In short:
Communities are rare in
societies but very valuable. In the past centuries most of the communities had
a religious specialization (monastery communities) , and were respected.
In
modern societies the communities have enhanced their focus to many different
values like
eco-sustainability,
spirituality, renewable energy model, art-creativity, better human relations
etc
Communities are like the ideal city "Kalipolis" in the dialogue of "Republic" of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
0. And ideal community has the 3 values of the French Revolution
a) Equality
b) Brotherhood
c) Freedom
Furthermore as far as freedom is concerned the 4 freedoms of Roosvelt
a) Freedom of the metaphysical
b) Freedom of expression
c) Freedom from fear
d) Freedom from need.
Communities are better understood by what issues they do not have rather , than what they have , compared to standard societies.
An ideal community does not have
1) Does not have economic oligarchy that rules the rest neither a minority in need. In other words no living-standards inequalities. Ideally they do not utilize money at all, which of course requires that they don't have private property, but rather a common property. This of course does not mean that , each one does not has cloths or personal belongings that he/she only uses. We mean more of the strategic resources of the community. From this ideal here are deviations that do allow private property, within some equality constraints, and even local complementary currencies.
2) The system of decisions is more or less that of direct democracy , in other words based on equality, equal honor , respect and fairness.
3) There is no ecological destruction of the planet. They utilize permaculture or sustainable and ecologically friendly, agriculture.
4) There is no animal slavery, animal killing, and animal eating. The nutrition models is mainly vegetarian (as it contains less violence, more health, and more planetary economy).
5) There is highly reduced CO2 pollution of the atmosphere, and the energy model is that of clean renewable energy.
6) There is no vain over-activity, waste of human efforts or waste of material energy.
7) The behavior and interpersonal relations are without ulterior motives, pretension and deceptions.
8) The utilized science, technology and arts are non-regressive (with hidden negative intentions and negative results, behind a superficial goodness and positivism)
9) There is no criminality.
10) There is better ordering of values and exist higher spiritual principles.
Communities are like the ideal city "Kalipolis" in the dialogue of "Republic" of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
0. And ideal community has the 3 values of the French Revolution
a) Equality
b) Brotherhood
c) Freedom
Furthermore as far as freedom is concerned the 4 freedoms of Roosvelt
a) Freedom of the metaphysical
b) Freedom of expression
c) Freedom from fear
d) Freedom from need.
Communities are better understood by what issues they do not have rather , than what they have , compared to standard societies.
An ideal community does not have
1) Does not have economic oligarchy that rules the rest neither a minority in need. In other words no living-standards inequalities. Ideally they do not utilize money at all, which of course requires that they don't have private property, but rather a common property. This of course does not mean that , each one does not has cloths or personal belongings that he/she only uses. We mean more of the strategic resources of the community. From this ideal here are deviations that do allow private property, within some equality constraints, and even local complementary currencies.
2) The system of decisions is more or less that of direct democracy , in other words based on equality, equal honor , respect and fairness.
3) There is no ecological destruction of the planet. They utilize permaculture or sustainable and ecologically friendly, agriculture.
4) There is no animal slavery, animal killing, and animal eating. The nutrition models is mainly vegetarian (as it contains less violence, more health, and more planetary economy).
5) There is highly reduced CO2 pollution of the atmosphere, and the energy model is that of clean renewable energy.
6) There is no vain over-activity, waste of human efforts or waste of material energy.
7) The behavior and interpersonal relations are without ulterior motives, pretension and deceptions.
8) The utilized science, technology and arts are non-regressive (with hidden negative intentions and negative results, behind a superficial goodness and positivism)
9) There is no criminality.
10) There is better ordering of values and exist higher spiritual principles.
True and good communities had and have the quality of saints
(holiness) and a sense of sacred actions. But holiness should be understood here not as a quality of
being pathetic and weak, but as higher frequency of the body and the consciousness; a necessary condition for higher development of powerful future
intelligence for the civilization. Communities experience the origins of democracy. Their size cannot be larger than what the soul power of each member can give for a "group soul". This is also the reason why democracy is very often jeopardised or seems without "logic" in large populations of millions of people. Our collective soul power (at the present state of evolution) is not enough for the necessary quality that large scale democracy requires.
Some of the modern comprise almost all of the liberating values in this Blog, and
are brilliant examples of miniatures of societies where all the basic 7 difficulties
of the current civilization (see post 1) are resolved. That is why living in
them is so much more a happy experience , than the average living in the rest
of the societies.
Communities
are not only a laboratory of the future of the civilization, but also a very
significant healing influence to the rest of the societies.
By
the very nature of the rather tight relations in a community, an individual can
find the missing larger-scale of intimacy (compared to the scale of intimacy of
a couple) which may heal his emotional and spiritual world. Within a community
he may find the true key values for a happy couples and family life. He creates
his new communitarian self, and cultivates the value of true friendship.
The
main ethical values in a community are spiritual freedom, economic freedom and moral freedom. Also truth,
trust, mutual support, responsible participation, and a similar experience of life of shared values.
.
The administrative organization of communities
includes the next innovations:
1) There may be degrees for the rights of
participation and obligations, of the members to the commons
2) The democratic procedures rule through out. I
am afraid communities may not be based all the times to the obligatory 100% votes agreement (unanimity, unison). Of course consensus decision making with unaminity is a rare and valuable method. It may or may not occur if the time is limited. Emotional unity and solidarity should no be confused with intellectual
and volitional concurrence. Respect of the free will and expression is a primary value. In some cases it may be necessary to resort to random draws as technique for role assignment.
3) Intermediate management
positions have double-confidence; In other words the same
manager is to be elected successfully with democratic procedures, both
bottom-up (from lower ranks) and top-down (higher ranks),
4) Limited power differences:The larger majority of the
shares of the enterprise-community must be hold by the personnel or members
themselves. There is an upper bound to the percentage of shares that a member may possess. In this way alienation of the work , alienation of ownership and alienation of the resources is
avoided.
5) Absence of financial alienation: The Financial liabilities are
less than 1/3 of the assets, so again financial alienation is avoided. This is
achieved by preferring co-ownership to borrowing.
6) Other basic functions of a large society like education, cultural performances, health care, and justice are operated in an elementary way directly by appropriate boards.
The next are some rather large and very succesful communities in Europe:
The financially exportable product of eco-communities is not so much biological products, but education, cultural influence, conferences etc, in other words intangible civilization services
The financially exportable product of eco-communities is not so much biological products, but education, cultural influence, conferences etc, in other words intangible civilization services
See e.g.
Germany: ZEGG
The property in ZEGG functions as an S.A. corporation, and the shares are about 5,000 euro. The monthly cost of living there is (2014) about 500-600 euros.
The property in ZEGG functions as an S.A. corporation, and the shares are about 5,000 euro. The monthly cost of living there is (2014) about 500-600 euros.
Portugal: Tamera
In Tamera, they have developed
a very good technique,
and example of how to
fight the desertification effect in
Mediterranean
and create Lakes, from the rain.
Italy: Damanhur
http://www.damanhur.org/
The ubuntu liberation communities movement in South africa
http://ubuntuliberationmovement.blogspot.gr/
The ubuntu liberation communities movement in South africa
http://ubuntuliberationmovement.blogspot.gr/
A list of many smaller
