Communes

[Libertador]

Anyone have any personal experience with communes in North America? I'm completely ignorant on the subject and I was wondering if they had any merit to them. Living on one for a few years doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world.

[Cyberwave]

Most of the communes in America were popular during the 1960s among hippies. Before then, there were some occasional Utopian communes scattered around as well. However, they have been making somewhat of a come back since the 1990s I believe, and the most notable American communal society is Twin Oaks, which is actually fairly popular. As far as the merit of them goes, they were mostly "feel good" type of personal living choices. They were controversial at the time, but they dissolved after a time, some of them due to internal conflicts. Twin Oaks for example though, as a more modern commune, attracts the attention of people wishing to escape for industrialized society. A lot of people who try and live there are apparently openly socialist, but of course they're merely escaping from capitalist society, not actually changing anything, and therefore the merit is largely individual rather than legitimately socialist, so to speak.

[Ingraham Effingham]

A friend of mine has been living on one in montana somewhere, for about 2 years now. She tells me she loves it there