Currency

recently i read about the urstromtaler , a currency used exclusively in sachsen-anhalt, a region of germany. basically, a bunch of businesses around the region have banded together and agreed to accept these bits of paper 1:1 against the euro. the idea is that this keeps money in the region.
now if we're going to rebuild society from the inside out, it seems desirable have various mechanisms of financial autonomy. for our purposes, i think a local currency would not only be useful for keeping business in the commune, but also for expansion into the c@l; getting businesses and neighbors to use our currency would go a long way toward embedding ourselves in the community in an inextricable way. it causes the c@l to have a vested interest in our community in the same way we are voluntarily taking a vested interest in theirs.

Brewery

One of the aspects of the commune that came up pretty early on in the discussion was the potential that the individual interests or hobbies of members could often be expanded slightly in scope and thus benefit the collective. This could range from gardening to musical talent to home (commune) repair or anything else at all really. My personal offering, at least right now, would be the brewery, which would serve not only to lower overall cost of beer consumption for the collective, but would also help provide exactly the level of social connectivity that is one of the goals of starting the commune in the first place. What has been fun to watch is the degree to which that has occurred simply with my own personal brew operation. I tapped my first successful batch a little over a week ago, and it's been lots of fun to be able to have people over and serve them my beer. Food or drink can almost always serve as a way to bring people together, since people need to eat and drink, so I am looking forward to an expanded brewing operation to help unite the members of the commune as well as provide a mode of outreach to the c@l.

An capitalist expansion of this idea already exists in the brewery-coffeeshop-music venue that would form an economic point of contact for the commune to the c@l and a regular stream of revenue. This could help the commune move towards a more or less self-sufficient, self-maintaining commons, something which seems at this point to be rather ideal. If this idea does take shape it would seem to point strongly towards incorporating the commune, and with formal status as a company, it would also be possible for the commune to receive outside investment as Eugene suggested were that to become advantageous. The bookkeeping would probably be rather complex, but hiring an accountant is pretty simple and would be even simpler if one were already a member.

Power

If we're starting from the beginning, then I suppose I'll start with one of my first inspirations for the whole idea, the relationship between love and power. The structure in which we live is based on capitalism, or in other words, a complex system of power relationships. But within that structure are many relationships that exist primarily outside of or even in conflict with power concerns. For the sake of these relationships individuals will sacrifice and give power away, not because it will generate a return of more power (although it might), but because they love the other. The easiest example of this is the stereotypical model of the nuclear family in the 50s. A single breadwinner participates in the capitalist game, supporting a number of other individuals whom he (gotta stick to the stereotype) loves, namely his wife and 2.4 children. Even in the face of the obvious and painful misogynistic tendencies inherent in such a picture, we see a man who would be fiscally better off without the burden. It's easy to deconstruct this picture from a feminist perspective, showing how the wife is little more than a slave, baking pies and scrubbing the bathroom floor in return for the privelege of the man's financial support. But even with such a cynical viewpoint the children don't make a whole lot of sense given how much braces and puppies and textbooks cost. And really, if fiscal concerns were paramount then it would probably just be easier to hire a regular maid and occasionally a prostitute. Or vice versa. All that seems a bit roundabout to get to the point that love is important and exists external to but fundamentally intertwined with the structure of power in our culture. But in the end, we need and want both love and power. And the commune should be both, much as a healthy nuclear family should be. The idea is that sharing our power with one another makes us stronger as a group than as single individuals.

Man, I have got to work on not ending these posts with horrible platitudes...

contact

first communal blog post! i like to look at this issue from a modeling perspective, but before we can get into that we'll need to summarize what we've done so far. it's largely speculative, with the idea developed as a series of di(multi)alogues. had we had more foresight, we would have hired a stenographer. as is, they will need to be reconstructed in summary. with other blogs and projects to tend to, this looks like it might take some time. but patience is a virtue.

Communal Space

The idea of the commune is fundamentally to increase the level of personal choice available to each member, and that means both separation from and integration with the structure of society (read capitalism). Traditionally communes have been expressions of dissatisfaction with society and have therefore served primarily to provide a space separate from that society. But this choice is too concrete, too diametric, too choice-limiting. Commune 2.0 (working title) should serve as a point of interaction with capitalism and the rest of society that provides the means to interact more successfully in a capitalist environment or to withdraw from it. Or at least that's my syndicalist reading of it.

Much of what makes the commune valuable involves shared resources, and this seems wed to a shared space or spaces, the physical commune. Positing a shared space is not difficult, but in practical terms a shared space with the size and flexibility to support a group of people whose lifestyle will not necessarily correspond to architectural norms for families or other "normal" groupings becomes hard to achieve in the beginning stages. In the earliest stages of the commune it seems likely that a single, large house might do the trick, but as families are established and grow, continued flexibility will become problematic given zoning laws for expansions and the like. Furthermore, questions of legal ownership arise. It seems unwise to have a single person as the owner of the physical property of the commune, but any option that involves the commune as a whole owning the property requires the commune to exist as a legal entity, and I'm not sure what form that would take or even what options are available: incorporation? non-profit? church? Assuming multiple communes then this question would certainly have different answers based on differing visions and needs, but in the first instance (please excuse the arrogance of the word "first"), the question of space is perhaps the first one that must be addressed.

Problems - Location, capital, flexibility