So, you want to join a commune?

Actually, the concept you are talking about is right... what you miss is the reality...

If someone were to come here and pay half the bills, and pay me back half of everything I have put into this, then yes, they would get an equal share in having a say.

There is a post in this thread somewhere that talks about this already.

In our case here, you aren't only talking about the money that goes out on a daily basis, along with the money that already went out, but there is also the matter of the work that has already been put into it...

We've been here for three years... are you going to come in, pay the equal share of everything, AND work 2 or 3 times harder then those already here for the next couple of years?

What about when a place has been going for 20 years? Should a new person coming in cough up an equal share of everything that was invested over the last 20 years?

If not, then why would they get an equal say over everything?

In terms of day to day things... everyone gets a say... in terms of ownership and 'leadership'....

Should I allow a couple of people to come in out of the blue and vote me out? Imagine it... 5 years down the line, there are 10 people here... with only me who put out the money to buy it in the first place and start it... if the nine others vote that I should move and walk away... is that right?

 

In an ideal world ...

But seriously, imagine if you own a piece of property, and decide (like many do) that you'd like to share the work/benefits of what ever you're doing. Now, just because someone stays with you for a while doesn't mean that you'll always get along, and if you just gave up partial ownership of the property, and for whatever reason that person and you have a falling out, you're forced to sell the property, and take a fraction of what you put into it, all for trying to open up your home. And dreams, like people, are ever changing things, let's not forget that. Basically there's a difference between I'll share profits/work with you, and actual ownership. However, if 30 years down the road, you and whoever was with you still got along and worked well together, maybe you'd be willing to share ownership or something.

The other way to go is not to own very much (especially not property) which is what we did, we're still going 35 years later, but we've moved more times than I care to count (think upwards of 20 different places). This also from experience, doesn't go very far into putting in effort and resources into improving the land and your situation. However, if you're squating, this means that you're in constant danger of being evicted (has happened at least once to us), or if you're renting you end up paying for someone else's morgage, only to be served an eviction notice at your landlord's whim, which really isn't living freely.

Basically you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

We've managed to solve this somewhat by forming a coop to buy one piece of property, which shares bought by community members and ourselves. Well the commune itself is it's own seperate legal entity, almost all of the core members have shares, and we're probably going to buy someone else out to give another one of us a share. We also have a company, which is owned by the 'core' members, and is on the books responsible for all 'economic' activity on our farms.

And saying that everyone else is hired labour to me means you pay them for their work, which (and I really don't want to go into the Marxist interpration of this) means that you're a step above them on the 'social' ladder. This is not in the spirit of living communally. We're willing to share what we have if you want to work/live with us, and all we can promise is that so long as you're not a major screw up, we're not going to kick you out.

On a side note, well I agree with what you wrote Tom, all I can say is save the bitterness for the Tories (they're more deserving of it), though to be perfectly honest, that was a pretty broad question Logan and I think you need to rephrase that if you want a good response. First off, what do you mean by intentional community? what would be your goals of said IC? how many people? property ownership? how would you support yourselves? etc

 

I do understand that you have time, money, blood ,sweat , and tears invested.I guess if it were me wanting to join a dream in progress, I would expect to pay my part of what has already been done with cash.

I can't see how someone could work out a real share with labor alone.

While they may work hard ,you will also being working so it seems they will never catch up inorder to pay their portion.

I could understand if one could buy in for say 10.000 or 20,000 but to work it off, eh I don't get it.

However,I am only posing questions aloud, if your shoes fit march on.

I am attempting to create my own little ponderosa here, so this is none of my business.

Also I can attest to the fact that folks will let you carry them, help is indeed hard to come by.

sorry to trouble you, I know that you have other more pressing things to tend to.

If people can really work thier way into living on your place, then you are doing a service to others by the offer.

GOOD LUCK

PEACE

 

+1 for the whole post... Including the above part...

There used to be a time when I wandered around saying things like... everyone has something good to teach... everyone does things for reasons they believe are good... everyone wants to be happy...

and I wasn't bitter... or nearly as angry... or nearly as hard-headed blunt as I am...

Although I can't give you an exact number... going back to when I first started on this path... there have been... dozens... (multuple dozens.... likely well over 50) people that have told me they were coming.

Not that they were interested in coming... not that they like what we were doing... not that they said this was exactly the thing they wanted to do... although they did say all those things as well... But that they were coming, that in the next week or two (or sometimes months) they would be coming up...

At least half of them have even given me updates along the way... "I'm leaving today", "I just crossed the ontario border from manitoba", "Should be there within the next day" etc etc...

To date... ZERO have shown up

Let's ignore that for a moment... I ask for no money for people to come here... I say, come and work, and you can have a place to live and share what we have (excluding ownership)...

What do I get in return for making this offer?

I have been told everything from I am trying to form a cult, I'm trying to take advantage of people, I'm trying to lure young people (usually but not always women) into the bush and so on and so forth... the list goes on forever...

Yeah...I am bitter and pissed off... or at least, when I get talking about these things, and someone comes along and starts playing a game that I have seen a thousand times...

Of course... and here is something that a lot of people online don't seem to clue into... Online... the stuff I do and say here, while it is a 100% honest view of who I am, it in no way represents what I am like at home.

Why would I express my bitterness and anger at people around me who are sharing my life? They are some of the very few people in the world that I don't get angry or pissed off at as a general rule... that's why they are around me... lol

The point of this ramble is that my bitterness is released where it does the least harm... online...

And for all those that think its such a horrible thing that I talk the way I do and respond to people in the manner I do... Prove me wrong and my bitterness will go away... show up here tomorrow with a shovel in your hand and say, "Let's get to work".... first we'll smoke a joint, then we'll go do some work, and some of my bitterness will fade...

Til that starts happening on a regular basis... don't expect my online bitterness to change... lol

 

The problem with that though is 10 or 20 k, wouldn't touch part ownership in this place unless there were a dozen people here (more as time goes on)... and even then, you are still running the risk of what happens when you get pissed at me (or vice versa) and one or both of us decide that it isn't working?

If you think that anyone living here is going to have 10 or 20 k to buy you back out if you want to leave, you are really misreading the situation... lol

So, as was mentioned, the place would have to be sold...

Where is the security in that... think about it from the perspective of a person here... we invite someone new in, they pay their share, live here for two years, decide to leave (for whatever reason), and now we have to sell our home, so they can get their share of the money... That doesn't sound very secure to me....

My way... you come in, you share in the work, you share in the day to day rewards, you want to leave, you leave... life goes on for everyone...

In a situation such as you suggest, imagine you coming in and spending years builing some type of home (with help from everyone of course) and setting up things the way you want... and then one day, everyone votes you out... ingoring the legal issues of it... does that sound secure? Do you really want to put your life in the hands of a popularity contest?

Here, you come here, we decide if we like each other and can work around whatever difference we have and if we can, you stay... If everyone on the property gets together and says, hey we really don't like him, they get told... don't talk to him then...

On that note, if it is a case of a person has become a detriment to the group, stealing, lying, causing bullshit with locals, abusing anyone, especially women, children or animals... they will get kicked off... which is another reason I don't like the 'shared ownership' idea...

Some parts of that would be based on a communal discussion about it, but note, that is not a vote...

We will be here til at least the day I die... and those who come here and honestly share in the day to day life of being here, will always be welcome...

The ONLY reason I can say that with 100% surity, is because I, just me... own this place... and I am not going anywhere...

(well, a harper majority could change that sadly...lol)

 

Sometimes people who have an interest in a subject, have not near as in depth thought out the situations that might come up, and resolutions to them, as those of us that are attempting to live it.

But their are as many resolutions to any problem ,as there are people who are willing to empower their own Awareness.

As the land owner in my own situation, my resolution to that demon was to create an (organization) Legal Entity, which buys the land at an under assesment cost; and the community becomes the owner and maintains - or not - it's own continuity, not relying on any 1 member to assume the final arbiter role.


- (even though this is called the communal forum - it is a misnomer when dealing with the preciseness - 'community' says it more precisely).


Both the individual and the whole must be taken care of.

Now again in my own situation - having found none that will be on the land and partake, I have of course not initiated the legal entity resolution - as there is nothing to resolve. (which I throw in merely for sake of honesty when we speak of viable solutions - ie I ain't living exactly my proposed solution).

I also like Chonic tom have a bit of an attitude toward the laziness inhereent in this prevailing culture - and I've found by and large that has tainted "hippies" too. But the volumes contained herein make it hard to find the words of yore that clearly already spoke to this in other posts, hence the need for links (my link to my own situation is in my signature).

Most who have in great seriousness entertained and act have "done" or are "doing" it, have to deal with resolving issues. (and please remeber that well over 99% of communirties usually do not make it even to their majority (21 yrs of age), let alone are viable after7 yrs). The only limits are those we - the group entity end the individuals involved - place on ourselves.

To make community your Intent means you bend your will to making it manifest - and the necessity of recognizing that community becomes it's own entity that is made up of individuals but not dictated to by any 1 individual.
The last part of true community- that the whole ia made up of individuals and the individual s involved do not control, by the act of one, the others. - And yes I do Know what kind of dynamite that means Tom, which is why I put the land in control of the Whole rather than any 1; and I get my own ability to continue on, should it not succeed beyond my own time of utilizing it.
I also worked with many, long before I came to be moderator on this forum at the beginnings of hipforums, to grind out ideas of community AND actively partook in several communities ...., saying so as to be able explain the "authority" with which I can speak..I both have done and am doing - not just, to date, giving the Intent more hot air of speaking without action....O and by the way in magic or manifestation the pent up energy saved by not talking pours itself into the manifesting - - - and we do not have to justify why we do not do as we say.
LOL

Laughter is always best as we sit together to share.
If we take ourselfs too seriously....it's hard to make room for other, even like minded, individuals.


Blessings be with y'all


Namaste

 

My only issue with that oldwolf is that you are basing it on the same concept as what we (society) live now. While I understand your choice of ways to deal with it, I just don't agree with it...

Here's why...

Lets take an example of one person buying the land and starting, and offering for others to come. The idea that someone can buy into it either in shares or through a trust...

Let's say you plan it for there to be 10 people, or shares... One person comes in and buys their share. What do you have? One person who has put in 10% and one who has put in 90%.

As we already know, it could take a long time to find a third and fourth person...

So for years, this equally shared ownership, is not anywhere close to equal... You can label it as voting, but based on shares, the 90% still makes the decisions... until each and every share is sold, there will still be the imbalance of ownership.

Yes, that first person could generously only claim one share and leave the others in limbo until bought, but that is not equality... One has still put out 9 times what the other has.

What really gets me is that interspersed in all of this, are people who claim that ownership of land means nothing, and yet, they insist on being part owner...

Each place can choose their own method or path... for me, as I refuse to let it come down to a game of drama and bullshit, avoid it all from the start by making it clear that my offer to share our home, is open without ownership in the land... and that will never change (well, unless someone comes up with and equal amount to what we have already put out not just in the three years we have been here, but also what we put out in the groundwork to get here...

 

I've done some looking at the website for Twin Oaks, the long-established commune in Virginia. They seem to be set up as a nonprofit foundation, and if you want to live there and they accept you, you become a member of the community and entitled to vote in how the place runs. But you don't become an owner in the sense that you could ever take your share and leave with it. You just get the right to live (and work) there; you'd share in the day-to-day benefits but not in any kind of long-term profit. Maybe that does make each member a kind of hired hand, but they're getting to be part of the community in exchange. Hey, it seems to suit them.

 

excuse me tom....maybe you should reread without making preconceptions of yours, part of mine - you are incorrectly interpeting what was shared .......no offense intended.

 

I don't think I did oldwolf, and I went back and re-read what you said just to make sure.

Unless I missed where you are talking about, what you said was;

The label doesn't matter... You are the one who put all the money out to start, and the effort to build it to where it is.

If a person coming in, isn't paying 1/2 the costs of it all, then you will still be the major investor in it... Unless your 'ownership' of it isn't based on your investment...

If I am missing something, or misinterpreting it, then point it out...

 

No, that person would be 50/50 participate. Or the first two members would be 10% owners/memebrs each(Dont think in terms of ownership, land cant be moved anyway)

Then the rate would be 33.3 and 25% and so on as new members go and old ones leave the rates would change.

The whole idea is we are not building a community to cash out at some time. There has to be commitment to membership. If the IC makes revenue then split the profits accordingly.

The main point is no member can think they are a lowly share holder. A lot of an IC's success is pshycological and perception. No one wants to go back to 'Maggies Farm'.

 

So you are going to put out 100,000.00 (in terms of money to buy the propterty and hours put into building it for a certain period of time... and when jimmy comes along and works for a few months, consider his participation to be equal to yours?

If it all goes belly up, you are both out of everything you put into it... you the money and effort (100k), him the effort of a few months of work...

Just to be 100% clear... I've done that route... and lost everything I owned over it...

It took me over five years to get back to where I was before I tried it.

 

On another point of this whole "buying in" topic, is if someone came up to us and said "I'd like to join your commune" with no history of staying with us (it's happened in the last couple of years surprisingly) our first response is really a gentle no. If they offered to give us money (never has happened, hopefully never will) I'd hope we'd tell them firmly to get lost. Maybe this is just my view point, but you join the army/a church/an AA group, but you become a member of a cooperative or a community, and membership has to be more than just showing up and saying "let me in, I really think I know myself and futhermore I think I know what you are like" it has to be a longer term, more profound commitment, that involves getting your feet wet before you make a full on jump into unchartered water.

In the short time I've been on this forum I've noticed a lot of threads/posts that are along the lines of "I'm fed up with this corporate world (Babylon I think it's called, I'm too much of a hick to know this term) and I'm wanting to go join a commune" huh. why not, "I'm really fed up with how shitty this world is getting and I'd like to go see if there is another way out there to make the world a better place. I'm really interested in the idea of living communaly and would like to go travelling and visit a few communes, maybe I'd even like to expand my horizons to other places (such as a sustainable family farm maybe) just to see what I think I feel the most comfortable with." and if there happens to be a place that you like, stay for a while longer next time. And then if you still like it, stay for a while longer, and eventually if it's just right, don't leave.

On to the buying shares of a place. If the land is paid for, buying a piece of the property would essentially just be handing money over to whoever owned a part of it in the first place (not necessarily a bad thing). Another approach would be if you found a place you like, and things were going well, and you happened to have something you'd like to contribute, put it into something portable. If you had a few grand kicking around, and you noticed how much everyone was struggling with the snow, or with preparing the soil for a garden, maybe offer to buy a tractor. It's portable, might help immensly and you're contribution would still be yours, but for the benefit of everyone. And I don't want to sound like too much of an idustrialist, so substitute tractor with goats, chickens, anything that would be a lasting benefit to the group as a whole.

That's just my two cents worth (well maybe a bit more) from the perspective of a person who's lived his whole life on a commune and has seen people come and go. Also, on the topic of shares, no amount of money handed over in this way of life is going to lead to a utopia. If someone tells you that you can be part of utopia for X amount of dollars, they're either a cult, or a prostitute. (another two cents)

 

awesome post... just two things I want to address...

Showing up is a good start though... lol

There is a point at which the maintenance, repairs and upkeep to something, do tip over into that (for this example) tractor to become part of the community, unless the person who owns it, pays for that stuff themself (besides having operating costs covered)...

As a demonstration, if someone were to buy a tractor for 500, and it cost the community 2500 to repair it... it no longer belongs to the person who bought it.

 

Good info man! I like the steps above in getting oneself familier with IC's and gaining some experienced before jumping in feet first with out knowing how things operate. Thanks!

 

Good questions. I'd say if every things out in the open with repair costs and agreements, personal ownership wouldn't be a big issue. If the guy had to leave for some reason maybe the commune could give them something for their original investment. More then likely the owner would leave it with the group with good will.

 

If it comes with a large cash reward... I'll take it!!!

 

Let's try to keep this somewhere close to the topic of joining communes in general.

Start new threads to tell people about your specific plans.

 

I really want to get involved in this communal type living and freedom, please help, i'm trapped in the shawa