eisanbt
New member
Here's the idea folks,
One day I get tired of living in capitalism but do not wish to leave the country or live in the wilderness and finding new 'uses' for nature. So me and a friend or 2 put our collective funds together and purchese a house, like a townhouse perhaps. Anyhow while we can cover the down payment a house obviously **** expensive. So the first thing that would come to mind would be "Ok lets rent out a room or 2 to cover the mortgage!". Then my mind is forced to wonder. How about not 'renting' a room out to somebody but rather we simply offer them our our roof, not even somebody who necessarly has a job. So long has they pull their own in some way (EG if they can't work then they can take of the house and the like). This is something like Marx advocated about abolishing rent as it is payment to the wealthy for doing nothing. (AKA those with being paid by those without needlessly.)
I've certainly more then once had hitch-hikers or just random people in need of a place living with me and never encountered any problems. So we allowing people to live with us so long as:
1) They somehow help sustain us as a whole. They are productive.
2) They choose to abandon practices such as eating meat, buying from companies that have terrible labor/environmental practices as they are instable.
3) They treat people with respect and agree to make collective decisions through consenus.
The above rules are only in place so we can live sustainibly and eliminate the hierarchal system. (Which would included all forms of racism, discrimination, patriarchy etc...)
Living in this way, opposed to charging rent, would allow us to pay our debts and live rather well. This is because of the exponential effect of the collective effort. Where we start off with say 2 or 3 people covering the initial investment we soon gain more and more or so to help sustain each other.
Once possible, the group of now say 10 people could invest in a second household (preferably near by). This time the investment of each would have to be considerably less for each indivivuel. We then open this houshold to the to the same system, allowing who ever wishes to live there to do so and living under the same principals. With the first house payed off we now have 2 groups paying off the second which of course would take half the time.
This cycle would continue, again speeding up geometrically, until you've basically bought up the block and have a large group, willing to live by similar principals and coming to, no longer just household, but community decisions through consenus.
Now that we have a number suffcient to consider a labor force we could then gradually abandon outside work and start a communal business operating under the same principals listed above. Once fincially established we could again gradually work our way towards not relying on outside produce and eventually become completely self-suffcient. The only remaining restrants would be taxsation by the govenment and the reletive enforcment of government law (depending on where you're set up this could be considerably relaxed), but thems is the breaks for now.
What I've just presented to you is one idea of an anarchist-commune. It illistraits how through co-operation, not competition, we can achieve tremendous results that benefit everyone, not just one 'landlord'. Similar systems are the ideals of most anarchists out there, it is not a philosphy of 'chaos' (Except the Chaos Punks).
You may say "Well that sounds nice, but it would NEVER happen" But I'm afraid you're mistaken. There are a good number of examples around the world, even one here IN Halifax (Its accually only a few blocks away form me, they run a grainery...hippies!
) Some are quite large, encompasing hundereds and some are smaller with a few dozen people. But they are capible of holding their own and co-operating even outside their little communities. (EG with other communes to achieve common goals like roads etc...)
Ergo,
Such a system of anarchy has proven itself to work, work well, eliminate hierarchal systems and work for the benefit of all its participants who all hold equal power in decision making.
What do you think? This is anarchy; could it work? What are the potential problems? I'll anwser best I can. I posted this because tizz mentioned wanting a thread about a self-sustainble community so I figured I'd start one
One day I get tired of living in capitalism but do not wish to leave the country or live in the wilderness and finding new 'uses' for nature. So me and a friend or 2 put our collective funds together and purchese a house, like a townhouse perhaps. Anyhow while we can cover the down payment a house obviously **** expensive. So the first thing that would come to mind would be "Ok lets rent out a room or 2 to cover the mortgage!". Then my mind is forced to wonder. How about not 'renting' a room out to somebody but rather we simply offer them our our roof, not even somebody who necessarly has a job. So long has they pull their own in some way (EG if they can't work then they can take of the house and the like). This is something like Marx advocated about abolishing rent as it is payment to the wealthy for doing nothing. (AKA those with being paid by those without needlessly.)
I've certainly more then once had hitch-hikers or just random people in need of a place living with me and never encountered any problems. So we allowing people to live with us so long as:
1) They somehow help sustain us as a whole. They are productive.
2) They choose to abandon practices such as eating meat, buying from companies that have terrible labor/environmental practices as they are instable.
3) They treat people with respect and agree to make collective decisions through consenus.
The above rules are only in place so we can live sustainibly and eliminate the hierarchal system. (Which would included all forms of racism, discrimination, patriarchy etc...)
Living in this way, opposed to charging rent, would allow us to pay our debts and live rather well. This is because of the exponential effect of the collective effort. Where we start off with say 2 or 3 people covering the initial investment we soon gain more and more or so to help sustain each other.
Once possible, the group of now say 10 people could invest in a second household (preferably near by). This time the investment of each would have to be considerably less for each indivivuel. We then open this houshold to the to the same system, allowing who ever wishes to live there to do so and living under the same principals. With the first house payed off we now have 2 groups paying off the second which of course would take half the time.
This cycle would continue, again speeding up geometrically, until you've basically bought up the block and have a large group, willing to live by similar principals and coming to, no longer just household, but community decisions through consenus.
Now that we have a number suffcient to consider a labor force we could then gradually abandon outside work and start a communal business operating under the same principals listed above. Once fincially established we could again gradually work our way towards not relying on outside produce and eventually become completely self-suffcient. The only remaining restrants would be taxsation by the govenment and the reletive enforcment of government law (depending on where you're set up this could be considerably relaxed), but thems is the breaks for now.
What I've just presented to you is one idea of an anarchist-commune. It illistraits how through co-operation, not competition, we can achieve tremendous results that benefit everyone, not just one 'landlord'. Similar systems are the ideals of most anarchists out there, it is not a philosphy of 'chaos' (Except the Chaos Punks).
You may say "Well that sounds nice, but it would NEVER happen" But I'm afraid you're mistaken. There are a good number of examples around the world, even one here IN Halifax (Its accually only a few blocks away form me, they run a grainery...hippies!
) Some are quite large, encompasing hundereds and some are smaller with a few dozen people. But they are capible of holding their own and co-operating even outside their little communities. (EG with other communes to achieve common goals like roads etc...)Ergo,
Such a system of anarchy has proven itself to work, work well, eliminate hierarchal systems and work for the benefit of all its participants who all hold equal power in decision making.
What do you think? This is anarchy; could it work? What are the potential problems? I'll anwser best I can. I posted this because tizz mentioned wanting a thread about a self-sustainble community so I figured I'd start one