An intentional community is a voluntary

residential community A residential community is a community, usually a small town or city, that is composed mostly of residents, as opposed to commercial businesses and/or industrial facilities, all three of which are considered to be the three main types of occup ...

which is designed to have a high degree of

social cohesion Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main co ...

and

teamwork Teamwork is the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way. This concept is seen within the greater framework of a team, which is a group of interdependent individual ...

from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

religious Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...

, or spiritual vision, and typically share responsibilities and property. This way of life is sometimes characterized as an "

alternative lifestyle An alternative lifestyle is a lifestyle perceived to be outside the norm for a given culture. The phrase "alternative lifestyle" is often used pejoratively. Description of a related set of activities as alternative is a defining aspect of certain ...

". Intentional communities can be seen as

social experiment A social experiment is a type of Psychology, psychological or Sociology, sociological research for testing people's reactions to certain situations or events. The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of inform ...

s or communal experiments. The multitude of intentional communities includes

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

households,

cohousing Cohousing is an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space. The term originated in Denmark in late 1960s. Each attached or single family home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen. Shared spaces typica ...

communities,

coliving Co-living is a residential community living model that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people living in the same dwelling unit. Generally coliving is a type of intentional community that provides shared housing for people with s ...

ecovillage An ecovillage is a traditional or intentional community with the goal of becoming more socially, culturally, economically, and/or ecologically sustainable. An ecovillage strives to produce the least possible negative impact on the natural envi ...

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

, survivalist retreats,

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

im,

hutterites Hutterites (german: link=no, Hutterer), also called Hutterian Brethren (German: ), are a communal ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious branch of Anabaptism, Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Refor ...

ashram An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or a ...

s, and

housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...

History

Ashrams An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (<

Buddhist monasteries Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

appeared around 500 BCE.

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samos, Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionians, Ionian Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher and the eponymou ...

founded an intellectual vegetarian commune in about 525 BCE in southern Italy. Hundreds of modern intentional communities were formed across Europe, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand out of the intellectual foment of

utopianism A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...

. Intentional communities exhibit the utopian ambition to create a better, more sustainable world for living. Nevertheless, the term utopian community as a synonym for an intentional community might be considered to be of pejorative nature and many intentional communities do not consider themselves to be utopian. Also the alternative term commune is considered to be non-neutral or even linked to

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

politics or

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

Synonyms and Definitions

Additional terms referring to an intentional community can be

, intentional society, cooperative community, withdrawn community, enacted community, socialist colony, communistic society, collective settlement, communal society, mutualistic community, communitarian experiment, experimental community, utopian experiment, practical utopia, and utopian society.

Variety

The purposes of intentional communities vary and may be political, spiritual, economic, or environmental. In addition to spiritual communities,

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

communities also exist. One common practice, particularly in spiritual communities, is

communal meal A communal meal is a meal eaten by a group of people. It often but not always serves a social, symbolic and/or ceremonial purpose. For some, the act of eating communally defines humans as compared to other species. Communal meals have long been of ...

Egalitarian Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hum ...

values can be combined with other values.

Benjamin Zablocki Benjamin Zablocki (January 19, 1941 – April 6, 2020) was an American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he taught sociology of religion and social psychology. He published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movement ...

categorized communities this way: * Alternative-family communities (see

Tenacious Unicorn Ranch The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch is a queer and transgender community and working ranch in Custer County, Colorado, United States. Located in a conservative part of Colorado, members of the ranch often carry firearms and wear body armor due to hara ...

) *

Coliving Co-living is a residential community living model that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people living in the same dwelling unit. Generally coliving is a type of intentional community that provides shared housing for people with s ...

communities *

Cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

communities *

Countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

communities *

Egalitarian communities Egalitarian communities are groups of people who have chosen to live together, with egalitarianism as one of their core values. A broad definition of egalitarianism is "equal access to resources and to decision-making power." For example, decisio ...

Political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

communities *

Psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...

communities (based on

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

gestalt Gestalt may refer to: Psychology * Gestalt psychology, a school of psychology * Gestalt therapy, a form of psychotherapy * Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, an assessment of development disorders * Gestalt Practice, a practice of self-exploration ...

principles) * Rehabilitational communities (see

Synanon Synanon is a US-founded social organization created by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in 1958 in Santa Monica, California, United States. It is currently active in Germany. Originally established as a drug rehabilitation program, by the early ...

) *

Religious communities Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...

* Spiritual communities *

Experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

communities

Membership

Members of Christian intentional communities want to emulate the practices of the earliest believers. Using the

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

book of

Acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...

(and, often, the

Sermon on the Mount The Sermon on the Mount (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It is ...

) as a model, members of these communities strive to demonstrate their faith in a corporate context, and to live out the teachings of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

, practicing compassion and hospitality. Communities such as the Simple Way, the Bruderhof and

Rutba House New Monasticism is a diverse movement, not limited to a specific religious denomination or church and including varying expressions of contemplative life. These include evangelical Christian communities such as " Simple Way Community" and Jonathan ...

would fall into this category. Despite strict membership criteria, these communities are open to visitors and not reclusive to the extent of some other intentional communities. A survey in the 1995 edition of the "

Communities Directory ''The Communities Directory, A Comprehensive Guide to Intentional Community'' provides listing of intentional communities primarily from North America but also from around the world. The ''Communities Directory'' has both anonline and a print edi ...

", published by

Fellowship for Intentional Community The Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC), formerly the Fellowship of Intentional Communities then the Fellowship for Intentional Community, provides publications, referrals, support services, and "sharing opportunities" for a wide range of ...

(FIC), reported that 54 percent of the communities choosing to list themselves were rural, 28 percent were urban, 10 percent had both rural and urban sites, and 8 percent did not specify.

Governance

The most common form of

governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, social norm, norms, power (social and political), power or language of an organized society over a social system (family, tribe, formal organization, formal or informal organization, a ...

in intentional communities is democratic (64 percent), with decisions made by some form of

consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making or consensus process (often abbreviated to ''consensus'') are group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all. The focus on es ...

or voting. A

hierarchical A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...

structure governs 9 percent of communities, 11 percent are a combination of democratic and hierarchical structure, and 16 percent do not specify.

Core principles

The central characteristics of communes, or core principles that define communes, have been expressed in various forms over the years. The term "communitarian" was invented by the Suffolk-born radical

John Goodwyn Barmby John Goodwyn Barmby (Bapt. 12 November 1820 – 18 October 1881) was born at Yoxford in Suffolk and educated at Woodbridge School. He was an English Victorian utopian socialist thinker. He and his wife Catherine Barmby (1816/17–1853) were inf ...

, subsequently a Unitarian minister. At the start of the 1970s, ''The New Communes'' author Ron E. Roberts classified communes as a subclass of a larger category of

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...

s. He listed three main characteristics: first, egalitarianism – that communes specifically rejected hierarchy or graduations of social status as being necessary to social order. Second, human scale – that members of some communes saw the scale of society as it was then organized as being too

industrialized Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econom ...

(or factory sized) and therefore unsympathetic to human dimensions. And third, that communes were consciously anti-

bureaucratic The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...

. Twenty five years later, Dr. Bill Metcalf, in his edited book ''Shared Visions, Shared Lives'' defined communes as having the following core principles: the importance of the group as opposed to the

nuclear family A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger ...

unit, a "common purse", a collective household, group decision making in general and intimate affairs. Sharing everyday life and facilities, a commune is an idealized form of family, being a new sort of "primary group" (generally with fewer than 20 people although there are examples of much larger communes). Commune members have emotional bonds to the whole group rather than to any sub-group, and the commune is experienced with emotions which go beyond just social collectivity.

By region

With the simple definition of a commune as an intentional community with 100% income sharing, the online directory of the

(FIC) lists 222 communes worldwide (28 January 2019). Some of these are religious institutions such as

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

s and

. Others are based in

anthroposophic Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers ...

philosophy, including Camphill villages that provide support for the education, employment, and daily lives of adults and children with

developmental disabilities Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

mental health problems A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

or other

special needs In clinical diagnostic and functional development, special needs (or additional needs) refers to individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. Guidelines for clinical diagnosis are given in ...

. Many communes are part of the

New Age movement New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consid ...

. Many cultures naturally practice communal or tribal living, and would not designate their way of life as a planned 'commune' per se, though their living situation may have many characteristics of a commune.

Australia

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, many intentional communities started with the hippie movement and those searching for social alternatives to the nuclear family. One of the oldest continuously running communities is called "

Moora Moora Moora Moora is a co-operative residential community made up of a diverse group of about 50 adults and 20 children organised into six small hamlets located on a co-operatively owned 245 hectare (600 acre) property situated at an altitude of 700 mete ...

Co-operative Community" with about 47 members (Oct 2021). Located at the top of

Mount Toolebewong Mount Toolebewong is a bounded rural locality in Victoria, Australia 65 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, located within the Shire of Yarra Ranges local government area. Mount Toolebewong recorded a population of 119 at the 2021 census. ...

, 65km east of Melbourne, Victoria at an altitude of 600–800 m, this community has been entirely off the electricity grid since its inception in 1974. Founding members still resident include Peter and Sandra Cock.

Germany

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, a large number of the intentional communities define themselves as communes and there is a network of political communes called "Kommuja" with about 30 member groups (May 2009). Germany has a long tradition of intentional communities going back to the groups inspired by the principles of ''

Lebensreform ''Lebensreform'' ("life-reform") is the German generic term for various social reform movements, that started since the mid-19th century and originated especially in the German Empire and later in Switzerland. Common features were the criticism ...

'' in the 19th century. Later, about 100 intentional communities were started in the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

; many had a communal economy. In the 1960s, there was a resurgence of communities calling themselves communes, starting with the

Kommune 1 Kommune 1 or K1 was a politically motivated commune in Germany. It was created on 12 January 1967, in West Berlin and finally dissolved in November 1969. Kommune 1 developed from the extraparliamentary opposition of the German student movement o ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, followed by Kommune 2 (also Berlin) and Kommune 3 in

Wolfsburg Wolfsburg (; Eastphalian: ''Wulfsborg'') is the fifth largest city in the German state of Lower Saxony, located on the river Aller. It lies about east of Hanover and west of Berlin. Wolfsburg is famous as the location of Volkswagen AG's hea ...

. In the German commune book, , communes are defined by Elisabeth Voß as communities which: * Live and work together * Have a communal economy, i.e. common finances and common property (land, buildings,

means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...

) * Have communal decision making – usually consensus decision making * Try to reduce hierarchy and hierarchical structures * Have communalization of housework, childcare and other communal tasks * Have equality between women and men * Have low

ecological footprint The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...

s through sharing and saving resources

Israel

PikiWiki 3560 Architecture of the Golan Heights

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

im in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, (sing., kibbutz) are examples of officially organized communes, the first of which were based on agriculture. Other Israeli communities are

Neve Shalom Neve Shalom ( he, נְוֵה שָׁלוֹם, ''lit.'' Oasis of Peace), also known as Wāħat as-Salām ( ar, واحة السلام) is a cooperative village in Israel, jointly founded by Israeli Jews and Arabs in an attempt to show that the two p ...

Kvutza Kvutza, kevutza or kevutzah ( "group") is a communal settlement among Jews, primarily in pre-state Israel, the word was used in reference to communal life. First there were ''kvutzot'' (plural of kvutza) in the sense of groups of young people with ...

, Yishuv Kehilati,

Moshavim A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms settler, pioneered by the Labor Zionism, Labour ...

and Kfar No'ar. Today, there are dozens of urban communes growing in the cities of Israel, often called

urban kibbutz An urban kibbutz ( he, קיבוץ עירוני, ''Kibbutz Ironi'') is a form of kibbutz located within an existing city. There are currently just over 100 in Israel, totalling around 2,000 members. Although there were attempts to form urban kibbutz ...

im. The urban kibbutzim are smaller and more

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

. Most of the urban communes in Israel emphasize social change, education, and local involvement in the cities where they live. Some of the urban communes have members who are graduates of

zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

youth movements, like HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed,

HaMahanot HaOlim Hamahanot Haolim is the first youth study group with Zionistic and socialistic philosophy to be founded in Israel. Since its inception in 1929, members of Hamahanot Haolim have continually worked to promote a wide range of projects that benefit Isr ...

and

Hashomer Hatsair Hashomer Hatzair ( he, הַשׁוֹמֵר הַצָעִיר, , ''The Young Guard'') is a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, and it was also the name of the grou ...

Ireland

In 1831 John Vandeleur (a landlord) established a commune on his Ralahine Estate at

Newmarket-on-Fergus Newmarket-on-Fergus, historically known as Corracatlin (), is a town in County Clare, Ireland. It is 13 kilometres from Ennis, 8 kilometres from Shannon Airport, and 24 kilometres from Limerick. History The English rendering of the name 'Newm ...

Co. Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,817 a ...

. Vandeleur asked Edward Thomas Craig, an English socialist, to formulate rules and regulations for the commune. It was set up with a population of 22 adult single men, 7 married women and their 7 husbands, 5 single women, 4 orphan boys and 5 children under the age of 9 years. No money was employed, only credit notes which could be used in the commune shop. All occupants were committed to a life with no alcohol, tobacco, snuff or gambling. All were required to work for 12 hours a day during the summer and from dawn to dusk in winter. The social experiment prospered for a time and 29 new members joined. However, in 1833 the experiment collapsed due to the gambling debts of John Vandeleur. The members of the commune met for the last time on 23 November 1833 and placed on record a declaration of "the contentment, peace and happiness they had experienced for two years under the arrangements introduced by Mr. Vandeleur and Mr. Craig and which through no fault of the Association was now at an end".

Russia

imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

, the vast majority of Russian peasants held their land in communal ownership within a ''mir'' community, which acted as a village government and a cooperative. The very widespread and influential pre-Soviet Russian tradition of Monastic communities of both sexes could also be considered a form of communal living. After the end of communism in Russia,

monastic communities Monasticism (from Ancient Greek , , from , , 'alone'), also referred to as monachism, or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic life plays an important role ...

have again become more common, populous and, to a lesser degree, more influential in Russian society. Various patterns of Russian behavior — (толока), (помочи), (артель) — are also based on communal ("мирские") traditions.

South Africa

In 1991,

Afrikaners Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

founded the controversial Afrikaner-only town of

Orania Orania () is an Afrikaner separatist town founded by Afrikaners in South Africa. It is located along the Orange River in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape province. The town is split in two halves by the R369 road, and is from Cape Tow ...

, with the goal of creating a stronghold for the Afrikaner minority group, the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner culture. By 2022, the population was 2,500. The town was experiencing rapid growth and the population had climbed by 55% from 2018. They favour a model of strict Afrikaner self-sufficiency and have their own currency, bank, local government and only employ Afrikaners.

United Kingdom

A 19th century advocate and practitioner of communal living was the

utopian socialist Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...

, who founded a Communist Church before becoming a Unitarian minister.

The Simon Community The Simon Community is a charity which helps homeless people, taking its name from Simon of Cyrene. It was founded in 1963 by Anton Wallich-Clifford who had encountered many homeless people while working for the Probation Service at Bow Street ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

is an example of social cooperation, made to ease

homelessness Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

within London. It provides food and religion and is staffed by homeless people and volunteers. Mildly nomadic, they run street "cafés" which distribute food to their known members and to the general public. Findhorn wind turbines

The Bruderhof has three locations in the UK. In Glandwr, near

Crymych Crymych () is a village of around 800 inhabitants and a community (population 1,739) in the northeast of Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated approximately above sea level at the eastern end of the Preseli Mountains, on the old Tenby to Cardiga ...

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

, a co-op called

Lammas Ecovillage Lammas Ecovillage (Welsh: ''Tir-y-Gafel'') is a low-impact, off-grid ecovillage in Glandwr, near Crymych in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, comprising nine households and a community hub on a site. Buildings are constructed of natural materials an ...

focuses on planning and

sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...

. Granted planning permission by the

Welsh Government The Welsh Government ( cy, Llywodraeth Cymru) is the Welsh devolution, devolved government of Wales. The government consists of ministers and Minister (government), deputy ministers, and also of a Counsel General for Wales, counsel general. Minist ...

in 2009, it has since created 9 holdings and is a central communal hub for its community. In

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, the

Findhorn Foundation The Findhorn Foundation is a Scottish charitable trust registered in 1972, formed by the spiritual community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, one of the largest intentional communities in Britain.''The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Org ...

founded by

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

and

Eileen Caddy Eileen Caddy MBE (26 August 1917 – 13 December 2006) was a spiritual teacher and new age author, best known as one of the founders of the Findhorn Foundation community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, near the village of Findhorn, Moray Firth, in nor ...

and

Dorothy Maclean Dorothy Maclean (January 7, 1920 – March 12, 2020) was a Canadian writer and educator on spiritual subjects who was one of the original three adults at what is now the Findhorn Foundation in northeast Scotland. Biography Maclean was born in Gue ...

in 1962 is prominent for its educational centre and experimental architectural community project based at The Park, in

Moray Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Between 1975 ...

, Scotland, near the village of

Findhorn Findhorn ( gd, Inbhir Èir or ''Inbhir Èireann'') is a village in Moray, Scotland. It is located on the eastern shore of Findhorn Bay and immediately south of the Moray Firth. Findhorn is 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Kinloss, and about 5 m ...

.Local relations between the

and the village of

have occasionally foundered over inconsiderate use of the word 'Findhorn' to mean either the former or the Ecovillage. See for example Walker (1994), Talk:Findhorn Foundation and also

Findhorn (disambiguation) Findhorn may refer to: * Toponyms re northern Scotland: ** Findhorn, village ** Findhorn Bay ** River Findhorn * Institutions connected with the village ** Findhorn Foundation, an intentional community ** Findhorn Press, a publisher founded by th ...

. The

Findhorn Ecovillage Findhorn Ecovillage is an experimental architectural community project based at The Park, in Moray, Scotland, near the village of Findhorn.Local relations between the Findhorn Foundation and the village of Findhorn have occasionally foundered ove ...

community at The Park, Findhorn, a village in Moray, Scotland, and at

Cluny Hill Cluny Hill is a hill on the East side of Forres, Scotland. At the top of Cluny Hill is Nelson's Tower, built in 1806 to commemorate Admiral Lord Nelson and his victory at Trafalgar. The Tower is open to the public. Writing in 1807 the antiquari ...

Forres Forres (; gd, Farrais) is a town and former royal burgh in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately northeast of Inverness and west of Elgin. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions. There ...

, now houses more than 400 people. Historic agricultural examples include the

Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...

settlement on

St George's Hill St George's Hill is a private gated community in Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom. The estate has golf and tennis clubs, as well as approximately 420 houses. Land ownership is divided between homes with gardens, belonging to home owners, and t ...

, Surrey during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

and the

Clousden Hill Free Communist and Co-operative Colony Clousden Hill Free Communist and Co-operative Colony was an anarcho-communist commune from 1895 until 1898 in Forest Hall, North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. The commune was part of the back-to-the-land movement, operating a 12-acre farm und ...

near

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

during the 1890s.

United States

There is a long history of utopian communities in America which led to the rise in the communes of the

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

movement—the "

back-to-the-land A back-to-the-land movement is any of various agrarian movements across different historical periods. The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree of self-suffic ...

" ventures of the 1960s and 1970s. One commune that played a large role in the hippie movement was Kaliflower, a utopian living cooperative that existed in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

between 1967 and 1973 built on values of

free love Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The movement's initial goal was to separate the state from sexual and romantic matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It stated that such issues were the concern ...

and

anti-capitalism Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as s ...

. Andrew Jacobs of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that "after decades of contraction, the American commune movement has been expanding since the mid-1990s, spurred by the growth of settlements that seek to marry the utopian-minded commune of the 1960s with the American predilection for privacy and capital appreciation." The

(FIC) is the best source for listings of and more information about communes in the United States. While many American communes are short lived, some have been in operation for over 50 years. The Bruderhof was established in the US in 1954, Twin Oaks in 1967 and

Koinonia Farm Koinonia Farm is a Christian farming intentional community in Sumter County, Georgia. History The farm was founded in 1942 by two couples, Clarence and Florence Jordan and Martin and Mabel England, as a "demonstration plot for the Kingdom of Go ...

in 1942. Twin Oaks is a rare example of a non-religious commune surviving for longer than 30 years.

Notes

References

Sources

* Curl, John (2007). Memories of Drop City, The First Hippie Commune of the 1960s and the Summer of Love, a memoir. iUniverse.
Red-coral.net
* Curl, John (2009) ''For All The People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America'', PM Press. . * Fitzgerald, George R. (1971). Communes Their Goals, Hopes, Problems. New York: Paulist Press. * Hall, John R. (1978). The Ways Out: Utopian Communal Groups in an Age of Babylon. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Horrox, James. (2009). ''A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement''. Oakland: AK Press. * Margaret Hollenbach. (2004)''Lost and Found: My Life in a Group Marriage Commune''.

University of New Mexico Press The University of New Mexico Press (UNMP) is a university press at the University of New Mexico. It was founded in 1929 and published pamphlets for the university in its early years before expanding into quarterlies and books. Its administrative ...

, . * * Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (1972) ''Commitment and community: communes and utopias in sociological perspective.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

. * Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (1973) ''Communes: creating and managing the collective life.'' New York, Harper & Row. * Lattin, Don. (2003, March 2) Twilight of Hippiedom
The San Francisco Chronicle
Retrieved March 16, 2008 * Lauber, John. (1963, June). Hawthorne's Shaker Tales lectronic version Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 18, 82–86. * * Meunier, Rachel. (1994, December 17). Communal Living in the Late 60s and Early 70s. Retrieved March 16, 2008, fro
thefarm.org
* Miller, Timothy. (1997) "Assault on Eden: A Memoir of Communal Life in the Early '70s", ''Utopian Studies'', Vol. 8, 1997. * Roberts, Ron E. (1971). The New Communes Coming Together in America. New Jersey: Prentice Hall inc. * Van Deusen, David. (2008
''Green Mountain Communes: The Making of a Peoples’ Vermont''
Catamount Tavern News Service. * Veysey, Laurence R. (1978) '' The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Communities in Twentieth Century America'' * * Wild, Paul H. (1966 March). Teaching Utopia lectronic version The English Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3, 335–37, 339. * Zablocki, Benjamin. (1980, 1971) ''The Joyful Community: An Account of the Bruderhof: A Communal Movement Now in Its Third Generation'' (University of Chicago Press, 1971, reissued 1980), . (The 1980 edition of the

Whole Earth Catalog The ''Whole Earth Catalog'' (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articl ...

called this book "the best and most useful book on communes that's been written".) * Zablocki, Benjamin. (1980) ''Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes'' (The Free Press, 1980), .

External links

*
Federation of Egalitarian Communities

Intentional Communities Website

eurotopia European Directory of Communities and Ecovillages

Intentional Communities Wiki

List of Communes
in th
Communities Directory

Intentional Community For Media and Spirituality

Diggers & Dreamers UK directory & Journal

– slideshow by ''

''
International Communes Desk
{{Authority control Housing cooperatives Intentional living Living arrangements Sharing economy Types of communities

History

Synonyms and Definitions

Variety

Membership

Governance

Core principles

By region

Australia

Germany

Israel

Ireland

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See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links