Challenges and strategies for anti-capitalist community design (part 2)
This is the second part in a three part series on intentional communities and capitalism by Sky Blue. Read the first part.
The focus of economics in capitalism is on money. But the root word of economy, eco, comes from the Greek word for home. The word economy essentially means, “home management.” If we expand the notion of home to community, and if community is the place where people come together to get their universal human needs met, economics takes on a character more analogous to ecology. An ecosystem has been described as a community of contributors who take what they need when they need it. Or, as Marx said, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Economic systems would be designed very differently if a core principle was the collective responsibility to fulfill the needs of all people equitably and sustainably.
There are still certain realities we have to contend with for getting our needs met within capitalism. The question becomes, what kind of solutions are we pursuing? Are they more in alignment with individualistic culture, or are we seeking collectivist solutions that can help expand systems that can undermine and replace capitalism? And if we say we want more collectivist solutions, are we actually devoting the resources necessary to develop them effectively?
The economics of a five person urban collective house, an 80 person suburban cohousing community, or a 100 person rural commune are very different. But because of how capitalism works, any intentional community (IC) is basically a business.
Looking at it from that standpoint makes it easier to navigate the legal and financial systems we are required to participate in. In addition, what we want to do will take a certain amount of capacity. How much capacity will it take, and where is that going to come from? Knowing how to write a business plan, do financial analysis, and having a basic degree of financial literacy are ways we can make sure we’re collaborating effectively.
Expense-sharing and income-sharing
The finances of any IC revolve around the same account categories as any business. Putting aside assets and liabilities, the more pertinent categories are income and expenses.
Every IC practices some degree of expense-sharing. Common shared expenses are things like rent or mortgage, property tax, and insurance, as well as maintenance and supplies for common facilities. It might also include shared food, cleaning supplies, tools, toilet paper, utilities, and internet service. In rarer cases it could also include vehicles, clothes, toiletries and medical supplies, or even health care.
This brings us to income. In the vast majority of ICs, individuals are personally responsible for paying for those expenses, either equally or proportional to use. They are also personally responsible for generating whatever income they need to pay for their share of community expenses, plus whatever individual expenses they have. This usually comes from jobs or business activities separate from the IC.
Some ICs have community-owned and operated businesses, where some or all of a member’s compensation may be housing, food, a stipend, or more. But the individual is still earning personal income to pay for their share of those expenses. Some amount of this exchange is just happening through the community’s internal accounting.
A small number of ICs practice income-sharing. In income-sharing ICs, most if not all expenses, including many things that would normally be personal, are considered community expenses. Income earned by the members is pooled and budgeted democratically.
Functionally, income-sharing might look similar to a high degree of expense-sharing, and you could look at these as being on a spectrum. But there is a fundamental difference in approach, with major implications. In expense-sharing, you don’t assume a given expense will be shared. In income-sharing you do, and members take responsibility for meeting their needs collectively, including responsibility for generating the labor and money needed to meet those needs. This creates a level of security and a feeling of togetherness that is not as readily found in expense sharing.
Income-sharing is challenging, but has distinct benefits. More on this later.
Labor
Even in ICs that practice a minimal amount of resource sharing, there is always some amount of labor needed to keep the place going. This comes up particularly with financial and legal management, as well as maintenance of utilities and driveways servicing the whole property. Groups then vary in how much additional infrastructure and activity they have and how they manage the labor needed.
The design of labor systems in ICs mostly boils down to a couple key questions: What needs doing, and how is that work organized and distributed? Labor systems are commonly based on an hours requirement. Some groups focus more on tasks, or chores. Others lean on roles, teams, or committees. Many use a combination.
The degree of complexity and formality of this system correlates to the size of the IC, the kinds of activities it’s engaged in, its level of economic involvement, and is also influenced by the culture of the group and the skills and personalities of the individuals involved. Finding the right balance can be tricky, and there aren’t really any right ways of doing it. Ultimately, if it works, it works. But there are common pitfalls.
Groups often struggle to make sure everyone in the IC has a complete picture of what needs to be done, rendering some essential tasks invisible to many. They may struggle to come to clear agreement about what needs to be done as opposed to what people want done. Even if what needs to be done is relatively clear, there is often disagreement between what people want to be considered community labor, often related to disagreement around what kinds of labor people consider valuable. This lack of clarity and agreement can make it hard to distribute labor in a way that feels fair to everyone. It’s also easy for some to default into a capitalist mindset of just clocking hours instead of looking for and doing work that needs to be done.
To address these difficult issues takes familiarity with different models and work to design and implement an effective system. Most don’t have the time or inclination. This leads many groups to create arbitrary requirements that are usually insufficient for what’s needed, which is a set-up for resentment and conflict.
These issues are usually related to underlying disagreement about the purpose or mission of the group, the culture they want, their priorities, and how functional their governance structure is.
Why do income-sharing?
Income-sharing as a term, while being somewhat self-explanatory, is also an obtuse and scary concept for many, even those familiar with relatively functional models.
There are lots of variations in how income-sharing can be practiced. But there are very few examples of ICs that have had success with it, making it appear that those are the only ways to do it. If you don’t like those ways, it can be easy to reject the notion out of hand. Or, if an income-sharing IC struggles or fails, it is tempting to place the blame on income-sharing as a model. Part of our work is to experiment with different models that embody the principles we want, and create practices that move us towards our ideals, even while sometimes needing to make compromises or accommodations because of the realities of the world we live in.
Beyond the property lines of a given IC, there is a whole world of organizations and movements focused on solidarity economics and mutual aid that are furthering a range of strategies for creating a just and sustainable world. To whatever extent ICs contribute to this by creating collective economic benefit, income-sharing can take this a step further.
One of the most powerful things I saw as a long-term member of a 100-person income-sharing community called Twin Oaks, is that it expands our perception of what’s possible, and helps us see problems in our communities, relationships, and the world that we otherwise take for granted.
Maximizing the benefits of sharing
The more you share resources the less money you need, and the less time you need to spend making it. Community businesses can provide flexibility that typical jobs don’t tend to offer. And if most of the needs of the members are being met through collectively managed resource sharing systems, people have to spend less time on the mundane tasks of managing their lives. If members only have to spend, say, 20 hours a week making money, and less time on daily tasks, they can focus more on things that are good for themselves, the community, and beyond.
It also enables an economy that is based on labor instead of money. In capitalism, only certain kinds of work can earn you a wage. If the IC is successful in reducing the amount of time people have to spend making money to 20 hours a week, the group can still set a 40 hour weekly labor requirement and then choose to value certain kinds of work that tend to be unvalued or undervalued.
This is particularly notable around care work. It allows for more support for people who are sick, injured, or struggling with mental health, as well as for families and elders.
At Twin Oaks, all costs of pregnancy and birth are covered, including a substantial reduction in labor requirements during pregnancy. Childcare budgets are 40 hours a week during the first two years (gradually decreasing after), which can be claimed by parents or other caregivers.
Many elders have been able to die at home, sometimes after months of around-the-clock care from the community, with support from hospice services. This is often stressful and arduous for those managing the care. But it is still a profound experience of togetherness that is not as readily available outside of an income-sharing IC.
These things in turn can make it easier to create an inter-generational community, which is an important experience that is not available to most.
Income-sharing can provide an avenue for financial security not possible for most individuals. A group of people can have proportionally less in savings to guarantee that care is available for those who need it at any given time.
A labor system inside of income-sharing can also value social and cultural activities for fun and enjoyment that help make it all feel worth it, as well as support for conflict resolution. This helps reduce the need for escape or material gratification, which connects to benefits around self-sufficiency and reducing ecological impact. The community can also include food production and things like building and vehicle maintenance in its labor system, so people can learn skills as well as further reduce the IC’s monetary needs. One thing people particularly like about living in an income-sharing IC is that they see the impacts of their work more, instead of mostly working to make money by doing something they feel, at best, neutral about, to pay for necessities.
Just like in the mainstream, in most ICs, where individuals are responsible for generating their own income, if you can’t afford to live there, you have to leave. By creating a shared responsibility to meet the income needs of the whole community, a successful incoming-sharing IC eliminates housing insecurity for its members. This doesn’t mean that problems can’t still arise around people not doing their fair share that could result in someone being expelled. This is rarely simple and straightforward, and is always painful and divisive, but is generally dealt with in a much more relational and human-centered way than a typical eviction.
Income-sharing simplifies accounting by reducing or eliminating the need to track lots of transactions between individuals and the community. But more than that, because capitalism sees every relationship and interaction through a transactional lens, income-sharing changes how we experience things like sharing a community meal or hosting an event in a community space.
Money stress
Capitalism creates a hopeless dependence on itself and an overwhelming sense of personal and financial insecurity. Being part of an income-sharing IC can create a level of collective security and self-determination that challenges this. It is a profound experience to be part of a community of people who are contributing and receiving without the intermediary of money, particularly when there is an emphasis on egalitarianism.
The centrality of money, the way it drives so much of our interactions, and the constant stress of needing to make money to survive, is pervasive and taken for granted. People become inured to that stress because they’ve never experienced anything different and have no idea anything else is possible. There is an incredible amount of human potential suppressed by this stress, and it is hard to convey how it feels when it is relieved.
Sharing is hard
ICs face a number of common challenges. The strength of the challenges, and the work needed to address them, do tend to increase the more an IC shares, the larger it is, and the more complex its governance and organizational systems are.
Developing and maintaining trust is key. To join an IC is to join a set of intimate relationships. ICs often don’t do enough to integrate new members so that everyone involved has the sense of safety needed for the level of communication and engagement required.
There is an epidemic of unresolved conflict in ICs. Things happen, people don’t address them, they generate negative stories and judgements about each other, which leads to self-reinforcing interpretations about other things that happen. Over time it becomes impossible for them to talk about anything without triggering each other, which makes it virtually impossible for the community to address issues and evolve.
Most of us carry baggage from our experience of mainstream institutions, where harmful patterns of power and privilege are the norm. While these patterns do show up in ICs, it is not usually to the same degree. But it is usually tremendously difficult to talk about, which can lead to disproportionate reactions, driving people apart, and making it that much more difficult to address the actual issues.
Groups tend to lose their sense of shared purpose over time and fall into maintenance mode (which usually amounts to gradual deterioration) and lowest common denominator politics. Once this happens, they tend to lack the capacity to change and adapt, which makes regaining a sense of shared purpose even harder. Without a sense of purpose, it’s much easier to let apathetic, passive-aggressive, conflict-avoidant, manipulative, or abusive behavior prevail.
Many communities get stuck in various polarizing dynamics. A common one is between people who are resistant to change and those who demand it. Resistance can come from unchecked power and privilege, and also sometimes out of real fear of being left destitute if things fall apart, but leads them to be obstructive and controlling. The demands can come in the form of people who often have less to lose, attacking others or the community as a whole in generalized and exaggerated ways, without offering anything constructive or being willing to take responsibility for making things better. Both sides usually come with various kinds of trauma, legitimate unmet needs, and an underlying sense of entitlement, which capitalism instills to some degree in virtually everyone. And neither side tends to bring enough accountability, vulnerability, or compassion to allow for a constructive conversation.
Mitigating scarcity
All of the solutions I’m talking about assume a level of success that is certainly not guaranteed. Any economic system only works if there are sufficient resources. If there aren’t, the stress can foster or exacerbate conflicts without the group realizing it, which can make it harder to generate the resources needed, and lead to a doom spiral.
When collective resources are insufficient, people will tend to try to get their needs met outside of community systems and agreements, which can highlight inequalities in the group, fueling more conflict. It can also make it harder to recognize and value a diversity of contributions and maintain a sense of shared purpose, which can be divisive and demoralizing.
Many decisions a group makes have economic implications; if everyone isn’t operating with the same information, opinions are more likely to conflict. If hard choices have to be made, different priorities (e.g. the need to have an efficient labor system and the need to foster an enjoyable culture) can become points of tension instead of being synergistic. It is common for some people to be more familiar than others with the group’s financial situation and with all of the things that need to be done to keep the place going. This disparity can be very polarizing. It can aggravate, or even create a false semblance of personality conflicts, values conflicts, or power dynamics.
You can’t always control how much money you have coming in, but there are practices that can mitigate the problems with not having enough.
Along with clarity of purpose and agreement on prioritization, groups need transparent and accessible financial information, which require good practices around budgeting and accounting. It requires people who are good at presenting financial information in a digestible way to people who have a hard time with numbers and spreadsheets, and it also requires that everyone make an effort to understand the financial situation even if they have a hard time with it. Groups need a labor system based on a shared understanding of what they need and want to do, and realistic assessment of what that will take and what’s available. Governance systems and decision-making processes also need to be transparent and accessible, and be reasonably effective and efficient. All of this needs to be accompanied by good systems and skills for communication and conflict resolution.
Many groups want to be more equitable by allowing different levels of contribution based on past experiences of privilege and oppression; this only works if the total amount of contributions are enough to sustain the community, and it’s better not to have to guess at what that is.
If compromises or accommodations need to be made and everyone is well informed, it’s more likely a group can make mutually acceptable decisions. Capitalism is based on secrecy and competition, which means that we come into cooperative groups with a baseline of mistrust. Transparent and accessible systems are a key part of the remedy.
Systems are important, but culture is perhaps more so, and on some level, culture is simply the sum of individual behaviors. Self-awareness, vulnerability, care, compassion, and a willingness to give and receive feedback and have other difficult conversations, are necessary to develop the culture of trust, commitment, responsibility, accountability, and integrity needed for systems to operate effectively. This isn’t something that you can legislate. Written policies and agreements can be helpful, but it still requires a critical mass of individuals in a group to take it upon themselves to show up in this way.
Sharing is hard, and that’s the point
You could interpret all of the problems as meaning that Intentional Community doesn’t work. But the whole point of it is to address the problems of society. Of course we’re going to have a tendency to recreate those problems, either by how we design our communities, or through the behavior we learned from mainstream culture.
ICs are microcosms, but they are also more than microcosms. By trying to do something different, we create the opportunity to make different choices, but this takes work. The problems that arise are simply pointing out work we need to do to get out of the trap of capitalism, which is part of the work of creating a livable future on this planet for all people.
Change is uncomfortable, but needed
The sense of belonging and togetherness that we’re deprived of in mainstream society drives us to seek community. We want it, we believe in it, but we’re not used to it, don’t know how to do it, haven’t had an experience of it, and have a lot of baggage that gets in the way.
Relative to the mainstream, all ICs share a lot, but most are sharing less than they could. We’re missing a range of models that would help people see what’s possible, and the dangers are apparent. Sharing is hard. Change is scary and uncomfortable.
While I am certainly advocating for more sharing, I recognize that we’re all stretched thin, and there’s only so far we can push ourselves before we get triggered and resist. I don’t want ICs to get mired in conflict or even fall apart by trying to push too far.
At the same time, the more economically entwined we are, the more we will have to work things out, and if this is taken on as a practice, the better we’ll get at it. And if we consider the state of the world and where we’re heading, what we are being called to do, and what we will need to do to respond effectively is not going to be comfortable. We need to get more practiced at making change. And one of the best places we have to practice is in our communities, together.
This is the second in a three-part series by Sky Blue. The final part will cover key choice points for building intentional communities.
