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Title: Understanding Utopia
Author: Wortley Clutterbuck
Date: 2019-2020
Language: en
Topics: Communal living, commune, intentional communities, hierarchy, monarchy, peasants, utopian
Source: Retrieved on Aug 31 2019 and updated on June 22 2020 from http://wortleyclutterbuck.blogspot.com/

Wortley Clutterbuck

Understanding Utopia

[]

I. INTRODUCTION.

The first thing to understand about Utopia, or shall we specify Twin

Oaks Intentional Community, is who is explaining it to you, and why.

Most likely, you’ve heard about Twin Oaks through a passing mention in a

college course or an article in the mainstream media, then, interested,

proceeded to a web search yielding up the direct page, the Wikipedia

page (with all external links controlled by Twin Oaks) and any of the

innumerable in-house YouTube presentations — plus the latest sales

pitch, cold calls on Reddit. These narratives originate from a

centralized location — the ‘recruiting’ office. Almost all information

about Twin Oaks is controlled and conveyed by a select core of

representatives; even when the mainstream media is the final auditor of

the presentation, their journalist’s access to Twin Oaks is short,

selective and supervised. This explains the unfailing regularity of the

same talking heads delivering the same talking points, interspersed with

the token new member exhorting the established line. The primary talking

heads are not only the same people — these select speakers are the most

privileged members of the aristocracy; additionally, the exhorting new

members, the guileless peasantry, are ever-transient faces, usually

people who leave Twin Oaks within twenty-four months of their

membership. (More on that latter point to come.) This is to be expected:

organizations, whether Google, North Korea or Utopia, limit and burnish

their image carefully to appear in the most positive light. Like

prospective members processed through the three-week visitor program,

media delegates receive ‘orientation’ meetings by high-ranking members

of the aristocracy, ostensibly conveying general information about Twin

Oaks; in so doing, the Twin Oaks’ nobility verbally project an aura of

authority, thus establishing and protecting their privileged positions.

This particular report originates from an unauthorized source. The

author is Wortley Clutterbuck, a 60-year old man who lived at Twin Oaks

for thirteen years. He was, by pension, a member of the bourgeoisie

enjoying work stability and a self-determined schedule, possessing a few

minor privileges, such as exemption from K (weekly kitchen-cleaning)

shifts. He never participated in Twin Oaks’ politics, and never managed

a work area; it is doubtful the aristocracy would have permit him.

Although he enjoyed living at Twin Oaks, he has ideological points to

critically analyze, and communicate; although he approves of the

constitutionality (general values) of Twin Oaks, there are aspects of

the monarchy (the government) he impugns. (To those who might inquire,

‘If you don’t like it there, why stay?’ he responds: ‘If you don’t like

Trump, the Supreme Court, racist police, etc., why don’t you go to

Canada?’) This dissertation is his alternative perspective — and he

offers it because debunking poppycock and satirizing authority is his

métier. As Charles Fourier phrased it, ‘The method of doubt must be

applied to civilization; we must doubt its necessity, its excellence,

and its permanence.’

Alas, power tends to protect its prerogatives. Ironically, the mandate

imposing ‘nonviolent language’ becomes a tool to quash criticism of the

establishment. One of the most infallible methods of determining who is

an aristocrat at Twin Oaks is to publicly criticize Twin Oaks, then wait

for the first round of qualifying retorts. Incredibly but almost

invariably, Social Justice Warriors come to Twin Oaks eager either to

submit to its rules and regulations or to apprentice for the job of law

enforcement; they certainly haven’t considered it problematic that the

entire aristocracy is white. As I discovered, too much questioning

authority at Twin Oaks is efficaciously dissuaded, resulting in a

‘community feedback,’ a verbal mob-rule pillorying of the isolated

offender (a punitive measure almost never mentioned in commune

literature), or outright expulsion, either through constitutional

‘process’ or the informal hate parade of herd ostracization, screwed to

perfection with contemporaneous Cancel Culture. As founder Kat Kinkade

phrased it, in her memoir Is It Utopia Yet? [p. 195], “We expect people

to conform.”

II. THE ARISTOCRACY.

Throughout history, one of the most characteristic utopian yearnings has

been the proposition that all work is equal. A staple of 19th century

utopianisms, e.g. Brook Farm, it gained considerable revival with a 20th

century feminist reading. In a society where everyone receives the same

compensation (access to shelter, food, medical coverage, clothes and

discretionary spending), the premise that all work is equal provides the

basis for a claim of egalitarianism and classlessness. In actuality,

whether Robert Owen’s Harmony or Bolshevik Russia, the person making

such a claim is almost invariably sitting comfortably in a chair while

those who attend the lofty message are expected to perform physical

labor. As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, somewhat cynically, at Brook

Farm, some members ‘look out a window all day while others plough the

garden’; here at Twin Oaks some members stare at Facebook all day while

others … plough the garden. A bit of implication is placed on the

premise that, at least within a reasonable time, all new members will

have equal access to the job infrastructure, thereby the high-status

positions, labor autonomy or decision-making roles at Twin Oaks; this is

only at best conditionally true, and at times patently untrue. The Royal

Court will decide your future and dispense your fate.

[]

The highest stratum of Twin Oaks’ aristocracy is characterized by its

monopolization of high-status positions, especially in those of

management and governance. The firmest base of power resides in

managerships, which have no set expiration and, although (per bylaws)

technically subject to community oversight (managerial review), receive

little public accountability in practice. For example, one particular

garden manager presided from the Clinton administration throughout the

Obama administration before deciding to retire. This is a position

granting a single individual control over a huge labor force and budget,

not to mention a considerable influence upon the entire community’s

diet. The Visitor Program gatekeeper has held her office over two

decades. And so on. As propagandist-in-chief Kat Kinkade frequently

explained, deflecting intimations of power-holding, managers are ‘more

exploited than workers’ because whenever something goes wrong in their

area, they are held responsible; besides, they can be ‘recalled’ by

community sentiment. In the first instance, although managers may

certainly hear complaints, they are not obligated to heed them — chiefly

because, in the second instance, they are not subject to recall by

community sentiment. ‘Automatic’ managerial reviews, scheduled every

five years, have not occurred in the thirteen years I lived there

despite several attempted challenges to particular managerial

competencies. Managerships are, for all practical purposes, private

property.

This is not to suggest that managers do not necessarily work hard, long

hours or conduct arduous tasks; this conception of an aristocracy at

Twin Oaks eschews the trope of a leisure class wearing pearls and dining

on oysters (however much recruitment travel and Facebook time may come

close; and there often is a correlation between aristocrats and members

with the highest VE and gift [outside income] accounts — which suggests

economic determinations are made by those the least directly affected by

those outcomes). The Emperor Napoleon subjected himself to more

assiduous rigors than experienced by the average peasant. Nevertheless,

even though a manager in charge of, say, the septic system is in charge

of sewage, their aristocratic distinction lies in the being ‘in charge

of,’ not the sewage. Managers often take on responsibilities many

communards would eschew — repairing motors, chopping down trees, herding

cattle, etc. — but, in a society where all members must perform a

certain assigned amount of hours per week to maintain their membership

(an average of 42), it almost invariably follows that a manager performs

the work she or he desires to do; if not, these posts, which ‘pay’ no

more than any other work available, are easily quit. Thus, desirability

of labor, job compatibility, is a characteristic of the aristocracy, to

which we add the essential quality of ‘being in charge of.’

Similarly, this is not to infer that all managerships possess equal

community status or resources. Some managerships are tiny, employing a

single individual and run on a small budget, such as the herb garden;

some managerships, such as the hammock business, are large, employing a

substantial workforce with a huge operating budget and are run by a team

of aristocrats (engaging a steward for subaltern tasks). Some

managerships are domestic, such as dairy, which produces only for

community consumption; others are vital to the economy of Twin Oaks,

such as tofu, which produces income to support all the community’s

activities. Despite these significant qualitative and quantitative

differences, the analogy of aristocracy applies, just as anyone familiar

with the social histories of Honoré de Balzac will acknowledge that some

of the titled nobility may no longer possess large estates or command

great wealth or cachet at court, while others do — yet all of these

nobles remain titled, above the hoi polloi. (To further deepen the

analogy, this document’s use of the term monarchy denominates not a

single autocrat but rather a court of cumulative powers and interests,

often contradictory and shifting in import; consider the political

influence of the Marquis de Lafayette or the First Duke of Talleyrand

vis-à-vis Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.) Though occasionally Twin

Oaks’s monarchy experiences perceptible political dissent within its

ranks (sometimes leading to cloak & dagger chicaneries), the upper

echelons, whatever their differences, are always united in its need to

keep the bourgeoisie sated with minor privileges and the peasantry from

obtaining power.

Although managers, circumscribed by no term limits and accountable to no

one but themselves, are the landed gentry of Twin Oaks, the most

conspicuous members of the aristocracy are to be found in governance —

the Planners, the Process Team, the Econ(omic) team, the Recruitment &

Outreach office and the CMT (community membership team) in particular.

Put simply, managers have power over a members’ access to labor, thereby

the quota essential to membership, whereas government functionaries have

power over the standard of living at any given time and the legal terms

of membership itself. They interpret and enact the law (bylaws) thus —

following the rudimentary blueprint of B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two, where

the conception of the Planner-Manager was introduced — this elite group

prevents a ‘despotism of democracy.’ An example of this principle in

practice is aptly exemplified by the process in which (18-month term)

Planners (the final point of Twin Oaks’ decision-making) are selected:

although in very rare instances in which there are no sitting Planners,

community-wide elections are conducted to fill these posts, the most

frequent convention is that Planners choose other Planners, thus

ensuring an ideological continuity, if not uniformity, of

decision-making. This particular practice, redolent of court cronyism,

greatly attenuates the idea that an 18-month term limit is much of a

term limit at all. On a Republican note, this permits courtiers (and the

occasional courtesan) an opportunity for advancement into the ranks of

the aristocracy. To keep these flunkies on a short ideological lease,

Twin Oaks traditionally applies the numerical principle of the

Estates-General, which almost unfailingly insures that the incoming

representative is ‘outvoted’ by the other two (senior) members. Although

it is not mandatory to agree with the aristocracy on every last issue to

join the aristocracy, agreeing that there should be an aristocracy is

mandatory. The tactical patronage of an extensive infrastructure of

courtiers and courtesans, forming a petty aristocracy, doesn’t ‘prove

democracy,’ as patriots unfailingly insist — in lamentable practice, it

demonstrates that peasants have a lot of buttocks expecting to be

kissed.

Although all monarchical courts possess internal dissensions and

intrigues (including the coup that neutralized the prestige of Kat

Kinkade, the original Sovereign ), it must be acknowledged the

governance at Twin Oaks enjoys considerable homogeneity due to its

deplorable tradition of bundled offices among office-holders. To

illustrate, it has been common (in the thirteen years I lived there),

for an income-area manager to sit on the Process (legislation

interpretation) Team as well as the CMT (law enforcement). Consequently,

if a peasant working under a managerial purview wishes to air a

grievance against that particular aristocrat, they will be forwarded to

either or both the Process Team and/or the CMT, where their ‘case’ will

be arbitrated by a team which includes the same person they wish to

complain about; the particular aristocrat I mention is now a Planner —

indeed, the central Sovereign of Twin Oaks. This example brings

attention to the consuetude of a rotating, but numerically constant,

elite monopolizing all the branches of government. Considering the

practice of government officials often ‘electing’ each other, this

bundling and rotating of offices effectively centralizes 30 legislative

functions into 10. Such is the problem of aristocratic inbreeding. This

freedom from the caprices of direct democracy (i.e. commoners) —where ‘a

vacancy on the Board of Planners is filled by the Board from a pair of

names supplied by the Managers’ — stems from Skinner’s technocratic

updating of Utopia where society is bifurcated into two demographics:

those with tenured degrees and those wishing to pass the exam. As it

functions at Twin Oaks, community decisions are made by select elites,

either in closed meetings or manipulated through an apparatus of

‘community input’ predetermined by jerrymandered algorithms — i.e.

election games .

[]

Perversely enough, none of this government high-handedness is concealed;

it is simply, and naively, ignored. As the official Twin Oaks website

states: “[W]e govern ourselves by a form of democracy with

responsibility shared among various managers, planners, and committees”

(italics added) — in other words, ‘centralized democracy’ among an upper

crust. Income-sharing is not necessarily decision-sharing. What is

amazing is how few prospective members ever inquire about, or challenge,

the implications of living under a ‘form of’ democracy ‘shared among,’

not the entire population, but by a bureaucratic caste. So much for

Social Justice. To the point of comedy, visitors frequently refuse to

believe that Twin Oaks could possibly be anything but their ideological

yearnings come true. But, as Ingrid Komar deduced as early as 1983’s

Living the Dream [p. 104], “The simple reality is that, within the

context of its many achievements, Twin Oaks is stuck in the status quo

of centralized government and not ready to make the paradigm shift to

decentralization” (italics added). Egalitarianism almost invariably

distributes evenly somebody else’s values.

Fortunately for the sake of ‘diversity,’ Twin Oaks adds another estate

to the social hierarchy: the bourgeoisie.

III. THE BOURGEOISIE.

[]

The primary defining characteristic of this group is seniority. Although

propaganda outreach emphasizes income-sharing and the ostensible absence

of honorific titles, most membership seniority is a reliable indicator

of social hierarchy. Not all living quarters are created equal, nor all

work spaces; indeed, a resolute exemplar of seniority is the possession

of physical territory such as ‘public computers’ reserved for an

individual’s work duties, control of offices or workshops, as well as

the better real estate among dormitory living. The exercise of seniority

is also expressed as a currency of experience — and many a supercilious

peasant has been silenced with the prototypical paragraph-starter, ‘In

the 20 years I’ve lived here…’ Also popular is the axiom, ‘We tried that

back when, but…’ Indeed, the very command of the plural-inferring ‘we’

draws attention to an established order and its immature inverse.

(Successful deployment of authority, such as seniority, benefits from

the acceptance of those it is projected upon; any constant reliance upon

the exercise of power demonstrates the pusillanimity of that power.)

The bourgeoisie is divided into two clearly identifiable categories, the

petite and the haute.

The petite bourgeoisie are all members over the age of 50, receiving

pension hours (one for every year of age 50 and above), reducing their

labor quota incrementally. In this example, it is evident that, for the

petite bourgeoisie, manumission from the peasantry occurs, not

wholesale, but on the installment plan. (Therefore, one may consider

themselves both a member of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry.)

Nevertheless, pensioners are capable of augmenting this status gained

from seniority by applying for various physical exemptions from onerous

duties (such as tofu production which, at present, is ostensibly

mandated for all community members, or all three estates), giving them a

minor faux-aristocratic frisson. Pensioners are far from lottery-winners

in that, theoretically, they are only free and clear of all labor quota

upon turning 90 years old. Keep in mind, these people have been

constitutionally compelled to surrender their Social Security checks to

the common, a questionably ‘egalitarian’ sacrifice considering the Gift

Policy that permits (only) fortunate individuals (most of them

aristocrats) to receive surplus goodies above and beyond the common

allowance.

Characterized by receiving permission to start a family, the criteria

for membership in the haute bourgeoisie is considerably more selective.

Upon acceptance of a pregnancy application (and unplanned pregnancies

are unlawful), a couple receives, initially, maternity hours and, more

significantly, childcare hours (which is nearly 20 a week per parent);

this entitlement almost cuts an individual’s labor quota by half — and,

incidentally, doubles their living quarters. (A pensioner has to wait 20

years to halve their respective labor quota.) Unlike pension hours, this

allocation is not guaranteed, nor automatic. In order to be considered

for pregnancy approval, a member (passing a mandatory two-year mark)

must first undergo a parenting apprenticeship of sorts in the form of

providing childcare, or nanny services, to the extant families. In this

practice, the customs of aristocracy can be detected; the Child Board,

who apportions or denies approval, is consistently filled with extant

parents, i.e. the recipients, or customers, of nanny services. To

emphasize: pregnancies and families are approved or denied by

high-ranking members of the aristocracy, which requires mollifying of,

identification with and acquiescence to that strata. Interestingly,

childcare provides the sole instance in which the all work is equal

principle is adjusted; a ‘primary’ (the supervision of one child)

receives only ‘half pay’ (half labor credit). Yet the entitlement, when

received, can be very satisfying for those wishing to have children;

several couples at Twin Oaks presently care for two children, thus

eradicating considerable labor quota — or phrased another way, they get

‘paid’ by the rest of society to raise their offspring. In addition,

these particular families have pension to look forward to after their

children are grown.

Relieved considerably from the constraints of labor quota, ancient

pensioners and multiple-children families, the solid bourgeoisie, are

relatively free from the exigencies and vagaries of labor managers, i.e.

employers, thus attenuating their dependence upon the aristocracy. The

history of families ‘Living the Dream’ together in community, however,

has been one of internecine rivalries and conflicts worthy of

Shakespeare, however passive-aggressive; only the toughest and most

devious stick it out.

That said, life is even more stressful and less rewarding for the

peasantry, living by the sweat of their collective brow.

IV. THE PEASANTRY.

[]

Twin Oaks’ newest members have arrived at Utopia after surviving their

evaluations as visitors; a community-wide poll — which is mediated

bureaucratically by the CMT — decides if they are accepted as

provisional members (a six-month stint). Thus begins public life for the

peasantry — examined, appraised, scheduled and superintended. Everyone

at Twin Oaks seemingly knows who they are, where they are and what they

are supposed to be doing, while they know at most the aristocrats

directly administering and scrutinizing them — thereby creating a

psychological medium of dependence upon and deference to a judgmental

hierarchy, an implication of conditional patronage. Because full

membership is not assured until the provisional member passes their

six-month input poll, a vote on one’s citizenship, the new arrival,

predictably enough, is encouraged to adopt an ingratiatingly tractable

demeanor, the perspective that will be subtly fostered as long as

possible. The friendliest faces encountered are usually the most

duplicitous, and hostile, or sexual / psychological predators. Beware

the clipboard, the Req[uisition] and the hammock lesson.

Shortly after being deposited in one of the least desirable rooms at

Twin Oaks, the new member is handed a labor sheet, a weekly schedule

filled up with various tasks expected of them, and so begins the quest

to ‘make quota’ (traditionally 42 labor hours a week) least they ‘fall

into the labor hole’ (which imperils their membership). This dynamic

presents the (aristocratic) area manager as employer and job coach and,

soon enough, the new member finds themselves being offered a panoply of

opportunities, most of which are repetitive, drudging, dirty tasks. A

peasant may refuse any number of them, the peasant is informed benignly

(as all expressions of authority are benignly presented at Twin Oaks),

but the exigency to ‘make quota’ and the tactical advantage of pleasing

superiors prompts obeisance. Certain fields are categorically

unobtainable, such as indexing; some are conditional upon training

(patronage), such as chair-making; while tasks such as tofu production

are seemingly mandatory, if not inexorable. Week after week, the peasant

receives a new labor sheet, filled out for them by some unseen

bureaucratic hand, and week upon week, the peasant tallies their hours

in the attempt to write the number 42 at the end of it.

The division of labor, requiring a reliable, uniform amount of unskilled

jobs to a tiny fraction of skilled and status positions, is largely

successful because so many new members ‘turn over.’ A kind of surplus

labor army. Frequently a peasant’s voluntary indenturement amounts to

twenty-four months, and then they depart, soon replaced by fresh

recruits. Kat Kinkade explained the phenomena succinctly (without

realizing or revealing its strategic demographic efficacy):

“[A]bout a quarter of our population leaves every year […] New people

come to the Community, full of their own enlightenment, ambitious to see

Twin Oaks reflect their ideals, and ready to commit their energies to

this end. They try to make changes, and they meet resistance. Old

members object to their presumption, maybe, or are simply not impressed

and keep on doing things in the old ways. Some newcomers become quickly

discouraged and move on to plant their vigorous enthusiasms in less

stony soil.” — Kat Kinkade, Is It Utopia Yet?, 1994, pp. 166 & 170-71.

A mere four years later, Kinkade disavowed Twin Oaks entirely, telling

the Washington Post [“The Other American Dream,” Nov. 15, 1998, p. W12],

“I don’t think egalitarian communities are a good idea, and this one is

too close to suit me. There are people here for life who mean it. I’m

trapped. It’s this disappointment of, ‘Oh, life isn’t what I thought it

would be’.”

The attrition rate, a defining characteristic since Day One, is

significant — no less an august critic of collectivism than Ayn Rand

herself cited Twin Oaks’ turnover as evidence that communitarianism

proves unsuccessful — but it is singularly salient that almost all the

departures occur among the peasantry. Although the current Wikipedia

entry cites Twin Oaks’ turnover at 20%, within the echelons of the

aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, the turnover is unvarying in the single

digits ; the moribundity average of the peasantry (accounting for

approximately one-third of Twin Oaks) as an estate stands around 50%,

which is akin to times of war, famine or plague. Although a fifth of

Twin Oaks bails annually, almost all of them peasants, their work does

not — it remains objectified labor in the kitchen freezer, in the tofu

plant and in the hammock warehouse for the next year’s income; thus 20%

of Twin Oaks’ peasantry is silent and unseen, utterly passive. One of

the classic statements made by the aristocracy to minimize the peasantry

is the question, ‘Why should I listen to the opinions of someone who’s

going to leave in a year or two?’; of course, this dismissive stance of

superiority encourages people to leave within a year or two, thus

legitimizing itself strategically. Shopping for people, then throwing

them away: predictably enough, such transient culture dehumanizes civic

cohesiveness.

Gerri, a long-term member with ‘no intention of leaving’ attempted to

shame defectors when quoted by the Arab News (“Life in Hippie Estate

Goes at a Slow Pace,” Sept. 15, 1985, p. 14): “Dreamers drift into this

place and out again when they find their dreams unfulfilled. Those who

wish to escape the realities of life are the ones unable to cope here

because we too are realistic.” Soon after saying as much, Gerri was

gone. And dozens of other righteous hard-liners before her. Although the

vast majority refuse to concede as much, the reason for quitting Utopia

is cogent, and simple: Socialism sucks, and perhaps that is because the

high ideals of socialism almost always degenerates into the crass

practices of monarchy. The more rules required, the less correct the

premise. Minimal attendance for the initially ballyhooed 50th

Anniversary suggests ex-members might recall their experience at Twin

Oaks with attenuated enthusiasm. Patriotic platitudes about the virtuous

felicities of poverty can only deny that disenchanting reality for so

long — approximately, an average of twenty-four months.

[]

Advantageously, the monthly visitor program brings another round of

eager applicants from which to draw a renewed peasantry. (Ironically

enough, these incoming, virginal arrivals often provide recruiting

management fresh fodder for propaganda [see photo above]; the most

enthusiastic votaries of Utopia are those who haven’t experienced it

yet.) Almost never will a prospective member inquire why there are

always vacancies open in Utopia. Few ever ask, where did all those

smiling faces on the recruitment media go, and why? Communitarianism may

be unsuccessful, in that peasants find the daily grind in the Tofu Hut

ultimately too lacking in incentives to continue doing so, but monarchy

proves quite a success, in that Twin Oaks has continued, solvent and

stable, for over half a century, providing its upper crust a dependable

livelihood predicated upon and supported by a continual influx of

idealistic neophytes willing to subjugate themselves to what they

believe, albeit temporarily, is a utopian-egalitarian program.

It is entirely probable peasant turnover will accelerate in the coming

years, as the economic decisions and priorities of the current regime —

for example, over-extending the capital-rapacious tofu business while

tolerating the languishing hammock management — bring Twin Oaks closer

to bankruptcy. Eliminating the pets budget, a historic first, is only

one small indication of financial decline; divesting the Aging & Fire

Fund to maintain annual solvency is a larger indication. The single

gravest error of the monopolistic monarchy was the tofu expansion, harsh

injurious work (nobody wants to do), necessitating an increased labor

army of young, buff communards, acerbating the generational aristocracy

/ peasant divide. Membership diminishes as the work quota goes up and

domestic budgets get cut. Twin Oaks will probably be insolvent by its

60th anniversary, in 2027, leading to terminal erosion. Best of luck,

pensioners.

V. CONCLUSION.

As history demonstrates, all egalitarian societies have been bedeviled

by the lack of incentive. The flagships Brook Farm and New Harmony

crumbled in less than five years; Walden Two never existed; and

countless 1960s communes collapsed as the ‘Me Decade’ began. Scarcity of

resources — discretionary money, standard of living, personal liberties,

privacy — is frequently cited as the reason, but that is better

understood as scarcity of individual incentives. Twin Oaks has survived

over 50 years due to a serendipity of factors and I believe, within the

circumscriptions of income-sharing and its patriotic collectivist

ideology, the retention of status, in the form of a hierarchy of

entitlements and exercise of political power, have contributed

expressly. It is entirely likely that Twin Oaks owes much of its success

to adopting, within the confines of an egalitarian regime, a model of

constitutional monarchy which rewards socially-savvy senior members with

‘emoluments’ of qualitatively modest, but discernible, prestige-based

class differentiation. Alas, egalitarianism, socialism,

whatever-you-call-it-ism, only proves sustainable when sweetened by

ostensible status.

If, in the pursuit of ideological purity, Twin Oaks adopted strict

Jacobian principles, abolished its two upper estates, ‘reduced’ all

inhabitants to the level of peasantry, leveled all income (that is,

abolished VE and Gift accounts), and established direct democracy,

managerial term limits and a rotating parliament for all official

functions, I believe the abandonment rate for the entire membership

would skyrocket, matching or surpassing that of the present rate for the

peasantry, thus leading to the institution’s instantaneous collapse.

That is what happened to the Oneida Community once its hierarchy

mechanism (‘complex marriage,’ or the practice of concubinism) was

removed. The principled purity of voluntarily sharing material scarcity

proves difficult when practiced with strangers instead of family and

loved ones; intimacy, even good will, cannot be legislated. Case in

point: the several people I’ve known at Twin Oaks who inherited money

immediately split (myself included).

Society, even in its most basic assemblage, engenders a will to social

distinction and personal advantage; if its utopian claims of

egalitarianism were as compelling as the propaganda intimates, then

rarely would any of the many hundreds who lived at Twin Oaks leave Twin

Oaks for the very ‘mainstream’ these many hundreds of members rejected

on the way in. Do the math: If life at Twin Oaks was desirable, then its

population would approach a thousand members, since at least a thousand

have lived here (before voting with their feet); instead, population

never exceeded a hundred at any one time, a fraction of its net

residents. Like all things socialism, explaining Utopia is preferable to

experiencing it; the inculcation of the explanation serves also to

update indoctrination of the small core of patriots. It is not

unreasonable to estimate that, of all of Twin Oaks’ members who have

lived here since 1967, nine-tenths of this population subsequently

departed; all the better for the one-tenth elite that remains. These are

the real Twin Oakers; everyone else is migrant labor. There are more

Scientologists in America than communards, so something went wrong.

Initially, ‘escaping capitalism’ provides euphoria (itself suspending

initial critical evaluation of the Twin Oaks experience) until it

becomes evident that one has ‘escaped’ democracy, too; Twin Oaks

operates on a more primitive, more coercive form of government than

democracy — constitutional monarchy. (If monarchy is constitutional,

it’s an intentional community; if it’s an absolute monarchy, then it’s a

cult.)

While Marx posited material abundance as the prerequiste for socialism,

the 20th century has suggested that abundance, being relative, is an

opinion, whereas scarcity is usually perceived as a fact. The more

abundance, the more democracy; who knows how much abundance leads to

egalitarianism? What seems obvious, however, is that scarcity, requiring

an allocation of resources, leads to hierarchy, and authority, therefore

law enforcement, in philosophical contradistinction to egality.

Socialism, the result of scarcity, always falls short of democracy, and

certainly Utopia does as well — not ideologically, but technologically.

Economic planning requires planning people, which is the opposite of

freedom. Equality and inequality come from the same place — by taking

something away from someone else. Denying hierarchy while depending upon

it, socialism is simply monarchy with better PR. The story isn’t why

people come to Utopia, but why they leave it.

Utopia, love it or leave it — what an ingenious system; peasant

dissatisfaction leads not to revolution, but to demoralized evacuation,

thus turning the bottom membership over to another generation of deluded

rubes eager to obey and support the inexorable and interminable

aristocracy and their lackeys, the bourgeoisie. It’s not a bug, it’s a

feature: only when idealists get disgusted enough to depart, instead of

overthrowing the Ancien Régime, does the process protect itself.

All aboard, recruits: the Tofu Hut awaits you!

[]