Reactions to communities

I was not surprised to hear about the failure of the working cooperative for the mine in West Virginia. However, I am surprised that such an idea would matter when it comes to intentional communities. I think the idea of worker owned businesses is a good idea that can achieve many positive results such as lower levels of pollution, better treatment of workers, and better wages. This is similar to socialist ideas of what society should look like. However, this brand of socialism has almost never been practiced in a socialist society, only in capitalist societies have these socialist enclaves happened. It would make sense for ideas such as this to take hold in a communist country that believes in workers owning the means of production but unfortunately it almost always turns out to be some detached government employee running mines and factories like this instead of the workers themselves.

It is quite ironic that communities that plan on dominating member’s lives and actions are easiest to set up in the most libertarian places. On one hand you have the laws that come into place because of the idea that individualism is the most important value and on the other hand the people most utilizing those laws want to be a part of a community that exercises strong control over their lives and how they live. However, both groups do have the same idea that they probably do not want the government telling them what they can or cannot do.

The hunger to Be and not to Have seems to be very healthy for humans to have. This desire is probably the main reason Twin Oaks has been able to be so successful. This idea is quite common in the mystical aspects of religious traditions such as Christian mystics or Muslim Sufis or some Buddhist monks. It is surprising that this idea would be found in a secular community that had no real religion of their own except of their own philosophy.