[alpos]

I've seen and read up on how some of the communes have gone, but I haven't seen any that made a serious attempt to run a company that way. By using the existing structures as a buffer, as I am proposing, a group could actually make the commune thing work without giving up any modern conveniences.

It's somewhat similar to what Amish people do, and they do quite well at it in terms of sustainably living as they wish even though no one else around them does. They pull that off by trading the things they do want to make for the things the surrounding society has that they actually want.

It's totally possible to do a socialist version of that where everyone lives in modern houses with modern conveniences, share whatever stuff you all actually want to be building yourselves, but when you have to buy or vote on something, do so through the company and as a block. Mormons have largely gotten away with block voting over the decades, and still do, so we also have existing evidence that that works too.

The details are, of course, up to whoever is trying this out, but the overall thing I'm pointing to, that I don't think anyone has given a real go at, is that using a company as a buffer against capitalism. No one has to live without, but individuals in the community also don't have to go play the capitalist game every day just to get what they want or need.

[foobarbecue]

Coincidentally, https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/we-should-start...

[foobarbecue]

My read: you have an ambitious vision for a specific type of commune. Might work, who knows? If you believe in it, do it. Let us know how it goes.

[alpos]

More like a different kind of sharing app/company as the potential starting point to people figuring out how to live the way they want to. I am indeed wondering out loud about whether anyone would participate in such a system.

To me, it could look like a bunch of people join a company through an app or something and receive voting shares they keep as long as they are participating.

Members would contribute various kinds of property and only members can vote on who gets to use what, for how long, and what, if anything gets sold to fund the company. At least initially, it would probably also have to be funded by members working regular jobs and contributing cash to the company but pretty shortly afterwards the idea would be to have the business making money on it's own by selling things the members make and want to sell.

The cash would then be used to buy anything the members vote to buy. Which then becomes part of the property pool people can vote on using.

As long as the members are geographically distributed, the company would also need to pay for shipping stuff around when it's time to change who is using what.

If it is profitable enough, then it might be able to provide most or all of what the members need to live their best lives. Short of that, it may at least be able to create a micro version of UBI or something.

There are a lot more details to work out than those of course. I do actually want to see if this approach can do something to help people live they way they want to. However, it's hard to imagine any communists or socialists wanting to join such a company if it is run by someone with a capitalist mindset. Even if that person's motives are pure and clear. Naturally, even if I was administrating such a system, I wouldn't allow myself voting powers in it but I suspect still that wouldn't be enough.