WEBVTT NOTE The Communal Socialist 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.000 The Communal Socialists 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:26.000 One of the persistent fallacies that continues to plague us in this country is the assumption that communism and or socialism is a Russian product or possibly a European or even an Asiatic product, that it is an import and that it has been somehow brought to us from abroad. 3 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:32.200 In actual fact, I suppose you could say everything in our society has come from abroad, since 4 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:38.200 ours is a transplanted culture from Europe. But it is important to realize that theories 5 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:46.160 relating to communism and socialism, anti-date Marx by hundreds of years. Marx didn't invent 6 00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:53.640 them, and the current movements in China and Russia and elsewhere have not been responsible 7 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:59.240 for bringing those ideas to these shores. On the contrary, we have had some of those ideas 8 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:05.320 and developed them here long before they appeared in their present forms in Europe and Asia. 9 00:01:07.880 --> 00:01:15.480 The concept of anarchy, which really got underway in the latter half of the 18th century, 10 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:23.240 is not the first evidence of practical socialism that we've had in the country. Anarchy came 11 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:31.160 into being as other 18th century socialism came into being as a well-organized body of socialist 12 00:01:31.160 --> 00:01:40.120 thought. But prior to the organizing of a body of thought, we had actually began in this country 13 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:47.000 to pioneer socialist experimentations, and communal socialists were among the very first 14 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:55.640 in this country to experiment in this area. For instance, Jamestown, a colony founded 15 00:01:56.600 --> 00:02:04.520 in Virginia in 1607 during the reign of James I of England, was a commune. It was set up that way 16 00:02:04.520 --> 00:02:10.920 deliberately because it was believed that that was the most expeditious way of getting a colony 17 00:02:10.920 --> 00:02:34.640 The Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620 in Massachusetts, was another case in point. If you would like 18 00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:40.900 to read a very good account of what happened at Plymouth Colony, may I recommend the diary 19 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:48.380 of Governor Bradford, who explained how they had set everything up based upon Plato's ideas, and the 20 00:02:48.380 --> 00:02:54.900 idea that everyone should have according to his need, and everyone should work for the general 21 00:02:54.900 --> 00:03:01.620 store, and so on. And of course, the whole idea was an impractical one, and the colony went through 22 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:09.580 a very, very severe eighteen, nineteen, or twenty months, at which time the governor went back on 23 00:03:09.580 --> 00:03:27.940 The Massachusetts Bay Colony, another colony established in the New World, was likewise 24 00:03:27.940 --> 00:03:36.340 a commune at the outset. These are not anarchistic communes or communistic communes per se because 25 00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:42.620 The founders of anarchy as a social theory and the founders of communism as social theory 26 00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:48.840 had not yet been born, but nonetheless these are practicing communes in which the ideas 27 00:03:48.840 --> 00:03:54.900 of private ownership of property are removed, and the general thought is that everybody 28 00:03:54.900 --> 00:04:01.620 is there working for the social whole and everybody receives as he needs something, 29 00:04:01.620 --> 00:04:09.780 that converts all his ability to the common good, whatever that may mean. 30 00:04:09.780 --> 00:04:12.220 Those are only some of the beginnings. 31 00:04:12.220 --> 00:04:20.380 We had other communal socialist groups getting started in the early colonial days, and even 32 00:04:20.380 --> 00:04:27.220 immediately thereafter we had the same type of commune getting started, but here is one 33 00:04:27.220 --> 00:04:34.820 One of the characteristics we find in all of the communal socialists. These are experimenters 34 00:04:34.820 --> 00:04:41.900 primarily. They are not social theorists so much as they are practically trying to put 35 00:04:41.900 --> 00:04:51.980 the pieces together on a small scale. The theorists wanted to remake the world. Anarchists, 36 00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:56.640 Socialists and Socialists generally want to change the face of the earth. 37 00:04:56.640 --> 00:05:03.660 The communal Socialists wanted to create a little commune wherein everything would be 38 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:09.860 peace and light and joy and beauty and never mind the rest of the world. 39 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:16.740 And this you will find as the dominant characteristic of the communal Socialists who began in this 40 00:05:16.740 --> 00:05:21.420 country from the very first colonies and who continue to flourish right up to the present 41 00:05:21.420 --> 00:05:27.860 and Time. We have a number such colonies still in existence in these United States. I'd like 42 00:05:27.860 --> 00:05:33.500 to mention a few of those that have attained to some degree of prominence and some degree 43 00:05:33.500 --> 00:05:42.900 of notoriety down through the years beyond our first founding colonies. For instance, 44 00:05:42.900 --> 00:05:52.300 During the 19th century, Robert Owen, a British textile mill owner, founded a movement which 45 00:05:52.300 --> 00:05:59.940 took his name. His followers were called Owenites. He picked up some ideas from Proudhon relating 46 00:05:59.940 --> 00:06:06.260 to profit sharing. He finally founded a colony in New Harmony, Indiana, which was supposed 47 00:06:06.260 --> 00:06:36.220 The New Harmony Colony also influenced a great many people, such as Josiah Warren, who was 48 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:43.660 One of America's earliest anarchists and helped to convince him both that communal living was a good 49 00:06:43.660 --> 00:06:49.500 and then, when New Harmony failed, that communal living was not a good. But in any case, New 50 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:55.180 Harmony, Indiana, was one of the great communes that we had in this country and it was founded 51 00:06:55.180 --> 00:07:03.900 at a very early time and it had several efforts to make it into a collectivized communal type of 52 00:07:03.900 --> 00:07:10.900 of Society. All of them failed, and it ultimately converted to the more or less standard semi-private 53 00:07:10.900 --> 00:07:16.780 property, private capitalism that you'll find is standard in the country. 54 00:07:16.780 --> 00:07:22.860 There was a very famous commune that got started in New England called Brook Farm. This was 55 00:07:22.860 --> 00:07:29.260 founded by a group of transcendentalists. It's a religious group in a sense. That is, 56 00:07:29.260 --> 00:07:42.980 It advocates new thought in religious theory, and a number of the people who became active 57 00:07:42.980 --> 00:07:50.380 with Brook Farm were some of America's leading intellectuals. Theoretically, Brook Farm was 58 00:07:50.380 --> 00:07:57.160 supposed to be a place where all these intellectuals would go so that they could have endless hours 59 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:46.880 Another colony in upstate New York that got founded along communal socialist lines was 60 00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:49.280 the Oneida colony. 61 00:08:49.280 --> 00:08:55.980 This was put together by a group of atheists, nonetheless they were very good workers, and 62 00:08:55.980 --> 00:09:01.060 They were silversmiths and they specialized in working. 63 00:09:01.060 --> 00:09:04.240 And of course, this is one of the key factors of anything. 64 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.260 If people will work at it, sometimes it works out. 65 00:09:07.260 --> 00:09:12.740 And the Oneida Colony was a success, but it ultimately converted to capitalism because 66 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:17.220 the colony made so much money that the members of it had nothing. 67 00:09:17.220 --> 00:09:23.020 And so realizing that they had created the wealth, why they ultimately converted to capitalism. 68 00:09:23.020 --> 00:09:27.900 And as a matter of fact, that's where our Oneida silver comes from today. It's from 69 00:09:27.900 --> 00:09:36.700 the spin-off from the earlier Oneida colony. Another colony of similar origins was the 70 00:09:36.700 --> 00:09:47.260 famous Amana colony near Cedar Rapids in Iowa. This one was started about, well, nearly two 71 00:09:47.260 --> 00:10:17.260 In the book of Acts, it is described how after the crucifixion 72 00:10:17.260 --> 00:10:25.100 of Jesus, the early Christians got together and lived communally waiting for the second coming, 73 00:10:25.100 --> 00:10:31.020 and they thought that this is what they should do, and they are very, very fine, highly moral, 74 00:10:31.020 --> 00:10:37.420 peaceful people, and it also worked out that they were very productive. They got about 25,000 acres 75 00:10:37.420 --> 00:10:44.300 of the best farmland in Iowa, and it became a very successful colony, not on the basis of their 76 00:10:44.300 --> 00:10:50.940 Beliefs but on the basis of their efforts. And it lasted as a commune for better than 77 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:58.260 100 years, about 130 years, I believe. And then it converted to a co-op, and a little 78 00:10:58.260 --> 00:11:08.220 later it converted to full stock capitalism. And I think only a short while ago, possibly 79 00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:17.660 In 1967 or 68, maybe 66, the Amana colony was sold to Raytheon, and of course this is 80 00:11:17.660 --> 00:11:23.700 the place where you get your Amana freezers and Amana blankets and Amana furniture. 81 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:29.740 It was originally made by these communal socialists living there, but it is now made by a stock 82 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:33.860 company that is a private enterprise company. 83 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:40.540 Another very interesting group of communal socialists would be the Hutterites. 84 00:11:40.540 --> 00:11:49.060 These are religious people, devoutly Christian, who have colonies in both North and South 85 00:11:49.060 --> 00:11:56.300 Dakota, but primarily in Canada and elsewhere along the Canadian border on this side of 86 00:11:56.300 --> 00:11:57.660 the line. 87 00:11:57.660 --> 00:12:01.700 The Hutterites are totally communal to this day. 88 00:12:01.700 --> 00:12:07.180 They have been in existence as a colony, not in this country, but as a group, I should 89 00:12:07.180 --> 00:12:08.180 say. 90 00:12:08.180 --> 00:12:13.600 They have been in existence for better than 400 years, and they are continuing to operate 91 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:16.040 much as they did 400 years ago. 92 00:12:16.040 --> 00:12:19.840 No one in the commune owns anything at all. 93 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:25.160 The women live in their barracks, the men in their own, and they are very devout. 94 00:12:25.160 --> 00:12:30.380 They pray at intervals all during the day, and we never hear of the Hutterites getting 95 00:13:00.380 --> 00:13:02.380 Human Action, Man Economy and State, The Theory of Money and Credit 96 00:13:30.380 --> 00:13:36.860 to the Hutterites would be the Dukhobors. This is a Russian group that occupies much 97 00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:42.540 the same part of the United States and Canada. Their colonies would be in the same general 98 00:13:42.540 --> 00:13:47.900 area. And although they haven't been around quite as long as the Hutterites, they have 99 00:13:47.900 --> 00:13:55.300 tended to make an even more dramatic impact on society because they seem to have an economic 100 00:13:55.300 --> 00:14:04.560 Practice that has gotten them no end of notoriety. They are all producers, these people. These 101 00:14:04.560 --> 00:14:11.000 are farming communes where the people believe in hand labor. They don't use modern tools 102 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:17.720 or modern equipment such as tractors. They use pitchforks and spades and hoes and things 103 00:14:17.720 --> 00:14:22.040 of this sort, and they work directly with the soil. And again, we have a very devout 104 00:14:22.040 --> 00:14:27.240 Group in the Doukhobors. Characteristically, the Doukhobors do not bother with English 105 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:31.800 or French, although they are primarily in Canada and could use either language. They 106 00:14:31.800 --> 00:14:40.180 insist on speaking Russian, and they are Russian Christians who fled Russia a long time ago. 107 00:14:40.180 --> 00:14:46.980 Some of them are doubtless still in Russia, in rural areas, but they practice their Christianity 108 00:14:46.980 --> 00:14:51.880 and they practice this kind of hand labor on the farm even today, and they do very well. 109 00:15:21.880 --> 00:15:26.920 and the other producers of potatoes will be angry with them because they will be cutting 110 00:15:26.920 --> 00:15:31.840 the market price. Conversely, when the Doukhobors wish to buy something—and keep in mind now 111 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.920 that they buy not as individuals and they don't sell as individuals, this is the whole 112 00:15:35.920 --> 00:15:42.320 colony acting—when the Doukhobors wish to buy land or whatever else they want to buy, 113 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:47.920 they find out what the going price is. Let's suppose that land is selling at $40 an acre. 114 00:15:47.920 --> 00:15:53.060 Well, they may pay $45 an acre. When they go to the market, they pay a little more than 115 00:15:53.060 --> 00:15:58.120 the going price. The consequence is that everyone who has anything to sell is very anxious to 116 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:03.200 see if he can't sell it to the Doukhobors. And the result of this is, of course, that 117 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:08.800 the local business people are constantly distressed with the Doukhobors because the Doukhobors 118 00:16:08.800 --> 00:16:14.560 get the best of everything, and once in a while they decide to pass laws to prohibit 119 00:16:14.560 --> 00:16:16.960 People from Dealing with Them. 120 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:23.080 When this happens, and here's how the Doukhobors have gotten their reputation, when there's 121 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:27.920 a public meeting where the Doukhobors are going to be discussed, these people from this 122 00:16:27.920 --> 00:16:32.720 commune will attend and sit there in stolid, stony silence. 123 00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:37.200 They don't understand the language anyway, but there is an interpreter who is more or 124 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:43.960 less the manager of the group, and he is capable of hearing what is going on. 125 00:16:43.960 --> 00:16:49.980 But they all listen, and when their leader gives them a sign indicating that a motion 126 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:56.340 has been carried against them or some such thing, they have a distinct way of protesting. 127 00:16:56.340 --> 00:17:01.360 They simply stand up and divest themselves of all their garments, right then and there, 128 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:05.420 and stand forth in the public meeting in the nude. 129 00:17:05.420 --> 00:17:10.620 The second step of their protest is to go outside and have a parade while they are still 130 00:17:10.620 --> 00:17:16.540 in the Nude, and I might point out that this has happened in 20° below zero weather in 131 00:17:16.540 --> 00:17:23.500 the midst of a snowstorm. You can find the Doukvores marching down Main Street without 132 00:17:23.500 --> 00:17:28.660 a stitch on. They seem to have the courage of their convictions, although I dare say 133 00:17:28.660 --> 00:17:33.540 their convictions cause cold chills in others, even if it doesn't in them. 134 00:17:33.540 --> 00:17:41.060 And then there's a third step to their protest, having publicly shown their lack of respect 135 00:17:41.060 --> 00:17:46.260 for the action taken. They then go back and they burn out their own farms. They set fire 136 00:17:46.260 --> 00:17:51.560 to their houses and their crops and they burn in the whole thing and leave a scorched earth 137 00:17:51.560 --> 00:17:58.100 behind them and move on. I think one time they inadvertently burned some property not 138 00:17:58.100 --> 00:18:04.080 not their own, and they were very happy to make recompense there, I understand. 139 00:18:04.080 --> 00:18:09.660 Their intent is not to harm anyone, but simply to show their disdain and their disapproval 140 00:18:09.660 --> 00:18:12.680 when anybody passes laws against them. 141 00:18:12.680 --> 00:18:16.000 And they've operated this way for a very long time. 142 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:21.400 They're very devout people, and they don't cause any problems to others except in this 143 00:18:21.400 --> 00:18:24.500 economic pinch that they seem to institute. 144 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:30.940 We don't find criminals coming from their group, but this is their general nature. 145 00:18:30.940 --> 00:18:36.980 Now we've had a number of other types of organizations. 146 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:42.840 We don't hear very much of this anymore, but in the 19th century we had a good number 147 00:18:42.840 --> 00:18:47.980 of colonies started in this country by the Four Year Society of France. 148 00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:54.780 The Greely Colorado was just such a commune established by the Four Year Society. 149 00:18:54.780 --> 00:19:00.540 One of the characteristics of the Four Years is that they believe in free love and also 150 00:19:00.540 --> 00:19:03.320 are quite happy to practice nudity. 151 00:19:03.320 --> 00:19:09.140 There seems to be sort of an affiliation for free love and nudity coming from both the 152 00:19:09.140 --> 00:19:14.920 communal socialist groups in some cases and from anarchist groups in some cases. 153 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:17.680 This is where we get some of that. 154 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:24.920 The Four-Year Society took the name Greeley Colorado in honor of Horace Greeley, who was 155 00:19:24.920 --> 00:19:31.260 the publisher of the New York Tribune, which was the paper that you may recall was carrying 156 00:19:31.260 --> 00:19:38.080 Karl Marx as a columnist for a couple of years. I think about the only steady employment that 157 00:19:38.080 --> 00:19:44.080 Marx ever had as a columnist. There are other groups, too, that are worthy 158 00:19:44.080 --> 00:20:08.800 The House of David, a very prominent commune. 159 00:20:08.800 --> 00:20:14.960 The members of it were males, and they were famous for their beards and their basketball 160 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:22.760 or baseball, and apparently very fine people, religiously oriented. Another group that is 161 00:20:22.760 --> 00:20:28.560 religiously oriented would be the Shakers, which was an outcropping of the Quakers. In 162 00:20:28.560 --> 00:20:35.040 this case, the Shakers took the position that absolute purity must accompany all their members. 163 00:20:35.040 --> 00:20:40.480 There was to be no relationship between the sexes, and the result is, of course, and these 164 00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:46.300 people were quite sincere and devout, their colony has tended to die out. 165 00:20:46.300 --> 00:20:51.840 The last I heard, there were two or three very, very old ladies, the last remnants of 166 00:20:51.840 --> 00:20:56.460 the colony, and no one else is around, and apparently they were not able to attract very 167 00:20:56.460 --> 00:21:01.760 many young people into their movement. 168 00:21:01.760 --> 00:21:10.040 There is of course the tendency that many people have of listing the Mormons and the Amish 169 00:21:10.040 --> 00:21:17.920 or the Mennonites as communal socialists and in a sense, but only in a sense, is that true. 170 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:24.020 These people believed in a kind of communal living and a kind of communal responsibility, 171 00:21:24.020 --> 00:21:29.500 that is a sharing among themselves of community interests, but they also at the same time 172 00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:33.100 I'm believed very strongly in private ownership of property. 173 00:21:33.100 --> 00:21:39.980 And so they would not fall specifically into the socialist category, which invariably takes 174 00:21:39.980 --> 00:21:45.620 this old idea that what should be done is the abolition of private ownership of property. 175 00:21:45.620 --> 00:21:54.140 So only in a sense could you find those people to be communists or socialists. 176 00:21:54.140 --> 00:21:55.580 They really aren't. 177 00:21:55.580 --> 00:22:01.820 They simply believe in a very strong emphasis by individuals, and mostly on a voluntary 178 00:22:01.820 --> 00:22:08.100 basis, to take the responsibility for the community at large without having the government 179 00:22:08.100 --> 00:22:14.340 do it, but doing it themselves, but on a voluntary basis, and meanwhile they own property privately. 180 00:22:14.340 --> 00:22:21.500 Currently, of course, we have quite a number of neo-communes springing up all over the 181 00:22:21.500 --> 00:22:23.060 country. 182 00:22:23.060 --> 00:22:29.260 happens all the time, but right now we're having a plethora of it on various campuses. 183 00:22:29.260 --> 00:22:36.420 There are really two types of communes that now are cropping up on various campuses, and 184 00:22:36.420 --> 00:22:42.360 one of them is kind of a free enterprise commune, and the other is definitely communistically 185 00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:43.760 a commune. 186 00:22:43.760 --> 00:22:51.580 In the former, what happens is a group of students will possibly take a lease on a large 187 00:23:21.580 --> 00:23:25.220 are private enterprise operations. 188 00:23:25.220 --> 00:23:30.860 And then, of course, there are the other type, the communistic communes that are set up, 189 00:23:30.860 --> 00:23:38.960 where somebody often will make a gift of a lease or a piece of land or a building, often 190 00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:44.020 a run-down building, to these people where they won't even have to pay any rent. 191 00:23:44.020 --> 00:23:49.660 And then the people who go in there simply share and share like whatever it is they have. 192 00:23:49.660 --> 00:23:54.300 One has a crack at, and they operate that way. 193 00:23:54.300 --> 00:23:59.940 In addition to this, of course, we have various communes being organized off-campus. 194 00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:03.400 We usually think of them as hippie communes. 195 00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:09.980 Those are the successor to the old hobo jungles that used to be around in this country in 196 00:24:09.980 --> 00:24:12.220 the 20s and 30s. 197 00:24:12.220 --> 00:24:18.940 We now have hippie communes, the one characteristic primarily differentiating the hobo jungle 198 00:24:18.940 --> 00:24:25.540 from the hippie commune would be the advent of the ladies. Very, very few hobo jungles 199 00:24:25.540 --> 00:24:32.980 had any of the fair sex present, and the hippie communes are notable for having men and women 200 00:24:32.980 --> 00:24:41.500 both in profusion as well as children. So you have those hippie communes and the campus 201 00:24:41.500 --> 00:24:57.100 The students seem to run through a kind of phase here. 202 00:24:57.100 --> 00:25:03.620 They become very enthusiastic for communal-type living, and they live this way for a while, 203 00:25:03.620 --> 00:25:08.700 but most of them seem to go through this as a period, and then it phases out and they 204 00:25:08.700 --> 00:25:09.700 leave. 205 00:25:09.700 --> 00:25:10.700 But others come in. 206 00:25:10.700 --> 00:25:25.340 In general, as we consider all of these experiments, there have been over a hundred different kinds 207 00:25:25.340 --> 00:25:32.980 of socialist communes or communistic socialists organized in this country, right from the 208 00:25:32.980 --> 00:25:39.500 beginning of Jamestown on to the present time. The general characteristic has been this. 209 00:25:39.500 --> 00:25:47.120 There are three outcomes, one or another of these three results, ultimately overtake these 210 00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:54.640 communes. First, they fail. Now, there has been a large incidence of failure among these 211 00:25:54.640 --> 00:26:02.600 particular type of activities. Or, if they don't fail, a great many of them convert to 212 00:26:02.600 --> 00:26:08.200 private ownership of property, like the Amanas, for instance, who found that the colony was 213 00:26:08.200 --> 00:26:13.040 is very, very wealthy, and yet the members of the colony were living in abject poverty, 214 00:26:13.040 --> 00:26:17.640 and ultimately they became tired of that kind of an arrangement because these people worked 215 00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:23.440 very, very hard and they were getting no reward for it except the intangible reward of feeling 216 00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:29.340 a kind of satisfaction that they were so engaged, and they ultimately converted to private property 217 00:26:29.340 --> 00:26:31.800 and to private capitalism. 218 00:26:31.800 --> 00:26:34.400 Or there is a third outcome. 219 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:40.160 In those instances where there has been a very profound religious influence, it is apparently 220 00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:46.020 possible for a commune to be established and to continue almost indefinitely. Certainly 221 00:26:46.020 --> 00:26:55.020 those that are the longest-lived are those that have a religious core around which the 222 00:26:55.020 --> 00:27:01.280 mentalities of the members go into orbit. And that seems to be the general characteristic 223 00:27:01.280 --> 00:27:08.820 of the American Communal Socialists. Don't think for a minute that these ideas were started 224 00:27:08.820 --> 00:27:14.400 by Marx or have been imported from other countries. We have done a great deal of experimentation 225 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:19.760 here and have actually exported many of these ideas abroad. Thank you.