Humans live for ideals, secular and religious.
Intentional or utopian communities explicitly seek to establish ideals different from those of the society around them. In the USA the dominant assumption has been that salvation and material prosperity was earned by individual approaches . Although these societies were different from the dominant one, they shared the national lore of earthy paradise, frontier self-reliance, and moral superiority . In 1880, a joint-stock company, Oneida Community Ltd., was formed in which each member received shares. 226 members continued to conducted business in silverware, chairs, silk thread.