Egalitarianism: Resource Sharing

According to the bylaws of Twin Oaks, one of the main purposes of the community is to create:

“A system of internal economics that holds all land, labor, and other resources in common, and makes the material benefits of the Community available to all members equally or according to need.”

I have already argued that this is one of the core principles of the Social Contract of the community.

Holding resources in common is an old concept, which seems to have existed throughout written history ever since humans were first organized into hierarchical societies, dominated by an elite warrior/priest alliance, where resource distribution was an inegalitarian system based on social class that the colonized world has functioned under ever since.  Many reform or revolutionary movements in history held the sharing of resources to be one of the primary ways they wanted to organize differently from dominant culture, such as several Christian reform movements (almost all reforms over two millennia start with a move more towards Omnia sunt Communia of the apostles before they become corrupted to varying degrees), and more modern political movements like socialism, communism, and some forms of anarchism.

Sharing resources, distributing them based on equality or need, is one of those vague concepts that revolutionary organizations and movements often say that they hold, but in practice have no idea how the specifics of that system would actually function, usually leaving that question to a point in the future when some revolutionary event (like “seizing the means of production”) has occurred, and then figuring out how to realize that goal in practice.  This proved to be quite a disaster in the first few years of the Soviet Union, when Lenin attempted to provide all resources from the State and abolish money .

There are several ways that egalitarian intentional communities have tried to implement this aspect of resource distribution:

• Equal profit sharing–  All profit from commonly held businesses are distributed equally amongst the members.  This is the worker run and controlled model of organization, which is more likely to be found when people share a business and little else, and in intentional communities with lower levels of integration.  Members get individual paychecks, and can do whatever they want with this money.  They are still expected to get food, housing, and other necessities on their own (which they can sometimes buy from the community), but this model does not necessarily exclude some members choosing to combine funds.  Often, members who work less (usually measured in hours) will get proportionately less of a share in the profits, but this system differs from group to group.  This form of resource distribution can exist side by side other businesses in capitalist societies, although they would be considered quite radical comparatively (see organizations like Red Emma’s in Baltimore).
• Need-based profit sharing–  Similar to the above model of profit sharing, where member’s primary relationship is through their collective business, and they receive profits from that business.  The main difference is that this form decides to distribute the income based on need, even if the contributions of the members are seen to be equal.  For example, a collective could decide to allocate 1.5 times the normal wage to a single parent, and not as much to a single individual who doesn’t need (or want) as much.  This model only works if the decisions about resource distribution are made using some form of consent involving all members.  Need-based profit sharing is not exclusive of equal profit sharing; equal sharing groups can often decide to unequally allocate based on need for a specific situation, like unexpected medical costs.
• Equal resource distribution–  In more economically integrated communities, especially where members are living together in addition to working in collectively owned businesses, work may not directly translate into a paycheck, but instead members would receive the resources directly from the community.  In this model, members would be entitled to the same amount of resources as everyone else.  People would be able to receive equal amounts of food, equal housing, equal healthcare, and so on.  If the organization starts making more profit, the resources will increase for everyone equally, and would decrease equally in times of loss.  If all resources were distributed under this model, there would be no poverty or wealth except the collective poverty or wealth of the organization.
• Need-based resource distribution– Similar to equal resource distribution, but with the same modifications as need-based profit sharing had to the equal version of that.  This model would hold that people have needs for different levels of resources.  Some people need to eat more food than others, or different types.  Allocating the same amount of rice for everyone each day would lead to some wasting their portion, and others going hungry.  This could be applied to virtually any resource.  The tricky part, of course, is knowing what each person’s individual needs are.  Most people have trouble knowing themselves this well, or have difficultly distinguishing between needs and wants.
• Free resource access– Resources are made completely available to anyone through established production and distribution systems.  People can take the amount of food they want, the amount and type of clothing they want out of what is available, and so on.  For free resource access to work, there often needs to be an economy of plenty (as opposed to the typical economy of scarcity in dominant culture), where resources are effectively unlimited; demand will never exceed supply.  Another way to accomplish this method is by the members of this economic arrangement knowing their personal needs and wants in relation to others, the condition of the total supply of that resource, and then individually practice self-restraint to ensure that everyone can get some of that resource.  Many systems rely on a combination of an economy of plenty with reasonable (or perhaps predictable) individual self-restraint, as many people suddenly deciding to hoard a lot of common resources can suddenly cripple a system that was thought to always have more supply then possible demand.

These are not mutually exclusive categories.  A single area could be a mix of these forms of distribution.  Universal health care at Twin Oaks is an example of a combination of equal and need-based resource distribution.  Everyone is guaranteed the same basic care (such as a vision checkup), but members with different needs will likely get more resources (such as those of us with strong eyeglass prescriptions), contingent on the financial status of the community, of course.  Communities can also be organized to have different areas operating under different forms of distribution, but may still consider the community as a whole to be egalitarian in terms of their total wealth, just using different systems as needed based on their local conditions.

Later, I intend to give specific examples of some of these systems, as many of them have interesting dynamics in practice.

Tagged: egalitarianism, organization, purpose, technics, Twin Oaks, vision