Thoughts on Green Mountain Communes

Green Mountain Communes: The Making of a Peoples’ Vermont

http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=7248


I found this article giving a brief history of Vermont communes to be a fascinating read which should be enlightening for people across the political spectrum. The examples are a microcosmic genesis of contemporary political tension. I was entirely enthused with the concepts up until the descriptions of militarism and the subsequent “Progressive Party” type ideas.

The spirits of local entrepreneurship, cooperation, sustainability, gender equality and voluntary social arrangements are all excellent. If the current crop of "Progressives" would take a little bit of individual (or collective) initiative and attempt to solve social problems by similarly creative and ambitious means, perhaps it could serve as a "model" for others to follow.

Perhaps the contemporary progressive movement has instead fallen prey to a certain intellectual laziness or collective myopia? Rather than working in a system of voluntary participation such as these early communes, the current "Progressive" ideal has been twisted into a belief system which advocates that resources be extracted from INvoluntary participants through the use of force. These resources are then reallocated by nonproductive central planners in an attempt to achieve an outcome which might represent an “idealized” version of these bygone communes. Such an outcome was never genuinely achieved by these systems, as indicated by the eventual dissolution of the groups, and such an outcome is definitely unachievable through coerced participation.

I fully support the local farmer's markets and food co-ops and buy from local producers as much as possible. I'll donate to local charities and lend a hand to my friends and neighbors in times of need. I make these choices willingly. If a group of my fellow Vermonters desire, by mutual agreement, to set up a communal living arrangement and behave in accordance with their own social norms, values and microeconomic systems, I would steadfastly defend their freedom to do so.

However, when such a group of people organize (i.e. politically) and decide that it is within their right to confiscate wealth from others by the use of force, and then attempt to re-shape all of society to conform to THEIR subjective ideals, I will resist. Mr. Houriet believes that future economic conditions will motivate people to adopt a more communal societal arrangement such as the early communes described. If that eventuality is indeed in our future, so be it. We will then choose freely to participate. As of now, economic necessity does not mandate this style of living and it is therefore immoral and unjust to use government as a mechanism to compel such arrangements on unwilling participants.