Intentional Community Thought Exercise II

One plan for building a cooperative neighborhood would be a roughly square block larger than average with private houses around the perimeter and a commons in the center. If the member residents can agree to make their yards as small as possible, thereby reserving more space for the commons, considerable gains can be realized. A park for the children, bigger and better than any individual backyard can be. Communal garden space, even greenhouses or space for some livestock would be possible. Residents could share the cost of a pool or public clubhouse nicer than any individual household could afford. Childcare, a communal kitchen and dining area could save a lot of money for members not having to procure those services from outside, for-profit firms. Workshops, wind or solar energy production and distribution, compost, bio-gas digesters, there are a lot of possibilities. Ironically, once upon a time working together was a no brainer. Affluence drove us apart after the Second World War; polarization and inequality could bring us back together.

I readily admit that many communities still possess public spaces: libraries, parks, town squares, and so on. The Progressive movement, such as it is and that outside of the supposedly neo-libertarian far left, should absolutely work to defend these institutions. Schools as well, education is the absolute core of the public sphere in America and undermining it for purposes of privatization has to be the biggest coup by the fascist idiocracy and their authoritarian masters. At this point is there any way back for parents who want their children to actually be educated? The [every] child left behind act has set us back so far that generations of Americans will probably be crippled intellectually. Recently this picture has been making the rounds:


Some measure of public attitudes can be gauged by how often something like this lands in your news feed or inbox. The problems with public education in this country are legion. To take just a few: each school district is decentralized and atomized, making it easy prey to ALEC and their evil demands; as we saw from [E]CLB when authoritarian republicans sneak into office at the top they can wreak havoc on even somewhat successful school districts; and the steady demonization of teachers (especially their unions) have led to parents internalizing the propaganda and allying with the privatizers.

Then there are the often long-forgotten Progressive victories. It is all too appropriate on Labor Day to share this one:



Hooray for ingratitude:



This is the crux of why I am giving up on any hope of large-scale organizing for the betterment of all. When "we" win, the idiocracy benefits, when "they" win only the elite win at our expense. Call it the free rider problem on a national scale and spilling out from the shop floor into the political and social spheres. Maybe I am vindictive and bitter, maybe I have a low opinion of most of humanity and very little expectation of change but I see no evidence that the divisions in our society can ever be healed. Those gaping divisions between members of the idiocracy and normal people who are influenced by them prevent any kind of solidarity in the non-elite. In short, I give up.

"But wait," you might be thinking, "are you saying that you want insulated, suburban cubical mice to start milking their own cows?" In a nutshell, yes, but only the people that can realize why it is important that we become more self-sufficient and mutually supporting. There have to be some Americans out there who reject the meaning of life as buying stuff we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.

Intentional Community Thought Exercise

It is now five years since the great crash of "the housing bubble" i.e. an enormous con job perpetrated by every level of the financial and real estate scam machine and its willing agents. Five years after revealing themselves to be spectacular failures, the giant wall street banks are still in charge with more power than ever. There is negligible evidence or prospect of ever bringing them to heel, or even punish a single banker that bundled and sold America's future for bonus glory. It is also increasingly evident that the political system controlling regulatory agencies that might curb future abuses has been bought by the predatory class. If regular Americans have any chance of protecting themselves, they (we) will have to do it on their own.

The American population has been split outside the ruling class into an authoritarian idiocracy and a bewildered, atomized mass. The former is, well, hopeless. The latter is by and large resistant to organizing due to residual traditions about individuality, distrust of authority, aversion to compulsion or coercion, and private property. This residue of course goes out the window concerning employment, which is coercive and compulsory by definition. The first and last traditions come from the Horatio Alger mythology perpetuated by the extremely rare success stories and the simple aspect of human nature encapsulated by "mine." Trust issues abound in America as con artists, hucksters, speculators, and other assorted specialists in separating the people from their money have flourished here since the foundation of the republic.

Perhaps what is needed is a new organizational model on a smaller scale than factory-wide trade unions or D.C.-based outfits like Greenpeace or the ACLU. Small, cooperative units about a large suburban block in size that could make use of the new normal to prosper. Not hippie communes, or evangelical communities centered around a church but a group of regular Americans sharing for mutual benefit. Small sacrifices of convenience for great gains in efficiency and cost control. But the central idea is trust and accountability, the final form is less important. Being able to see and communicate with democratically designated authorities directly and having a voice in what they do. The kind of democracy that is almost impossible on a national scale anymore.

There are already intentional communities like this all over America, Google it and take a look. What I have in mind is to take advantage of their models and incorporate existing realities. Child care and education is expensive, durable goods such as stoves or furnaces are also; sharing the things that regular people can do themselves will make life less expensive for all members. Then we have already-existing institutions like credit unions, time banks, community gardens, and so on that can thrive even in deep-red sections of the idiocracy. It is so much more efficient to borrow a book from the library, why not a lawn-mower? Time is so important, and in such short supply that people are willing to buy bad food at bad prices from restaurants rather than spend the time to cook good meals. Our jobs increasingly suck all quality time from our lives, forcing us to spend falling real wages on expensive daycare for our children just to name one more example.

Good jobs that pay are increasingly scarce, if we think in terms of [blaaaahhh] markets the supply of labor is too large. How many people do you know who spend their days "pounding the pavement" for jobs that most are just never going to find anymore? Most of the effort expended in chasing employment is just waste, the game of musical chairs has finally closed out a lot of us. There is so much more we could do instead that would actually be a productive use of time but does not produce an income. Why do people play the lottery or otherwise desire to be rich in many cases? So they don't have to work and can concentrate on what they like to do. The nature of our "go-go-go" economy makes doing something you enjoy, say teaching or restoring cars just as an example, far less enjoyable if you are doing it in the employ of someone else.

We can work together in one way or another, or we can take our chances of starvation separately. The idiocracy has made its choice, they will ritually sacrifice each other to the false god "market" as long as there is one dollar among them. We do not have to follow.