allenindenver's blog

A. Allen Butcher, Denver, August 2008

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You Share What?!

What is the most shocking thing about communal society? Different people may answer that question in different ways. For some it may be income-sharing and the resulting freedom from dependence upon any one person or upon the nuclear family for one’s economic well-being, as is the norm in the dominant culture. For others it may be the social acceptance of having multiple or other non-traditional sexual partners, yet for most people, however, it could be something much more basic to human nature.

This paper is a follow-up to two others I’ve written recently, the first being about the change in the ideology that Kat Kinkade espoused as the reason-for-being of the member communities of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities, Twin Oaks, East Wind and Acorn, which she co-founded. (See: http://www.thefec.org for: “Kat Kinkade and the Communal Theories of Equality and of Sharing.”) Over the decades Kat realized that striving for equality was problematic, even though it was she who invented the most effective form of communal economic system, the vacation-credit system. Over time she realized that the tendency toward leveling everyone to the same amount of economic consumption was not conducive to social harmony. Kat wrote, “Secular communal economies must, to be successful, be full of holes. I think that if they are too tight, too ‘equal,’ they will fail, because people would not be able to stand the constraints. ... Most people value small liberties more than they value small equalities, and therefore society works better if the rules aren't too rigid. Equality is a means, not an end.” (Kinkade, "Is It Utopia Yet?" 1994, p. 47, 50)

Allen Butcher, July 2008 (EW ’75-’83, TO ’85-’89)

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This paper presents in Kat Kinkade’s own words her invention of the vacation-credit communal economic system, and her later abandonment of the ideals of equality and communalism due to her concerns about envy and the lack of personal incentive. This paper only addresses Kat’s comments on economic issues of labor and money, while her views on politics and decision-making require a separate paper.

Kat co-founded three communal societies, Twin Oaks (TO), East Wind (EW) and Acorn, and named its networking association the “Federation of Egalitarian Communities.” In Kat’s later disillusionment with communal society may be found inspiration for changing the emphasis in communal theory from equality to sharing, and for developing new experiments in communitarian design.

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Kat in “Journal of a Walden Two Commune,” from “Walden House Newsletter,” Aug, 1966, p. 8

The holding of property in common at Walden House is not an article of dogma. We don’t do it because it was recommended by Jesus or Marx. We do it because it saves money and makes sense. Where it ceases to have these functions, we cease to practice it.

Kat in “Journal of a Walden Two Commune,” from “Walden House Newsletter,” Aug, 1966, p. 14

Equality in a community is a relationship so structured that no member envies another. Simple.