I'm not going to reddit, and it depends on the definition of "free", but if we're just talking about not having to pay money, I think there are still places in the world that will allow you to...
I'm not going to reddit, and it depends on the definition of "free", but if we're just talking about not having to pay money, I think there are still places in the world that will allow you to live somewhere if you work for it. Places that might look for volunteers to help with farm work and providing room and board in exchange for it, families looking for live-in helpers for the aged, this sort of thing.
Some (many? all?) Buddhist monasteries have some form of this ... help keep the place running and you can stay, subject to space. Some have waiting lists.
Some (many? all?) Buddhist monasteries have some form of this ... help keep the place running and you can stay, subject to space. Some have waiting lists.
I don't think the Auroville Ashram in Pudducherry, India is actually free. To the best of my knowledge, it's a community of people that let's people live in the commune for a small charge. It's a...
I don't think the Auroville Ashram in Pudducherry, India is actually free. To the best of my knowledge, it's a community of people that let's people live in the commune for a small charge. It's a different matter that a westerner coming here might feel that it's practically free due to the currency conversion rate causing that charge to be worthy of small peanuts!
A commune system where people live together by certain codes might seem like "freedom" initially but eventually that too will become a bondage in the long-term, isn't it?
At the most basic level, one must be willing to provide for oneself. Either alone or collaborating with others. Ideally from laboring rather than "owning". Otherwise, they are merely placing a...
At the most basic level, one must be willing to provide for oneself. Either alone or collaborating with others. Ideally from laboring rather than "owning".
Otherwise, they are merely placing a burden on others to do work that they refuse to do themself.
The loaded assumption there is "always." So far, very few world governments have lasted more than a few hundred years. And systems of government are not antithical to commons, the government just...
The loaded assumption there is "always." So far, very few world governments have lasted more than a few hundred years.
And systems of government are not antithical to commons, the government just needs to work in service of it. Just because the European government systems of a few hundred years ago parcelled out the commons to individual owners and then exported colonial rules worldwide doesn't mean it would always pan out that way.
Actually, they may not. Living in a sufficiently large commune or community will result in economies of scale (food, power and other necessities might get negotiated wholesale prices at large...
Otherwise, they are merely placing a burden on others to do work that they refuse to do themself.
Actually, they may not. Living in a sufficiently large commune or community will result in economies of scale (food, power and other necessities might get negotiated wholesale prices at large quantity, for example). Even cooking of food and other expenses become cost-effective at scale and the actual cost burden on the individual member would be very small provided the board or trust members manage things properly.
This is one I've really wondered about the limits of for a long time, because I'd love to know how much work any given individual needs to contribute for everyone to have a reasonable lifestyle...
This is one I've really wondered about the limits of for a long time, because I'd love to know how much work any given individual needs to contribute for everyone to have a reasonable lifestyle given modern advancements in... basically everything. As in, with scale approaching infinity, how many labour hours per week does any given individual consume in food, power, and shelter (with the latter amortised over the lifetime of the structure)?
Obviously it doesn't practically break down like that - you can't feasibly have everyone putting in their 10 minutes of weekly contribution at the nuclear plant or whatever - and untangling the supply chains would be fractally complex (if the farmer works X hours to feed Y people for a month, that's an easy X/Y average labour hours for weekly food; but then what about the labour of the people who built the tractor, which raises the same question about those who mined and refined the steel, which raises the same question about those who built the mining equipment, and so on ad infinitum), but I feel like we could get to a reasonable heuristic for a comfortable modern life and I have a strong suspicion it'd be a lot less than the 40 hours/week standard.
That's due to the complex form of economy we live in and our complex ways of life, unfortunately (which is exactly what we are hoping to escape with this commune idea?). The old economic model of...
and untangling the supply chains would be fractally complex
That's due to the complex form of economy we live in and our complex ways of life, unfortunately (which is exactly what we are hoping to escape with this commune idea?).
The old economic model of French Physiocrats , for example, where peasants would work with their hands and feed their families (and that's the only economy, no tractors et al) is very easy to imagine as practically a commune in itself.
Or the Gandhian Economic Model for that matter where every village is self-sustained with the help of farming and a Charkha or spinning wheel to weave clothes is a very simple but remarkable example of commune.
Personally, I'd love to live in such an utopian commune model as long as I have a laptop and internet connection. Maybe someone in Taiwan has to incur some labor to build that laptop, and someone like Bezos or Musk will have to place Lower Earth Orbit satellites for the Internet connection!
No, you've just stated that it's OK to place that burden on people because it's small. The reason that small burden is small is because everyone does their share. As the quantity of moochers grow,...
No, you've just stated that it's OK to place that burden on people because it's small.
The reason that small burden is small is because everyone does their share. As the quantity of moochers grow, that burden gets larger. Moochers embody the worst of "All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
There's a reason the phrase is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." and not "Take what you want, someone will provide for you."
If you join a large commune that has these theroretical economies of scale, I would still expect most everyone to be rotating latrine duty, cooking, cleaning, and farming.
To be fair, in normal non-commune under capitalism I have to take care of all of these except farming myself with no rotation unless I can afford to employ someone else to do it for me.
If you join a large commune that has these theroretical economies of scale, I would still expect most everyone to be rotating latrine duty, cooking, cleaning, and farming.
To be fair, in normal non-commune under capitalism I have to take care of all of these except farming myself with no rotation unless I can afford to employ someone else to do it for me.
And that's kind of the upsell of doing communes. By valuing domestic and economic work roughly equally it has the potential to eliminate a lot of the work-value discrimination problems.
And that's kind of the upsell of doing communes. By valuing domestic and economic work roughly equally it has the potential to eliminate a lot of the work-value discrimination problems.
I can't imagine why anyone would think of a commune as "freedom". The level of forced socialization and the need to abide by whatever is the current implicit consensus and subjective norms of...
I can't imagine why anyone would think of a commune as "freedom". The level of forced socialization and the need to abide by whatever is the current implicit consensus and subjective norms of behavior -- explicit or not -- would be, to me, more invading and perverse than most modern democracies.
A commune is my idea of hell. A well maintained metropolis where no one looks at me long enough to care -- now that is freedom ;)
Titus from Appalachia seems to be doing a fair job. Afaik he did get a cheap loan from his father to secure the plot of land though. His total expenditure for a month is around $90 for a landline...
Titus from Appalachia seems to be doing a fair job. Afaik he did get a cheap loan from his father to secure the plot of land though.
His total expenditure for a month is around $90 for a landline phone, $30 for animal food and $20 for other food stuff; $140 in total, which he earns by training and shoing horses from time to time.
And here lies the problem, you cannot live for free anywhere. Someone "owns" the land that you want to reside on, therefore you owe them automatically.
Titus from Appalachia seems to be doing a fair job. Afaik he did get a cheap loan from his father to secure the plot of land though.
And here lies the problem, you cannot live for free anywhere. Someone "owns" the land that you want to reside on, therefore you owe them automatically.
Well does "free" mean that a person owns what they live on? If not, how about US federal government-owned Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land? There's tons of it out in the US West. I know...
Well does "free" mean that a person owns what they live on?
If not, how about US federal government-owned Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land? There's tons of it out in the US West. I know there's a lot you can do on BLM land with no cost. I imagine you can't build a permanent structure on it, but I bet you could tent or maybe even RV camp out there for free.
Dispersed Camping
Camping on public lands away from developed recreation facilities is referred to as dispersed camping. Most of the remainder of public lands are open to dispersed camping, as long as it does not conflict with other authorized uses or in areas posted "closed to camping," or in some way adversely affects wildlife species or natural resources.
Dispersed camping is generally allowed on public land for a period not to exceed 14 days within a 28 consecutive day period. Camping limitation rules vary per office, please check with your local office for details on camping limitations. In addition, campers must not leave any personal property unattended for more than 10 days (12 months in Alaska).
Putting aside the thorny complexity of land ownership as a concept, it looks like his plot is valued at about $50k - so over 30 years that's ~$110/month without interest, or ~$300/month at current...
Putting aside the thorny complexity of land ownership as a concept, it looks like his plot is valued at about $50k - so over 30 years that's ~$110/month without interest, or ~$300/month at current (high) rates.
As a percentage of his current outgoings it seems like a decent chunk, but in absolute terms it doesn't change the lifestyle calculation too much, in my opinion - especially knowing it'll become relatively less onerous over time thanks to inflation.
Yeah, was a glib 'pre-coffee' remark. Apologies. I think it's the concept of ownership that gets problematic more than anything, and it's a toic that is as thorny as you get. In the UK, there's a...
Yeah, was a glib 'pre-coffee' remark. Apologies.
I think it's the concept of ownership that gets problematic more than anything, and it's a toic that is as thorny as you get. In the UK, there's a huge issue right now with specific individuals owning large tracts of land that are then becoming little walled gardens, despite laws being in place to prevent this. Many of these areas were once common lands, so should we be isolated from said lands now because Sir J Pennygrab decided that he now owns that land?
On the other hand there's the "All things are commons" which... I don't think would work in the current society that we exist in. Too many folks focused on 'value add' to the detriment of everything else. They'd see Commons as a problem (as the rich did back in the 1500s)
There's got to be a balance to be established between people wanting to push the lifestyle of "I own this land, I will erect a statue to myself upon it and no-one can tell me otherwise!" and those who think we should all live a little more commonly with each other. Maybe a split of both with regulations that can ensure people don't just end up sleeping in tents on common land constantly?
In the UK, buying land to live on is a near impossiblity due to planning regs and small holdings laws. If you have (say) 10 acres of land, then you can apply to build a small home on said smallholding, but you better be ready to ensure it's a viable business within three years. Despite the fact that you may not want to make it a business. The alternative is buying land and trying to change usage through the courts... which without some serious money changing hands under desks, is bloody difficult to do.
The commons themselves are a shambles now, with many reduced to wooded areas that are "Commons" in name but not in function. You can't live, grow or graze on many of them without some jobsworth coming to tell you to 'not do that on Common Ground' which leads to hilarious confusion. There are areas that do it well (Bits of Cambridge for example), but it just ... gets exhausting trying to find a space to live 'free'.
Not of this is even coming close to us talking about the cost of land in the UK. 10ac will put you back anywhere between £65K-£300k depending on where you are and what the type of land is (then your permits, home, etc...) When the average salary is something like £26K, that's just not feasible for so many people here.
That's rather rambley, but is a bit of an articulation of my thoughts. I envy the US for it's large, open-tracts of land that are dirt cheap to buy (if difficult to maintain). My wife is an Aussie and I regular talk to my Father in Law about "Oh your man bought an area the size of Eltham in South London for $100K" and it just makes me baulk as to why I live in the UK with its crap land laws.
I think spain has 2 interesting options: Marinaleda, a village in spain, is heavily leftist influenced to the point of having no police and often being described as socialist or communist, and...
I think spain has 2 interesting options:
Marinaleda, a village in spain, is heavily leftist influenced to the point of having no police and often being described as socialist or communist, and from what i can tell operates on the Marxian phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
The multiple apartements being squatted in Barcelona, where it costs 12 cents per month to live because electricity, water, etc are stolen. Not exactly "free" but it kinda resembles that
I'm not going to reddit, and it depends on the definition of "free", but if we're just talking about not having to pay money, I think there are still places in the world that will allow you to live somewhere if you work for it. Places that might look for volunteers to help with farm work and providing room and board in exchange for it, families looking for live-in helpers for the aged, this sort of thing.
Some (many? all?) Buddhist monasteries have some form of this ... help keep the place running and you can stay, subject to space. Some have waiting lists.
I don't think the Auroville Ashram in Pudducherry, India is actually free. To the best of my knowledge, it's a community of people that let's people live in the commune for a small charge. It's a different matter that a westerner coming here might feel that it's practically free due to the currency conversion rate causing that charge to be worthy of small peanuts!
A commune system where people live together by certain codes might seem like "freedom" initially but eventually that too will become a bondage in the long-term, isn't it?
At the most basic level, one must be willing to provide for oneself. Either alone or collaborating with others. Ideally from laboring rather than "owning".
Otherwise, they are merely placing a burden on others to do work that they refuse to do themself.
And that is a fair asessment.
I think if commune was closer to the default, some (but not all) of those problems would be sorted out over time.
The loaded assumption there is "always." So far, very few world governments have lasted more than a few hundred years.
And systems of government are not antithical to commons, the government just needs to work in service of it. Just because the European government systems of a few hundred years ago parcelled out the commons to individual owners and then exported colonial rules worldwide doesn't mean it would always pan out that way.
Actually, they may not. Living in a sufficiently large commune or community will result in economies of scale (food, power and other necessities might get negotiated wholesale prices at large quantity, for example). Even cooking of food and other expenses become cost-effective at scale and the actual cost burden on the individual member would be very small provided the board or trust members manage things properly.
This is one I've really wondered about the limits of for a long time, because I'd love to know how much work any given individual needs to contribute for everyone to have a reasonable lifestyle given modern advancements in... basically everything. As in, with scale approaching infinity, how many labour hours per week does any given individual consume in food, power, and shelter (with the latter amortised over the lifetime of the structure)?
Obviously it doesn't practically break down like that - you can't feasibly have everyone putting in their 10 minutes of weekly contribution at the nuclear plant or whatever - and untangling the supply chains would be fractally complex (if the farmer works X hours to feed Y people for a month, that's an easy X/Y average labour hours for weekly food; but then what about the labour of the people who built the tractor, which raises the same question about those who mined and refined the steel, which raises the same question about those who built the mining equipment, and so on ad infinitum), but I feel like we could get to a reasonable heuristic for a comfortable modern life and I have a strong suspicion it'd be a lot less than the 40 hours/week standard.
That's due to the complex form of economy we live in and our complex ways of life, unfortunately (which is exactly what we are hoping to escape with this commune idea?).
The old economic model of French Physiocrats , for example, where peasants would work with their hands and feed their families (and that's the only economy, no tractors et al) is very easy to imagine as practically a commune in itself.
Or the Gandhian Economic Model for that matter where every village is self-sustained with the help of farming and a Charkha or spinning wheel to weave clothes is a very simple but remarkable example of commune.
Personally, I'd love to live in such an utopian commune model as long as I have a laptop and internet connection. Maybe someone in Taiwan has to incur some labor to build that laptop, and someone like Bezos or Musk will have to place Lower Earth Orbit satellites for the Internet connection!
No, you've just stated that it's OK to place that burden on people because it's small.
The reason that small burden is small is because everyone does their share. As the quantity of moochers grow, that burden gets larger. Moochers embody the worst of "All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
There's a reason the phrase is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." and not "Take what you want, someone will provide for you."
If you join a large commune that has these theroretical economies of scale, I would still expect most everyone to be rotating latrine duty, cooking, cleaning, and farming.
To be fair, in normal non-commune under capitalism I have to take care of all of these except farming myself with no rotation unless I can afford to employ someone else to do it for me.
And that's kind of the upsell of doing communes. By valuing domestic and economic work roughly equally it has the potential to eliminate a lot of the work-value discrimination problems.
I can't imagine why anyone would think of a commune as "freedom". The level of forced socialization and the need to abide by whatever is the current implicit consensus and subjective norms of behavior -- explicit or not -- would be, to me, more invading and perverse than most modern democracies.
A commune is my idea of hell. A well maintained metropolis where no one looks at me long enough to care -- now that is freedom ;)
Titus from Appalachia seems to be doing a fair job. Afaik he did get a cheap loan from his father to secure the plot of land though.
His total expenditure for a month is around $90 for a landline phone, $30 for animal food and $20 for other food stuff; $140 in total, which he earns by training and shoing horses from time to time.
And here lies the problem, you cannot live for free anywhere. Someone "owns" the land that you want to reside on, therefore you owe them automatically.
Well does "free" mean that a person owns what they live on?
If not, how about US federal government-owned Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land? There's tons of it out in the US West. I know there's a lot you can do on BLM land with no cost. I imagine you can't build a permanent structure on it, but I bet you could tent or maybe even RV camp out there for free.
Putting aside the thorny complexity of land ownership as a concept, it looks like his plot is valued at about $50k - so over 30 years that's ~$110/month without interest, or ~$300/month at current (high) rates.
As a percentage of his current outgoings it seems like a decent chunk, but in absolute terms it doesn't change the lifestyle calculation too much, in my opinion - especially knowing it'll become relatively less onerous over time thanks to inflation.
Yeah, was a glib 'pre-coffee' remark. Apologies.
I think it's the concept of ownership that gets problematic more than anything, and it's a toic that is as thorny as you get. In the UK, there's a huge issue right now with specific individuals owning large tracts of land that are then becoming little walled gardens, despite laws being in place to prevent this. Many of these areas were once common lands, so should we be isolated from said lands now because Sir J Pennygrab decided that he now owns that land?
On the other hand there's the "All things are commons" which... I don't think would work in the current society that we exist in. Too many folks focused on 'value add' to the detriment of everything else. They'd see Commons as a problem (as the rich did back in the 1500s)
There's got to be a balance to be established between people wanting to push the lifestyle of "I own this land, I will erect a statue to myself upon it and no-one can tell me otherwise!" and those who think we should all live a little more commonly with each other. Maybe a split of both with regulations that can ensure people don't just end up sleeping in tents on common land constantly?
In the UK, buying land to live on is a near impossiblity due to planning regs and small holdings laws. If you have (say) 10 acres of land, then you can apply to build a small home on said smallholding, but you better be ready to ensure it's a viable business within three years. Despite the fact that you may not want to make it a business. The alternative is buying land and trying to change usage through the courts... which without some serious money changing hands under desks, is bloody difficult to do.
The commons themselves are a shambles now, with many reduced to wooded areas that are "Commons" in name but not in function. You can't live, grow or graze on many of them without some jobsworth coming to tell you to 'not do that on Common Ground' which leads to hilarious confusion. There are areas that do it well (Bits of Cambridge for example), but it just ... gets exhausting trying to find a space to live 'free'.
Not of this is even coming close to us talking about the cost of land in the UK. 10ac will put you back anywhere between £65K-£300k depending on where you are and what the type of land is (then your permits, home, etc...) When the average salary is something like £26K, that's just not feasible for so many people here.
That's rather rambley, but is a bit of an articulation of my thoughts. I envy the US for it's large, open-tracts of land that are dirt cheap to buy (if difficult to maintain). My wife is an Aussie and I regular talk to my Father in Law about "Oh your man bought an area the size of Eltham in South London for $100K" and it just makes me baulk as to why I live in the UK with its crap land laws.
I think spain has 2 interesting options:
Marinaleda, a village in spain, is heavily leftist influenced to the point of having no police and often being described as socialist or communist, and from what i can tell operates on the Marxian phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
The multiple apartements being squatted in Barcelona, where it costs 12 cents per month to live because electricity, water, etc are stolen. Not exactly "free" but it kinda resembles that
2 things are certain in life. Death and taxes.
So "Live" and "Free"? No, it's not possible.