The Success of American Communes

1. Introduction America has a long and varied history of communes. The first ones consisted of religious sects, including immigrant German Anabaptists and American Shakers. These were followed by numerous other sectarian, nonsectarian religious, and nonreligious communes. During the late twentieth century, a new wave of experiments was underway, with hippie communes. These communes have featured a wide range of purpose and organization. For the religious sects, the purpose was to enable their members to live more holy lives. The purpose was not necessarily to replace the private property system. For the secular socialists, the purpose was specifically to demonstrate the superiority of communal work and living arrangements. Some of these communes have been egalitarian, and others have allowed a measure of private property. Some have been ruled by charismatic and dictatorial leaders, and others have been more or less democratic (in some instances, communes originally formed by authoritarian leaders made a transition to democratic governance). Some have been celibate or (strictly) monogamous, and others have allowed polygamy or free love. Some have prohibited alcohol, tobacco, and meat, or required uniformity in dress, or in other ways required special conditions of their members. These communes have also varied greatly in their success, as measured by either the number of years of their existence, their growth and replication, or their achievement of selfprofessed goals. It is commonly thought that the more successful communes were the religious sects that emphasized traditional virtues in work and family life, and de-emphasized materialism. In his history of communes, John H. Noyes, founder and longtime leader of the Oneida commune, quotes one observer: "That there have been-nay are-decided successes in practical socialism, is undeniable, but they all have that communistic basis that seems to me irrational and calculated to prove fatal (i.e., are cult religions) . . . Theory, however plausible, must respect the facts" ([1870] 1966, pp. 137-8). Similarly Charles Nordhoff, a journalist who made a survey of communes in 1874, concludes that for "a commune to exist harmoniously, it must be composed of persons who are of one mind upon some question that to them shall appear so important as to take the place of religion, if it is not essentially religious . . ." ([1875] 1965, p. 387). Contemporary scholarship affirms these findings. Rosabeth Kantor (1972) argues that the traditional sectarian communes were more successful because they required the most commitment from their members. Robert Fogarty (1980, p. xxiii) says that "successful utopian colonies are usually religious; however, such a fact has never deterred the secular utopians from starting new projects." Hugh Gardner (1978), studying recently formed communes, constructs an index of commitment, including time and financial contribution, communion with other members, renunciation of the outside world, and abstinence, and he finds that the more successful communes required greater commitment. John R. Hall (1988) identifies different types of communal groups, including two categories (commune and intentional association) that involve secularist reasoning and three others (ecstatic association, community, and other-worldly sect) that involve emotional and religious underpinnings, and he uses several statistical techniques to determine success, measured -by longevity of communal groups. He concludes that "groups that approximated the commune and intentional association . . . do not seem to have been able, on average, of resolving such problems (i.e., commitment), and thus were short-lived" (p. 689). According to the economic theory of clubs (Buchanan 1965; Sandler and Tschirhart 1980), if there are public goods (those that the consumption of which cannot be excluded to members of a community), these public goods can be efficiently produced and consumed by self forming groups of individuals. …