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 o ...
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 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 studi ...
,
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
, 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 certai ...
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 typic ...
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 e ...
s,
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 ...
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 branch of Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the early 16th cent ...
,
ashram
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' (<
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 distin ...
s.
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' (<
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His poli ...
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 soci ...
. 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 so ...
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
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 certai ...
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 meals. Egalitarian values can be combined with other values. Benjamin Zablocki categorized communities this way:
* Alternative-family communities (see Tenacious Unicorn Ranch)
*
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-contro ...
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''. Ho ...
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 studi ...
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 bet ...
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 ...
Religious communities
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, tra ...
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 ...
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 ...
) 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 Chris ...
, 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 ed ...
", published by Fellowship for Intentional Community (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, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the g ...
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 e ...
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 ...
or
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 vot ...
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 i ...
, 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'', describing a fictional island soc ...
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 econ ...
(or factory sized) and therefore unsympathetic to human dimensions. And third, that communes were consciously anti- bureaucratic.
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 larg ...
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 Fellowship for Intentional Community (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 c ...
s and
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 ...
. 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,
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 remitt ...
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 b ...
. Many communes are part of the New Age movement.
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
In
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
, 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 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
In
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 betwee ...
, 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'' 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 republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
; 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 ...
in
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 constitu ...
, 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 he ...
.
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 a ...
)
* 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
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, Kvutza, 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 pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 ...
and Kfar No'ar. Today, there are dozens of urban communes growing in the cities of Israel, often called urban kibbutzim. 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 necessar ...
. 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 ...
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 I ...
In 1831 John Vandeleur (a landlord) established a commune on his Ralahine Estate at Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co. Clare. 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
In
imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the 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 the Great Northern War. The ...
, 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 ro ...
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 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: Brain to Cas ...
in
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 coun ...
founded the controversial Afrikaner-only town of Orania, 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
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 i ...
, 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 M ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...
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.
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 county in the south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The county is home to Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The Park oc ...
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 ...
. 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
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 ...
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 (council area), ...
, Scotland, near the village of Findhorn.Local relations between 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 ...
and the village of Findhorn 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 ...
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 a ...
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 th ...
, 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 r ...
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 ...
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" 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 for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
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 ...
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 Fellowship for Intentional Community (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 in 1942. Twin Oaks is a rare example of a non-religious commune surviving for longer than 30 years.
Anarcho-communism
Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains re ...
Common land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person who has ...
*
Communal land
Communal land is a (mostly rural) territory in possession of a community, rather than an individual or company
. This sort of arrangement existed in almost all Europe until the 18th century, by which the king or the church officially owned the l ...
Black Bear Ranch
Black Bear Ranch is an 80-acre intentional community located in Siskiyou County, California, about 25 miles from Forks of Salmon. It was founded in 1968, with the watchword "free land for free people". It has been considered by some participant ...
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...
* ''
Diggers and Dreamers
''Diggers and Dreamers: The Guide to Communal Living'' is a primary resource for information, issues, and ideas about intentional communities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – from urban co-ops to cohousing groups to rural comm ...
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 ...
Free Vermont
Free Vermont was a network of communes and collectives throughout the state of Vermont. It existed from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s. It encompassed over a dozen communes and hundreds of people. They put out their own newspaper called ...
*
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstr ...
, a time period in the 1950s and 1960s when the Chinese government created such communes
* Obshchina, communes of the Russian Empire
* Hramada, a Belarusian commune assembly
* Hutterite, a Christian sect that lives in communal "colonies"
* List of intentional communities
* People's commune, type of administrative level in China from 1958 – early 1980s
* Renaissance Community
* Tolstoyans
* Well-field system, a Chinese land distribution system with common lands controlled by a village
* World Brotherhood Colonies
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, .
*
* Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (1972) ''Commitment and community: communes and utopias in sociological perspective.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press.
* Rosabeth Moss Kanter, 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 [Electronic 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.
* Laurence Veysey, Veysey, Laurence R. (1978) ''The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Communities in Twentieth Century America''
*
* Wild, Paul H. (1966 March). Teaching Utopia [Electronic version]. The English Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3, 335–37, 339.
* Benjamin Zablocki, 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 called this book "the best and most useful book on communes that's been written".)
* Benjamin Zablocki, Zablocki, Benjamin. (1980) ''Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes'' (The Free Press, 1980), .
Further reading
*
* Curl, John (2007) ''Memories of Drop City, the First Hippie Commune of the 1960s and the Summer of Love: a memoir''. iUniverse. .
* Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kanter, Rosabeth Moss (1972) ''Commitment and Community: communes and utopias in sociological perspective.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
* McLaughlin, C. and Davidson, G. (1990) ''Builders of the Dawn: community lifestyles in a changing world''. Book Publishing Company.
* Lupton, Robert C. (1997) ''Return Flight: Community Development Through Reneighboring our Cities'', Atlanta, Georgia:FCS Urban Ministries.
* Moore, Charles E. ''Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People''. Plough Publishing House, 2016.
* "Intentional Community." ''Plough'', Plough Publishing, www.plough.com/en/topics/community/intentional-community.
Mariani, Mike: ''The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias'' The New York Times, January 16, 2020
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 ...
''
International Communes Desk
{{Authority control
Intentional communities,
Housing cooperatives
Intentional living
Living arrangements
Sharing economy
Types of communities