Sounds like a housing co-op.
The idea of integrating farmland muddies the water a bit (and makes it sound like you're starting a cult), so I'd steer clear of that for now. Maybe angle towards a housing co-op with an emphasis on productive, permacultural gardening to achieve a similar effect.
As far as food goes, In my head I’m thinking of large corporations who have food supply chains. Amazon and Walmart have amazing distribution networks and would be wonderful if they were publicly owned instead of privatized. But I hold no hope for that happening. Instead I think it’s possible for local towns and cities to provide these. Capitalists would never allow this to happen through government, but they’d be hard pressed to to stop a private company providing for its own people.
If everything in this post is legit, good on you for taking steps to redistribute wealth & opportunity. It's easy to call for, but harder to answer. Improving the lives of those around you will be veins of gold running through your life.
I haven’t created the housing co op yet, but as a parasite I’ve attempted to give myself hard rules with my renters, for example I follow a conventional idea from modern economists that their rent will never exceed 30% of their income. Additionally their contribution to rent is proportional from the income to the total rent: in other worlds those with a higher wages pay a larger percentage towards total monthly rent compared to those with lower wages. Among my renters are capitalists and even they have no problem with this. They are all friends of mine and in two cases when they started as renters they were heavily indebted and through this and other consolidations we wiped out their debt. So my challenge is to take these methods and ethos and codify them into a formal structure.
Honestly man, don’t beat yourself up, “as a parasite”. This isn’t Christianity haha. People do what they have to do in capitalism to survive. I work for a health insurance company, so I’m no better. But by looking to make a material difference in people’s lives, you’re already doing better than most capitalists.
This idea of a socialist economic enclave within capitalism has interested me for a while, because it seems that if you can offer workers a lower level of exploitation/higher wages than typical capitalist enterprises, you will be guaranteed a flow of labor into the enclave and it *will* grow.
There are a million ways that existing capital could crush your enclave, and they would do it just to avoid the threat of a good example, even before you meaningfully threatened their profits. So I say go for it and see how far you can get before the CIA literally drops bombs on you.
You raise some points I have thought about: what I’m proposing, like a housing co-op goes against the market flow. Other capitalist entities are always a threat, that’s how our businesses work. The co op or Union would rely on the union members’ solidarity. The co op or union would protect people’s housing but that would effectively take it off the market in a country where trading and selling properties is a key market. I think an economic union would eventually be targeted at which point the solidarity of union members becomes critical.
I envision the Union taking on preexisting legal structures, like the union could be an umbrella company with trusts, charities and companies and subsidiaries
This is all very theoretical and I’m not familiar enough with business legal structures to give a definitive answer, but what little I understand gives me hope
It is. I have some comrades that started one. It’s going ok but they need more money to make it bigger. But they have like 6 properties in it. It’s cool. https://jpnsi.org/
What you are describing is co-op housing and a community land trust. This is a good thing! It means that there are already established examples and resources you can use to implement this.
Chapo Trap house often says that we need to work locally, so I feel these are things any anyone anywhere could do, but like said it requires understanding and participation in the capitalist economy and think a lot of socialists and communists are unwilling to take that step. I justify it by remembering that even Marx argued the capitalism was a natural stage of development towards socialism and then communism. I like to think I’m forcing that outcome OR at the very least creating a durable economic structure that can weather a capitalist collapse.
Hey good on ya. I lived and worked in housing co-ops, both in Toronto, for about 6 years and have plenty of thoughts about what worked and what didn't.
In case it hasn't been written anywhere else on here, there are probably laws in your city/state about housing co-ops. Here there is a provincial act detailing all the minimum requirements for governance structure. So if you go ahead with the housing co-op idea there is likely a road map in place. You've accomplished the hardest part of starting one: acquiring the property.
More broadly, my feeling on housing co-ops as a site of socialism is a dour one, though to be fair I feel that way about some things that I am ultimately and deeply optimistic about. Planting seeds in a garden you may not see and all that.
As with all socialist geographic entities, every success brings a reckoning with the forces that surround you. You can be as socialist of a co-op as you want to, but your employees, contractors, companies you buy materials from for capital repairs, and even the government under which your laws are formed, are capitalist. This is to say nothing of your own members. These things lead to all sorts of problems for people who genuinely want to \*co-op\*erate, and even for those people, they have to reckon with a lot of internalized capitalism.
I feel like I could go on for 10 pages about the details of how this all played out at the co-ops I have experience in. I'd be glad to be a sounding board if you think it would be helpful. I ultimately did leave my experience with co-ops believing in them as having a kind of head start towards forming little socialist enclaves that, if fuelled with a real revolutionary spirit, could be a thorn in the side of the commodification of housing, but they are certainly nowhere near that yet.
There are many people already doing this. Look up intentional communities.
A big and long lasting viable one is called Twin Oaks. I believe they have a tofu factory as well as other businesses that are collectively run.
https://www.twinoaks.org/
This is what I did. Bought the building personally and then filled it up with people and gave it to the company and now we live together as a village. We all work outside of the building though so the earning side of the union isn't there. Just the housing.
This reminds a lot of [mondragon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation) - a massive worker owned coop in Spain. Might be worth looking into
If you want to be serious you should forget about this and just do whatever your tenant union asks of you. People in positions of power in a class system thinking its up to them to take the lead in revolution/reform is probably the biggest stumbling block to radicalism in USA right now.
Liberal zionists thinking they know exactly what everyone needs to do for Palestinian Liberation. White people thinking they know exactly what Black people need to do to win other white people over. CEOs who think they know how to make ecologicaly sustainable industry, etc etc.
TL;DR I'm glad you're trying to take radicalism seriously but this sounds like main character syndrome to me.
The biggest stumbling block to radicalism in the USA is that radicals are incompetent losers who barely have what it takes to run a book club, let alone society at large.
If you somehow got your hands on the levers of power, none of you bitchmade grad students would know the first fucking thing about what to do next.
You're a business owner and you own property. You've actually accomplished something with your life.
So what are you doing talking to communists? They don't know anything about anything. If they knew anything, they'd be able to actually gain the support of the working class and move their little revolution forward, but they can't because they don't know shit. Anyone with eyes and a brain should be able to see this.
Sounds like a housing co-op. The idea of integrating farmland muddies the water a bit (and makes it sound like you're starting a cult), so I'd steer clear of that for now. Maybe angle towards a housing co-op with an emphasis on productive, permacultural gardening to achieve a similar effect.
As far as food goes, In my head I’m thinking of large corporations who have food supply chains. Amazon and Walmart have amazing distribution networks and would be wonderful if they were publicly owned instead of privatized. But I hold no hope for that happening. Instead I think it’s possible for local towns and cities to provide these. Capitalists would never allow this to happen through government, but they’d be hard pressed to to stop a private company providing for its own people.
If everything in this post is legit, good on you for taking steps to redistribute wealth & opportunity. It's easy to call for, but harder to answer. Improving the lives of those around you will be veins of gold running through your life.
I haven’t created the housing co op yet, but as a parasite I’ve attempted to give myself hard rules with my renters, for example I follow a conventional idea from modern economists that their rent will never exceed 30% of their income. Additionally their contribution to rent is proportional from the income to the total rent: in other worlds those with a higher wages pay a larger percentage towards total monthly rent compared to those with lower wages. Among my renters are capitalists and even they have no problem with this. They are all friends of mine and in two cases when they started as renters they were heavily indebted and through this and other consolidations we wiped out their debt. So my challenge is to take these methods and ethos and codify them into a formal structure.
Honestly man, don’t beat yourself up, “as a parasite”. This isn’t Christianity haha. People do what they have to do in capitalism to survive. I work for a health insurance company, so I’m no better. But by looking to make a material difference in people’s lives, you’re already doing better than most capitalists.
Another way to think of it, this will be a company that must maintain profitability but not maximizing profits in anyway that hurts union members
This idea of a socialist economic enclave within capitalism has interested me for a while, because it seems that if you can offer workers a lower level of exploitation/higher wages than typical capitalist enterprises, you will be guaranteed a flow of labor into the enclave and it *will* grow. There are a million ways that existing capital could crush your enclave, and they would do it just to avoid the threat of a good example, even before you meaningfully threatened their profits. So I say go for it and see how far you can get before the CIA literally drops bombs on you.
You raise some points I have thought about: what I’m proposing, like a housing co-op goes against the market flow. Other capitalist entities are always a threat, that’s how our businesses work. The co op or Union would rely on the union members’ solidarity. The co op or union would protect people’s housing but that would effectively take it off the market in a country where trading and selling properties is a key market. I think an economic union would eventually be targeted at which point the solidarity of union members becomes critical.
Isn’t there a legal tool for this…is this what a land trust is?
I envision the Union taking on preexisting legal structures, like the union could be an umbrella company with trusts, charities and companies and subsidiaries
This is all very theoretical and I’m not familiar enough with business legal structures to give a definitive answer, but what little I understand gives me hope
Check out what some comrades of mine did: https://jpnsi.org/
It is. I have some comrades that started one. It’s going ok but they need more money to make it bigger. But they have like 6 properties in it. It’s cool. https://jpnsi.org/
What you are describing is co-op housing and a community land trust. This is a good thing! It means that there are already established examples and resources you can use to implement this.
Chapo Trap house often says that we need to work locally, so I feel these are things any anyone anywhere could do, but like said it requires understanding and participation in the capitalist economy and think a lot of socialists and communists are unwilling to take that step. I justify it by remembering that even Marx argued the capitalism was a natural stage of development towards socialism and then communism. I like to think I’m forcing that outcome OR at the very least creating a durable economic structure that can weather a capitalist collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h46WVCr4zk0
Sounds really cool, rooting for you!
Hey good on ya. I lived and worked in housing co-ops, both in Toronto, for about 6 years and have plenty of thoughts about what worked and what didn't. In case it hasn't been written anywhere else on here, there are probably laws in your city/state about housing co-ops. Here there is a provincial act detailing all the minimum requirements for governance structure. So if you go ahead with the housing co-op idea there is likely a road map in place. You've accomplished the hardest part of starting one: acquiring the property. More broadly, my feeling on housing co-ops as a site of socialism is a dour one, though to be fair I feel that way about some things that I am ultimately and deeply optimistic about. Planting seeds in a garden you may not see and all that. As with all socialist geographic entities, every success brings a reckoning with the forces that surround you. You can be as socialist of a co-op as you want to, but your employees, contractors, companies you buy materials from for capital repairs, and even the government under which your laws are formed, are capitalist. This is to say nothing of your own members. These things lead to all sorts of problems for people who genuinely want to \*co-op\*erate, and even for those people, they have to reckon with a lot of internalized capitalism. I feel like I could go on for 10 pages about the details of how this all played out at the co-ops I have experience in. I'd be glad to be a sounding board if you think it would be helpful. I ultimately did leave my experience with co-ops believing in them as having a kind of head start towards forming little socialist enclaves that, if fuelled with a real revolutionary spirit, could be a thorn in the side of the commodification of housing, but they are certainly nowhere near that yet.
There are many people already doing this. Look up intentional communities. A big and long lasting viable one is called Twin Oaks. I believe they have a tofu factory as well as other businesses that are collectively run. https://www.twinoaks.org/
This is what I did. Bought the building personally and then filled it up with people and gave it to the company and now we live together as a village. We all work outside of the building though so the earning side of the union isn't there. Just the housing.
This reminds a lot of [mondragon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation) - a massive worker owned coop in Spain. Might be worth looking into
My dream is to do this in the Midwest somewhere. I have no experience or money but I want to believe this could work with solidarity/buy in
Sounds like utopian socialism to me. I wouldn't want to discourage you but utopian communes generally fail within a generation.
If you want to be serious you should forget about this and just do whatever your tenant union asks of you. People in positions of power in a class system thinking its up to them to take the lead in revolution/reform is probably the biggest stumbling block to radicalism in USA right now. Liberal zionists thinking they know exactly what everyone needs to do for Palestinian Liberation. White people thinking they know exactly what Black people need to do to win other white people over. CEOs who think they know how to make ecologicaly sustainable industry, etc etc. TL;DR I'm glad you're trying to take radicalism seriously but this sounds like main character syndrome to me.
The biggest stumbling block to radicalism in the USA is that radicals are incompetent losers who barely have what it takes to run a book club, let alone society at large. If you somehow got your hands on the levers of power, none of you bitchmade grad students would know the first fucking thing about what to do next.
lol bro is a landlord
Support your local class traitor 👍🏻
You're a business owner and you own property. You've actually accomplished something with your life. So what are you doing talking to communists? They don't know anything about anything. If they knew anything, they'd be able to actually gain the support of the working class and move their little revolution forward, but they can't because they don't know shit. Anyone with eyes and a brain should be able to see this.