members. In this case, since the entire membership has agreed on the item on the agenda, no one can feel that their input has been overridden. This also has a tendency to reduce the amount of risk-taking actions, since one or more members would have the good sense to realize that the risk is too high for the action. It also encourages compromise, since in order to get part of what you want, you have to be willing to give up some things you desire to get the cooperation of other people. This veto power, however, seriously limits the number of people in a working commune, since if you get too high a number, essential changes cannot be made in time to evolve to meet crises.
Reason #2:
Inappropriate Economics for Size
I’ve been trying to find the approximate cut-off point for true Communism for some time–you know, “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” My guess is that it’s about 13.
Why does this occur? My theory is this: It has something to do with the Pareto Principle (the 80-20 rule.) I learned about this in Quality Control Engineering when we found out that 20% of the workers made 80% of the mistakes. A different 20% of the workers were responsible for 80% of the profit of the company.
How does this apply to commune living? The “from each…” formula only works if people have approximately equal amounts of both assets and liabilities. It is easy to select for this *if* the number of people in the commune are small enough that the statistics of small numbers are in operation. If you get large, suddenly 20% of the population is resentful, since their contribution is essential, but they’re working all of the time. At the same time, 80% of the money/materials that they make is going to support the needs of 20% of the communal population (who are, most likely, completely different people.)
This resentment eventually destroys the commune, and occurs time after time. This is why true Communism or Socialism WILL NOT WORK IN REAL LIFE WITHOUT COERCION, and inevitably leads to a loss of freedom.
Reason #3:
Failure to deal with the rest of the world adequately.
I can best illustrate this with an example. Back around 1974, there was an alternative City Council (called the Community Council) with representatives from all of the “hippie businesses” and business collectives at that time. [There were dozens in this town, ranging from a gas station to a dressmaking collective to a restaurant. The only remainders of this period still extant are Good Vibes, Strawberry Fields and People's Performance Automotive--the rest collapsed, usually noisily and involving lawsuits.]
I was on this Council, along with my wife at the time. At one point, the Twin Cities offered us the opportunity to play Softball in the City League against teams fielded by the “straight” businesses.
Simple, right? Nope. Didn’t happen.
The people within the communes refused to deal with playing SOFTBALL with the rest of the city because a) THEY KEPT SCORE, and teams should not be fielded with the idea of competiton, but merely for the enjoyment of the play and b) THEY USED RULES.
Need I say more? Billy Joe, I can sense you staring at me in disbelief. It really happened, I swear to God.
Reason #4:
Lack of a common belief system
Any government that wishes to rule without coercion cannot depend on a police force or an army to control civil order. The populace itself has to be primarily virtuous and in agreement with the social contract. The same is true of a commune. The successful ones consistently were picky, taking only those who were willing to commit to a social contract that ensured that the good of everyone was the top priority.
All it takes is one criminal or exploiter within a non-coercive social group in order for it to collapse. Human nature being what it is, those that were good judges of human nature lasted, those who were not, died.
Hopefully, this sheds some light on remarks that I’ve made in the past about freedom and social structure and alternative living. For those who are curious about the 60s and 70s, I hope that it also gives you the reasons (besides “hippies were stupid and stoned”) that the social experiments during that period failed and showed some of the things that could be learned from them.
~By Tom (Tet)
Comment by Evan on 17 January 2007 at 3:44 pm:
That was a very interesting arrticle, Tom – seems like you’ve lived a very interesting life.
The softball thing was hilarious.
Comment by Anonymous on 17 January 2007 at 5:42 pm:
The only good commie’s a dead commie…
Comment by tet on 17 January 2007 at 9:37 pm:
Evan, I’ll tell you a little secret–*everybody* has a story.
Studs Terkel made a living asking people questions and recording their answers with a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Just ask. People are amazing.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 18 January 2007 at 12:45 am:
Tom,
I also enjoyed the bit about softball, especially because I used to play so much baseball.
Anyways, I’m curious about what you’d have to say about government programs that don’t go quite as far as communism or socialism, but begin to approach it and look like it. Universal health care or the Social Security System or employee programs in Europe are a few major examples. Would anyone agree with the following: The utter failure of communism/socialism is proof that government programs which tend toward that model will also be failed programs for similar reasons? In other words, if we have determined that a particular form of government and economics is bad, then why should we expect that less of a bad thing could be a good thing? I’m not necessarily promulgating this argument, mostly I’m curious how Tom and others would respond to it, since it’s basically an assault on big government liberal programs.
Comment by Augur on 18 January 2007 at 6:33 am:
Universal Health Care is becoming less and less of a “liberal” issue. Ask Romney and the Governator. Or perhaps you could ask the Business Roundtable.
Comment by kofi the becomes less and less an "ideology" issue on 18 January 2007 at 8:23 am:
Universal Health Care is becoming less and less of a “liberal” issue. Ask Romney and the Governator. Or perhaps you could ask the Business Roundtable.
And by this logic, perserving the 2nd Amendment is becoming less and less of a “conservative” issue. Ask Jim Webb and Max Baucus.
And abortion is becoming less and less of a “conservative” issue. Ask Joe Donnelly and Baron Hill.
BJM is just pointing out the obvious. We live in a country where the top 1% of earners pay 34% of all taxes despite making only 16% of the total income. It’s not 80-20, but it’s not very far off either. But then my low tax rhetoric is never well received, so I’m going to buck my trend and propose a tax increase. Let’s see what kind of reaction it gets. A 90% tax on yearly salaries over $10M. Think of the money for schools, the environment, healthcare? Only problem would be getting those liberal elitists on board. Sean Penn will tell me why I should fork over more of my hard earned dollars but something tells me he wouldn’t be too quick to support such a tax.
Comment by erik on 18 January 2007 at 9:01 am:
i wish i had more time to comment on this, but i get in big trouble whenever i’m online at work. i hope to get into it more later, maybe chime in at lunch.
all i can say off the bat is good, interesting article with many valid points–however, i don’t think that you’ve adequately addressed the issue. community has been a part of the human condition since the beginning of time. did it work for the hippies? no, they had plenty of their own problems and they were trying to extricate themselves from the economic system surrounding them to boot. at the same time, your argument in favor of capitalism seems openly reliant upon the same coercive force.
but like i said, i’ll have to address this whole thing later. i sent this to a friend who lives in a christian anarchist community right now (although he is not christian, with rammifications that i’m sure could spawn their own disscussion). i’ll be moving into a new place with him in june, so these criticisms are all of immense value to me even though i don’t accept your generalizations or your affirmation that the status quo, though more stable perhaps, is any better for the greater good OR the individual.
E
Comment by Augur on 18 January 2007 at 9:14 am:
To Kofi the insured:
More and more states are switching to universal health care. I dropped the names of 2 republican governors who have supported the switch. Pennsylvania will probably be the next state to adopt a universal plan.
There are 9 million children without health insurance.
The reason this is becoming more of a mainstream/ centrist issue is due in part to the dramatic increases in health care costs, and the mismanagement by private insurance companies. Beyond CEO salaries and advertising related expenses, private health insurance plans have huge administrative costs b/c they make money by NOT paying bills.
Small business and big business alike can’t afford the increasing burden of providing employees with health insurance. Canadian car manufacturers have an advantage of 4 dollars an hour in employee wage savings b/c of their health plan. Anywhere from 1200-1500 of the price of a new GM car is due to health care costs.
The U.S. spends more per capita ($6,102) while insuring smaller proportion of the population than Canada ($3,165), France ($3,159), Germany ($3,005), or the United Kingdom ($2,546).
In the next 2 years you will see this shift from what was historically considered a left wing issue, to a proposal embraced by a bigger chunk of the center.
Comment by Augur on 18 January 2007 at 9:15 am:
I don’t want to take us too far off of Tom’s post, I’ll do a post on Universal Health Care one of these days.
Tom – could you share some insights on how, in an individual household, you make things work smoothly with a relationship structure that’s often highly unstable?
I think you’ve told me things about kitchen allocation, for example :)
Comment by kofi the sean penn is an asshat on 18 January 2007 at 9:23 am:
I’m completely fine with univeral healthcare so long as you don’t raise my taxes or force me to participate in the program. I want to be able to take my privately insured ass and my disposable income to the best doctor I can find. I don’t want to have to wait in line for years for elective surgeries or months for necessary ones.
“Something” (wouldn’t be those other implementations of national health care – nah, those are so successful and perfect) tells me that this won’t be the situation. Instead I’ll be forced to get in line at the clinic and be treated by doctors who are less and less qualified, less and less intelligent because the truly brilliant people would rather invest their time in a field with a greater potential reward. If I had Sean Penn money I’d fly to Dubai or India or wherever the best doctors will be and pay cash for my needs; but I don’t, so I won’t, not that it will stop him.
Comment by Brandon on 18 January 2007 at 10:01 am:
Kofi, your humor is always appreciated, but I’m going to have to both disagree with you and not care at the same time. Whether or not doctor quality decreases with socialized insurance, I don’t know. Show me hard numbers and I’ll gladly accept it. But, much like conservatives whine about education, throwing money at the problem doesn’t help much either. Cuba, for instance, spends a few hundred bucks a year per capita on health care and has a life expectancy that’s about a whopping year less than that of the U.S. This is despite the fact that Cuba has been under economic sanctions for decades and most American medicines are hard or expensive to acquire. In fact, I’ve heard from friends who’ve been there that most doctors have herb gardens because of the shortage of prescription medications, they sort of do their own apothecary work. Many would argue that Cuba in fact has the best doctors in the world and if we’re going dollar-for-dollar, pound-for-pound, results-oriented, then I’m going to have to tentatively agree.
Part of the problem with the American healthcare system as with the legal system is that doctors almost HAVE to make obscene amounts of money because of the insane cost of education and lack of broad support (this is probably the one issue I think Tom can agree with me on, the government seems to do well with helping to defray the costs of education). Add that to the fact that people’s health is in the hands of corporations who see every empty bed as profit being lost and every doctor-minute as a discrete, quantifiable commodity and we have a very cold and inhumane healthcare system. Granted, I’m sure a government healthcare system would put similar demands on a doctor’s time, but having never seen it myself, I don’t know for certain.
Comment by tet on 18 January 2007 at 12:29 pm:
Well, I read the article kitten was talking about and, for the life of me, I cannot understand how it’s supposed to reflect on my column–except for the guy in the article being an old hippie. Beats me.
On another note, I was passing the email stations in the Illini Union on my way to lunch a bit ago and noticed that one of the terminals was logged in to a person’s email.
The little devil popped up on my left shoulder, of course and whispered into my ear, “Dear President Bush…”
Fortunately, my angel was not stuck in traffic, like it usually is, and I settled for emailing him from his own account explaining in excruciating detail why he’s a dumbass for doing this.
I feel much better now.
Kofi, that site on Socialized Medicine cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called unbiased. While I am willing to concede that reading people that totally affirm your previously held ideals can be relaxing and fulfilling, I would hesitate to attempt to use data from that source in a discussion. It’s sort of like asking either Cindy Sheehan or Joe Farah what to do about the war in Iraq.
Tom
Comment by tet on 18 January 2007 at 1:29 pm:
TANSTAAUS–There ain’t no such thing as an unbiased source.
There’s actually a hierarchy of sources nowadays:
1) Sources that actively attempt to be unbiased and the facts are verified. As hard as it is to believe, 40 years ago the majority of the media fell under this mantle except on the editorial page. The exceptions, like William Randolph Hearst and Colonel McCormick, were derided as the “Yellow Press.”
2) Sources that have verified facts *and* a bias, but the bias is admitted. Rush Limbaugh/Air America (and to a lesser extent NPR) are in this category as far as their reporting, although the former two discredit themselves by using logical fallacies in their arguments. (One example of how far this type has gone up in status is the elevation of Tony Snow to White House Press Secretary.)
3) Sources that have verified facts *and* a bias, but the bias is not admitted. Most of the mainstream media falls under this category nowadays.
4) Sources where some facts are verified, some are not *and* a bias. Most bloggers fall under this category, simply because they don’t have the resources to use primary sources.
5) Sources where some facts are fabrications, but enough are verifiable to give readers a reason to believe the false ones *and* an unspoken bias supported by both categories of statement. I think the blog you liked to falls under this category, Kofi. Michael Moore falls into this one, too, with his tendency to take filmed quotes out of context.
6) Sites run by Black Helicopter Nuts where absolute anything that agrees with preconceived notions are accepted as true without question.
Tom
Comment by tet on 18 January 2007 at 2:27 pm:
Kofi, I have to say that it looks like you’re right and that Urbanagora would not fall under the onus of the new law.
A question, though, for all you guys in law school or the law world:
If 500 people visited the site and a donation of $1000 was made to Billy Joe to “keep the site going,” would he still be required under this law to register and prove that he only got $1000 (not $25,000) or is the requirement for proof of being below the minimum on the FedGov?
Tom
Comment by Evan on 18 January 2007 at 6:52 pm:
Tom -
I read that article (all 3 parts) by Murray and thought it was vey interesting, as well. Sadly, no one seems to want to even take him seriously. I remember in AP Psych discussing an article about some of the more controversial parts of his book and almost no one in the class could discuss it without resorting to name-calling, completely ignoring any points he may have had or the intent of what he was writing. I haven’t read the book, but the point is that more and more opinions that support a position that society “doesn’t like” are met with an increasingly visceral response.
Personally, I think he does define intelligence too narrowly and in this article underestimates the value that going to college can add to someone as a person, including in whatever job they end up doing.
Comment by tet on 18 January 2007 at 10:22 pm:
Evan, the thing is, the socializing information (history, political science, economics) that is presently taught in LAS courses can be learned in two years with many, many fewer distractions than one would get while at college and at a cost of next to nothing.
College is a fraud, a scam, an attempt by the elites to guarantee a job for their children.
And it’s obsolete.
Look at how loud the uproar is here at the UofI when someone suggests forgoing the idiotic lecture halls and dormitories for measured distance learning over the ‘Net.
There’s a reason for this. The powers that be do not want people to learn that college is:
a) unnecessary, for the most part
b) overpriced by a factor of 3
c) only useful in a practical, educational sense for about a third of the people attending.
The entrenched elite is attempting to stop this new way of doing things because if it works, they’ll be out of a job, and most of them couldn’t make a living in the real world if someone subsidized them.
At new years, the Sun-Times did a study of the CEOs of Chicago’s 20 largest corporations. Of the 20, there were no graduates from Ivy League Schools, 14 with only bachlor’s degrees, 1 with a two-year degree and one with no college whatsoever.
Everything you know is wrong.
Tom
Comment by kofi the apprentice on 18 January 2007 at 11:35 pm:
Well the commune topic seems to receding into the rearview mirror. Before it disappears, I’ll jump on Augur’s wagon and say I would be interested in hearing about Tom’s current family structure. There have been references to it in the past, but being another anon and having never met Tom, I don’t know very much about the structure, how it came to be, or how it functions. If you’re willing to share, I’d be a very eager reader. That said, I clearly understand the desire for anonymity and would never ask you to reveal more than you are comfortable doing so.
Regarding the WSJ and the recent posts by Evan and Tom: I have only read the op-ed that was linked (I want to get to the other two – eventually) but I agree in large part with Tom and the WSJ author. I have long held the opinion that most service jobs do not require, and are not benefitted by, the formal four year college education. For most “white collar” jobs, little is gained from four years of formal education. College graduates enter the work force with a degree but next to zero practical experience and its that practical experience that matters most. The service economy and its employees would be better served by an informal apprentice/journeyman structure. Quite a few of us are lawyers or law students or aspiring law students, and the same holds true for us. 150 years ago a law student learned under the care of a lawyer (or if he was particularly ambitious, gifted, and had access to the proper books then perhaps on his own). Three years of graduate work for lawyers, or four full years of undergraduate work for most white collar workeres, is completely unecessary. In my experience workers enter their fields with little actual knowledge and essentially ‘apprentice’ for their first few years in the work force anyway. It is really only the hard sciences (medicine/engineering/etc) that require the strict, formal education. College, in its present form, is flawed.
That said, it is necessary for the future of the nation. We are already far behind in the level of education of other countries, and removing this additonal education would seem to only hurt us further. I suppose the question is, do we really want to become a service nation? As was pointed out in the WSJ article, the wealth in this country provides great demand and great reward for skilled laborers. But without that wealth, where will we be? If we concede that, for most of us, college is unnecesary then who will create that demand? As this situation perpetuates itself, our nation will lose its economic status and we will become dependent on the economies of rising nations. Twenty years from now India will outsource the routine tasks to us. Is that what we want?
Tom and the WSJ are right – in our present shape our nation does not require formal college education for the vast majority of our workers. And while the immediate solution may be to remove this college barrier for most jobs, we also need to create better young students who can fill these same universities with students engaged in fields of advanced study.
Comment by Evan on 19 January 2007 at 7:47 am:
To be clear, for the most part I agree with the WSJ article and you guys, and I think it’s pretty obvious that many here at college would be better off doing the things you guys are talking about. However, I do think there are some who gain from the “experience” of college, and can use that to their advantage, which I don’t believe the article addressed.
But yeah, intuitively I’ve thought the same thing as this article for awhile, but you just don’t very often get to read a proposal like that one, I suppose because of the reasons Tom laid out.
Comment by tet on 19 January 2007 at 2:40 pm:
Thanks for the update, Kofi. Any law not passed is a good law.
Tom