Capitalism, Contradictions, and Growth

Marx argued that the internal contradictions within capitalism, which made it an inherently unstable system, would suffice to bring it down in the end. Despite this, capitalism continues as the dominant worldwide economic paradigm 135 years after Marx’s death. Clearly Marx was wrong. Imperfect as it is, capitalism has managed to keep expanding despite its internal contradictions. If the world were infinite, it would probably keep on doing so forever. But the world is not infinite, and capitalism is running up hard against the limits of our finite planet. That fact is what will bring capitalism down, not its many internal contradictions. There is little room left for growth, resources are being depleted at an unsustainable rate, and our planet is unable to absorb all the toxins and waste we continually dump upon it. To put it simply, capitalism is leading us to the brink of an environmental apocalypse, and that fact alone is what will eventually cause the whole system to come crashing down in ruins.

The fact that Marx was wrong about the self-defeating nature of capitalism offers important insights to the failure of 19th century Utopian Socialism. It is obvious to the modern reader that capitalism was not about to enter into terminal decline at any point during Marx’s life. It was still a dynamic force, with plenty of room left to expand. The size of the global economy would grow many times over in the period since his death. Even though the inequalities and injustices of capitalism drove many people in the 19th century to seek utopian alternatives, the optimism over growth capitalism generated was a powerful factor in limiting their appeal and effectiveness. It even injected a curious twist into the Utopian Socialist movement, with many of their communities being organized as joint stock companies. Their allegedly rational and harmonious organization, it was promised, would surely provide dividends that would outpace those of the irrational, capitalist marketplace. Of course it didn’t work out that way. Promoting yourself as a mechanism for outgrowing capitalism was a poor strategy, and one that was clearly at odds with their cooperative framework. This contradiction manifested itself in the internal strife experienced by many of the Utopian Socialist communities of that age, and was a large contributing factor in their eventual decline.

Of course Marxists were not immune to the optimism over growth. They embraced it wholeheartedly. One of the central claims of Marxism is that capitalism actually inhibits growth by limiting production to that which can be sold at a profit. If production were to be socialized, so the argument went, it would unleash the full productive potential of society, and a superabundance of goods could be produced. Having internalized the same growth oriented metric for societal well-being as their capitalist counterparts, the Marxists attempted to beat them at their own game. They announced improbable results for the various five year plans issued by their autocratic central committees, but in the end it became apparent that the productivist mania at the heart of Marxism was no less alienating for its workers, nor any less ruinous for the environment, than it was under capitalism. Eventually it could no longer keep up and collapsed under its own weight.

As we move deeper into the 21st century, though, optimism about growth is no longer a credible position. Some intrepid souls had foreseen the problem as early as the 19th century, but the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet is now clearly apparent for everyone to see. What should be equally clear is that Marxism, with its productivist mindset, is an ideology firmly rooted in the material scarcity of the 19th century. It’s emphasis on seizing and utilizing state power has likewise locked it into following the growth imperative inherent to the nation-state model. That it can somehow shed these characteristics and adapt itself to a post-growth world is implausible in the extreme.

What is needed is a solution that abandons the concept of growth as the measurement of societal well-being, while leading the transition to living in a sustainable, post-growth world. The intentional communities and ecovillages of the modern Utopian Socialist movement are just such a solution. As these do not aspire to either seize or utilize state power, they aren’t beholden to the growth oriented economies that are an integral feature of the nation state model. Their success could spearhead the transition toward an economic model based on sustainability rather than the aspiration toward continuous growth that is in the process of pushing us into ecological ruin. So it is the limitations of a finite planet that will cause the global capitalist system to come crashing down, not its internal contradictions. Even though this crash will occur in some form or another, there is no historical necessity that either Utopian Socialism, or any other variety of socialism, will be its successor. Any number of dystopian futures is possible in the coming post-growth world. But the more the groundwork for the Utopian Socialist model is laid out now, the greater the chances are of actualizing a system-wide transformation when the opportunity arises.

Transcending the State

Inspired by the events in the Rojava, in northern Syria, I have recently been reading and re-reading ‘The Political Thought of Abdullah Öcalan’. While some of it is specific to the Kurdish people and their relation with the Turkish state, much of it is broadly applicable, especially to Utopian Socialism. There is one particular quote by Öcalan that I want to analyze here (from pg. 142):

Democracy’s fundamental function becomes evident in this manner. It can only increase the opportunities for freedom and equality by restricting the state, making it smaller and by trimming its octopus-like tentacles and their power over society. Towards the end of the process, perhaps the state will become redundant and fizzle out. The conclusion we draw from this is that the relationship between the state and democracy is not of one toppling another, but of transcendence (emphasis mine).

Here he’s talking about the conflict between democracy (or Democratic Confederalism) and the nation state. And the crucial point Öcalan makes is that state power cannot be overthrown. Particular states can be overthrown, but state power itself cannot. Attempting to overthrow state power invariably results in the reconstitution of state power in a different form, with a new ruling elite. And once it has reconstituted itself, the state will never wither away of its own accord, as Marx unjustifiably claimed it would. The new state always seeks to institutionalize itself as it strives to maintain and broaden its own power, which is always to the detriment of democracy. The great number of Leninist inspired failures that litter the historical landscape bear this out conclusively. The key to building a stateless society, therefore, is that the state must be transcended. Again - state power cannot be overthrown, but must instead be transcended.

For the Kurds, having recognized that state power can play no role in the building of a democratic and sateless society, this means an explicit renunciation of any attempts to build a Kurdish nation state, separate from the Turkish state. Instead, they seek to establish autonomous, self-governing Kurdish communities within the framework of the larger Turkish state. These autonomous communities would parallel the functions of the state without reproducing its form. The Utopian Socialist movement seeks to follow the same general path with regard to the various nation states it interacts with. The degree of autonomy they can realize in practice is the degree to which they are able to insulate themselves from participation in the wider market economy and from entanglement with the state bureaucracy. The more self-reliant they can become, the more their autonomy will be self-actualizing and need not rely on any explicit recognition from the state itself. These parallel institutions can then begin to slowly usurp the functions of the state, thus causing it to “become redundant and fizzle out”. 

The concept of the nation state is beginning to show severe signs of decay around the world. As the number of failed states continues to grow, and even the seemingly more robust European models are beginning to fray around the edges, the transition could come more quickly than would at first seem likely. The events in the Rojavan area of Syria are a prime example of just how quickly that could happen. With the collapse of the Syrian state during their civil war, the Kurds, inspired by Abdullah Öcalan’s Democratic Confederalism, managed to quickly fill that void with their own stateless solution. Utopian Socialists should be primed to take advantage of similar opportunities in other failing states, and by expanding the intentional communities movement they would well poised to do so. 

Federation of Egalitarian Communities

Intentional communities are what Utopian Socialism is all about. They are the basic building blocks around which a future communal society is to be organized. But what exactly is an intentional community? Dictionary.com defines it as, “a community designed and planned around a social ideal or collective values and interests, often involving shared resources and responsibilities”. Wikipedia defines intentional community as:

An intentional community is a planned residential community designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They typically share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include collective households, cohousing communities, coliving, ecovillages, monasteries, communes, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, ashrams, and housing cooperatives.

So the definition of the term is somewhat broad and encompasses a range of positions between being partially cooperative to being fully cooperative. The type I want to focus on here would be the most cooperative of the intentional communities - the income sharing communities of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC). These are the type of community that are at the heart of the modern Utopian Socialist movement and the ones most representative of its goals and aspirations. So what distinguishes them from the many other types of intentional communities in the world? Their website (http://www.thefec.org/) lists the principles of the FEC communities as:

• Holds its land, labor, income and other resources in common.
• Assumes responsibility for the needs of its members, receiving the products of their labor and distributing these and all other goods equally, or according to need.
• Practices non-violence.
• Uses a form of decision making in which members have an equal opportunity to participate, either through consensus, direct vote, or right of appeal or overrule.
• Actively works to establish the equality of all people and does not permit discrimination on the basis of race, class, creed, ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
• Acts to conserve natural resources for present and future generations while striving to continually improve ecological awareness and practice.
• Creates processes for group communication and participation and provides an environment which supports people's development.

The first two of those items is what distinguishes them as fully cooperative, income sharing communities. The community’s businesses are entirely self-contained and are cooperatively owned and managed by their members. Instead of being paid a wage, the members receive a modest monthly allowance. In turn, all their needs, including housing, food, health care, etc., are met by the community. As all labor is paid the same allowance, these communities are extremely egalitarian in nature. 

The fourth and fifth items on the list highlight their desire to build non-hierarchical, participatory management structures. Some utopian communities in the past and present have had charismatic leaders who exerted an enormous amount of influence upon the direction of the community. The FEC, by contrast, has no one in a leadership role. Communities in the FEC have a decentralized decision making process that relies heavily on collective input.

The sixth item highlights the fact that living in intentional community is the best strategy for allowing mankind to minimize his ecological footprint and for avoiding environmental overshoot. It is clear that contemporary consumerist society is wholly incapable of addressing such issues in an meaningful way. If we are going to have any chance of limiting or reversing the extent of environmental damage currently being wrought, a transition to a communal society as embodied by the FEC is the only strategy that will deliver the desired results.

The communities within the FEC are broken down into three groups. The first is Full Member Communities. These are the six communities that follow all of the guiding principles listed above: Twin Oaks Community (in Virginia), East Wind Community (in Missouri), Acorn Community (also in Virginia), Compersia, Sandhill Farm, and Mimosa Community. Twin Oaks, East Wind and Acorn are the largest of the group. They form the backbone of the FEC. The other three are smaller groups numbering ten or fewer people. There are also ten Communities in Dialogue which are newer or smaller communities that working toward admission into the FEC, and four Allied Communities, which are groups, like Living Energy Farm, that share similar interests.

A critic might justifiably claim that this is a paltry sum to point at after 42 years of work - a handful of communities and about 200 people. Admittedly, such a complaint is not without merit. But I think the intentional communities movement, both within the FEC and as a whole, is on the verge of making great strides. If the same amount of money and effort that was wasted on Marxism in the past were to be invested into Utopian Socialism instead, then the possibilities for change are enormous.

Gandhian Economics

Something that has a great deal more relevance to the Utopian Socialist movement than many people might suspect is the subject of Gandhian economics. While I do not endorse all of Gandhi’s ideas, not even all the ones relating specifically to economics, there is still quite an overlap between his economic thought and the ideals of the Utopian Socialist movement, and I think they deserve more attention that they typically get.

As Gandhi described himself as a philosophical anarchist, the first similarity is with his view on the concept of the nation state, which he saw as being inherently oppressive. The more layers of hierarchy there are, the less the interests of the people are served, and the more that bureaucratic hierarchy comes to serve its own interests. Gandhi therefore thought society should be organized as a stateless, decentralized network of autonomous and self-reliant communities where the people are to manage their own affairs at the local level. And today’s intentional communities and ecovillages are the best embodiment of that approach in action.

The second similarity is with Gandhi’s opposition to capital intensive, large scale, industrialized production. Such production invariably fosters centralization, hierarchy, and the disempowerment of local communities. Instead, wherever possible, Gandhi advocated a dispersed system of small scale, localized producers that employed appropriate technology. This would be a level of technological sophistication that can be operated and managed at the local level, without the need for distant hierarchies. In the modern day, the Open Source Ecology program that is being tested and developed by Marcin Jakubowski and his team, is a perfect example of the Gandhian approach to technology.

A third similarity is with the desire to lead a simple life. Gandhi was very critical of the western materialist culture and its multiplication of human wants. The Utopian Socialists likewise see it as wasteful and wholly unsustainable. Humanity continues to exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth to ever greater degrees. Economic inequality skyrockets to outrageous levels. As a result, the sense that things are getting worse continues to spread to wider segments of society. It should be apparent that western consumerism is both morally bankrupt and unsustainable. The need to start treading more lightly on the earth becomes more urgent with each passing day. The most effective means for doing so is by living in community. Not only have studies shown that per capita use of resources for those in community is a fraction of those living in mainstream society, but the benefits derived from stronger, more vibrant community life is another tangible benefit. And a 21st century Utopian Socialism is the best mechanism for getting us there.

The last similarity that I want to cover is Gandhi’s view that production should be for use-value instead of exchange value. Ideally, this is the position that Utopian Socialist eventually aspires to. As intentional communities are currently situated within the larger capitalist economy, the ones that are economically self-sufficient have little choice but to produce commodities for exchange in order to remain financially viable. Externally at least, this binds them in to the the workings of the market economy to a certain degree and serves to compromise their autonomy. Utopian Socialist communities would therefore strive to withdraw from the production of commodities for exchange-value within a market economy as much as possible, and instead produce as for use-value, either for their own use, or for the use of communities within their local federation. The more communities can minimize their interaction with the economy, the less of an influence the rules of that economy will have on communal life. This is an important point. State power can never fully wither away as long as the economy remains the primary medium through which society satisfies its needs. State power will always try to reconstitute itself in one form or another as a mechanism for managing that economy. If communities strive for local self-reliance, with production for use-value, with the role of the economy being kept to the minimum necessary, the impetus for state power to reconstitute itself will be likewise be minimized. Aspiring toward statelessness while maintaining an economic system that induces the formation of state power is counterproductive. The system of economic production one engages in should harmonize with the aspiration toward statelessness. If it does, then the state will wither away peacefully. If not, then state power will always be a mere step or two away from reconstituting itself.

In the final analysis, many aspects of Gandhian economics in perfect alignment with Utopian Socialism. Small scale. Decentralized. Self-reliant. Sustainable. These are all concepts that are integral to both. As a prescription for how to organize and manage society, I think Gandhi has more to say that is applicable to the present day than does Karl Marx’s emphases on productionism and seizing state power. I think it’s time for those on the left to give Gandhi’s ideas a second look.

What Is Our Purpose?

If you’ve spent any time poking around on this site, you may wonder what the purpose of it is. Or what about it sets it apart from other sites that touch upon Utopian Socialism in one way or another. The answer is that this site has five specific goals in mind:

1. To demonstrate that the 19th century Utopian Socialist movement is not something that should be relegated to the dustbin of history and forgotten. Their failed social experiments conveyed many lessons to future generations that can be analyzed, corrected, and expanded upon. Their failure was not in vain, but has been part of a long process of experimentation that continues to this day. 

2. To demonstrate that the modern intentional communities movement is built upon the lessons learned from their failed 19th century counterparts. The colossal failure of Marxism represented an interruption of that process, but which is now being resumed and carried on. The result of that ongoing experiment is that it has been refined to a considerable degree and is now well positioned to deliver broader benefits to society. 

3. To increase awareness of the many groups and organizations that are doing valuable work in this field, to showcase some of their successes, and to demonstrate the likelihood of those successes continuing to a broader degree as we move forward. As it is, there is almost nothing in the mainstream media about the intentional communities movement. Even groups positioned on the left give it little to no attention. As their successes continue to fly beneath the radar of both the mainstream and left wing media, it is the goal of this site to shed some positive light upon them. 

4. To see a greater harmonization of efforts by the many disconnected groups and organizations that are working in this field under a broader Utopian Socialist umbrella. Groups like the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC), the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), and many others, are doing fine work within their own little spheres. But I don’t think they consider how their efforts intersect, or how their combined efforts could produce larger dividends. If, for example, the communities within the FEC were to act as test beds for the work being done in perennial polycultures by The Land Institute, each would benefit the other in the long run and serve to amplify each others successes. Similarly, if intentional communities were to contribute to the development and testing of Marcin Jakubowski’s Open Source Ecology, especially the Global Village Construction Set, each would help the other along. 

5. To position Utopian Socialism as the most promising venue for leftists to invest their efforts in the 21st century, and to thus become the leading successor to the failing capitalist paradigm. It seems increasingly unlikely that the coming capitalist-driven ecological apocalypse can be avoided in its entirety. The best that can probably be hoped for at this late stage is to mitigate its worst effects to some degree. The more that groups within the Utopian Socialist umbrella embrace this role, the better positioned they’ll be to surpass the antiquated notion of revolutionary Marxism on the one hand, and the ineffectual notion of reformist politics on the other, as the best method for usurping capitalism’s role as the dominant social paradigm, and of leading the transition to a sustainable and equitable society. 

Protest Is Not Enough

Protest, as the saying goes, is the highest form of patriotism. That may be, but it is becoming increasingly clear that protest, on its own, is an insufficient mechanism for ushering in the scope of change necessary to overcome the dystopian trajectory being laid out by the globalized neoliberal economic order. Since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, there have been some very large and passionate protests, like the Women’s March on Washington, or the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Before that, during the Obama administration, there was the Occupy Wall Street protest and the wider Occupy Movement that spread across the nation. Protests like these, and others, have inspired millions of people to stand up and express their growing dissatisfaction with our current political and/or economic establishments. These are all important efforts. But they aren’t nearly enough.

As long as the Left is unable to articulate a compelling alternative to the status quo, these protests represent little more than a rear guard action in a losing battle against a right wing that has been relentless in pursuing its ideological goals since the Reagan administration. You can’t win this battle by simply being against something. You have to have a vision of what you’re fighting FOR, otherwise all the energy that is expended in these protests ends up being dissipated through countless channels that amount to little or nothing. The Occupy Movement managed to do a little of that, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The Democratic Party, in its perpetual effort to stay only one small step to the left of the Republicans, is a useless organization for articulating or inspiring change. Even if Bernie Sanders were to somehow win their nomination, any good that might ensue would certainly fall well short of altering the essential workings of the neoliberal capitalist system. And as for the old guard Marxist-Leninists…I’m afraid their time on the world stage has long since come and gone.

What is needed is a movement that offers a compelling alternative to the status quo. One that would go beyond inspiring people to vote for the lesser of two evils and to instead start the actual work of building a working alternative to the current system. That movement is a 21st century Utopian Socialism as embodied in the growing intentional communities movement. They have articulated a vision for a sustainable and equitable future, and have demonstrated a growing degree of competency in carrying it into practice. Instead of merely protesting against the iniquities of the capitalist system, you need to build actual alternatives to that system. Alternatives that aren’t mere theory, but ones that people can observe and interact with. Alternatives where their passion and effort won’t dissipate into thin air as they endlessly wait for future revolutions or electoral victories, but tangible alternatives that will instead play a demonstrable role in building the type of world they want to live in right now.

Private, Cooperative, and In Between

Counting the broad concepts of private property on the one hand, communalism on the other, and the areas in between the two, there are four possible arrangements that are of concern to us within this article:

1. Privately owned business and privately owned housing.
2. Cooperatively owned business and privately owned housing.
3. Privately owned business and cooperative housing.
4. Cooperatively owned business and cooperative housing.

The first of those is the everyday capitalist society that most people in the western world currently live in. Businesses, or the means of production, are privately owned. People hire out their labor for a wage, which they partly use to purchase privately owned housing, or rent housing that is privately owned by someone else. This is a pretty straight forward concept that most people are very familiar with and spend most of their lives navigating. We don’t need to elaborate much further on it here.

The last of those categories would be intentional communities. Specifically income sharing communities, like those in the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC), which are economically self-supporting. In these, the community businesses are cooperatively owned and managed, while the housing arrangements are likewise cooperatively owned. Except for personal possessions, there is no (or little) private property. The means of production, the land, and the infrastructure are all cooperatively owned and managed by the membership as a whole. Business and living arrangements are both self-contained within the communal organization. This represents the optimal arrangement by modern Utopian Socialist standards. This is the goal that all of their community building projects are ultimately geared toward. But it is not necessary to get there all in one step. The second and third categories listed above are at least partially allied with Utopian Socialist communalism and are generally supportive of it. They could also represent halfway steps toward the fully cooperative arrangement of category four. We’ll examine each of them in greater detail below.

The second category would represent worker cooperatives where the members maintain privately owned housing. The most famous example of this would be the Mondragon Cooperatives of Spain. This is a federation of worker cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain that employs some 75,000 workers. Another example would be the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio. In both of these examples, the workers cooperatively own their businesses, but they all maintain private housing in the wider housing market. While worker cooperatives are vastly superior to privately owned corporations on every front, on their own they will not lead to a sufficient degree of social transformation. But they should be viewed as an important halfway step that is closely aligned with the Utopian Socialist ethos. And they could be converted to fully functioning intentional communities rather easily. If, for example, the Mondragon Cooperatives were to invest in cooperative housing for their workers, they could make that full transition in short order.

The third category comes in two varieties, with a stronger version and a weaker version. The weaker version would be the cooperative housing developments that are popping up across the US and Europe. These are membership-based entities where individuals own their own private unit, but which also have extensive common areas which are designed to foster a greater sense of community among those members. The members are all responsible for their own financing and usually maintain employment within the traditional job market. This weak version is the closest to category 1 and represents the least amount of change from it. But its popularization could lead to gains down the road for fully cooperative entities. The stronger version is represented by intentional communities and ecovillages that are not income sharing and are not economically self-supporting. Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, in Missouri, is a prime example of this. It’s members live communally, but mostly maintain employment outside the community in the private sector. There are some jobs within the community itself, but a minority of their membership earns their living this way. Most communities that bill themselves as ecovillages fall into this category. This stronger version is very closely allied in spirit with the Utopian Socialist ethos and is probably the closest of being able to make the final transition to being fully cooperative entities.

So in the final analysis, worker cooperatives and cooperative housing are only halfway steps toward Utopian Socialism. They are insufficient in themselves to bring about a necessary degree of social change, but they should still be viewed as allies and fellow travelers in the transition away from from the private ownership of an increasingly dystopian capitalist world, and their success can only have a positive impact on the eventual success of the 21st century Utopian Socialism.