Hey, I dont usually post here but I wanted to see what you might say about this

Lifestylism is, essentially, a slangword for 'things that you can do which make you feel like a good little leftist don't actually change anything'

Sure, but it's a way to prove that it's viable, at least on a small scale.

good to know you guys (at least the ones replying) have reasonable expectations

but you and your fellows would own your labor and achieve communism, and assuming communism is as great as you think it is wouldnt it go really well and make communism look like a nice alternative to the people living under capitalism? then they might make their own or join one and communism can compete against capitalism in a sort of nonviolent revolution
like agorism but for commies instead of ancaps

I think communes are a bit different. In my experience people live in them because that's the life they want to live, not because they think it will bring down capitalism. In the town I live in there's an anarchist commune and they try to provide space for activist stuff but that's secondary. Primarily it's just a bunch of left wing people living with other left wing people in a house organized around what they all agree are "communal" principles. If someone doesn't have any pretenses about what they're doing, why should lifestylism bother us?

maybe there is something fundamental I dont understand about communism… lets put it this way.
a fascist wants to live under facism, usually his favorite version where things ho dosnt like are killed or exiled
a libertarian wants to live in as much liberty as possible
a minarchist wants to live in a minarchy
a communist, I would assume, wants to live under communism but you guys are making me second guess that part.l what DO you want if not that?

Spare me the utopian bullshit. Is my one tiny commune going to stop imperialism and economic crisis which is caused by capitalism on a global scale?
No.
Is my tiny commune going to prevent the countless injustices committed against the third world as they're forced to work for shit wages and be kept in debt to first world countries, thus preventing them from developing as a nation?
No.
Is my tiny commune going to be able to shatter the spectacle of capitalism that keeps wage slavery for other workers compliant and numb?
No.
Is my tiny commune going to be able to stop the market being filled with useless shit that no one asked for?
No.

If you're honestly expecting us to become lifestylists and be complacent as the world outside our "hypothetical commune" suffers, you're fucking delusional.

I mean, I just think it can serve two purposes: one for you and one for leftists outside the commune.
For you: improve your personal quality of life along with others in the commune.
For leftists outside the commune: give them an example they can point to when people ask where socialism has ever worked. You can then reply, "Hey, look at these communes that exist in America, right now! They work."

without going into the details of your post then you may be right that I am delusional, at least about communism, it seems like you have set out a lot of big goals there that you want to accomplish but I dont see what they have to do with how a group of people governs themselves economically
I thought that was the whole point, having your means of production and sharing it with all who would work it for shared benefit, but you are making it sound like it is actually about governing OTHERS instead of yourselves, but that contradicts everything I know about communism, I thought there was supposed to be no imperialism, no bourgy boss

...

I am speaking to you as an outsider but certainly not as a centrist or a utopian, who are your neighbors and why would they stop you?
if your neighbors are willing to use force to stop you from joining into a commune I would certainly agree with the decision to use force to defend it.
I know for example in america it would be very possible to go innawoods without much fuss, even as a group, and do whatever, not to mention you could even stay in the city, although you may have to pay taxes (which I agree is bullshit but as far as practicality goes it might not be a big deal)

And how exactly do I achieve this commune? Do i have to still pay taxes to the territory so that I may use this land. If so, then it's not communism. And I'm not too sure if you've noticed, but America is pretty content on crushing leftist movements. How daft are you?
You know what happens when I don't pay taxes to the state? somebody comes in with force to collect them or I'm given a prison sentence.
I can point to actual PROPER existing socialism, (inb4 leftcoms) such as the Free Territory of the Ukraine (inb4 trotskyists and ☭TANKIE☭s) which was able to establish a PROPER commune? But what happened? Oh that's right, imperialist fascists saw a land that they could no longer plunder for supplies and decided to take it. And this was before a bunch of state capitalists backstabbed them.
Or how about over a dozen US military bases in Syria? Oh wait that's right, they're fighting a war against a bunch of statists who seek to claim their land and rape them of resources.
Spare me the utopianism.

If we are to govern ourselves economically, IN PEACE there can be no capitalists to interfere. They will see us as a financial drain on their part thus utilise force to crush us.
I don't tend to govern others, I'm an anarchist, and I believe that those other people should be able to govern themselves. Much as I hate to sound like trotsky, full communism won't be achieved unless there's a giant international movement.
Hell even on a basic level this is logical. Makhno during the revolution gave weapons to jewish communities who were being attacked in pogroms by the Bolsheviks and White Army.

The fascists and minarchists you just listed are my neighbours. And if not them, then probably the state outside my """Commune""" if i don't pay taxes to it, they would see me moved off the property, by force if need be.

if they are utilizing forceful coercion then it is not a free market I am also an anarchist, but not quite the same as you

I agree that states and taxes in general are bullshit, but I doubt a minarchist would do anything about it even if he had the power, but if you live in an economically unfree state that taxes you that is very unfortunate.

I feel like I learned something talking to you guys, I dont know if I learned about communism or just about Holla Forums but it was neat
I will check on it tommorow as well, it is late for me

Because leftism (most kinds I know of including communists, anarchists and socdems) isn't about getting everyone to join some kind of hippie love-fest of peace, love and freedom.
It's all about economics. We want to do away with being exploited by the wages system. If you live in a commune, where do the resources (or money to trade for resources) come from? If the commune is on a small scale, or you don't have a capital stock, then you can't utilize modern methods of production, and your only option is subsistence farming.

Now, in some historical circumstances agricultural communes have been good ideas (see Makhno and the Free Territory), but only because they were made up of peasants. If people used to wage labour want to make a living, they have to exercise their skills in a massively specialized, complex economy.
The only way to go is either a revolution on a large enough scale to control industrial production, or a socdem movement that creates state capitalism and moulds that into socialism. The point isn't to go back to pre capitalist economic conditions, its to move forward to post capitalist economic conditions.

communes are for pathetic losers who can't take care of themselves.

I would totally not join, because I'm not interested in doing agriculture.
My brother is, actually, in one.

The important thing for a commune is: high technology; it must be equipped with the latest tech suitable for it size. Solid core of the founders, with excellent work ethics and experience in agriculture and management, as well as, preferably, some cohesion between each other. Commune must be centralised, so it cannot be sabotaged by a small number of members: slackers will be penalized and sacked, new candidates would have to prove themselves.

An-caps aren't anarchists.

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding what communism is. Communism is, first and foremost, an economic system.

It doesn't matter whether you're living in a commune which acts under "communist" rules, if that commune is located inside of a country which still uses the capitalist economic system.

Commune means several things. A commune is not necessarily a place where people produce their own food. There are also groups that practice what is basically being college roommates on steroids: a group of people who live together in a city and share their income, and have different jobs in the "normal" economy.
I talked with a bunch of people who live in communes. They have a very high number of people with petit-bourg background and students and these have different ways of expressing themselves and a body language that is different from mine, and when you aren't exactly like them, they don't trust you (they all consider themselves very enlightened and open-minded, so it doesn't occur to them that they have this class prejudice). I could ape that style a bit, but I found it a very uncomfortable (and inefficient) way of communicating. There is no point being mad about it, since these groups have to be extremely homogeneous to work because money doesn't grow on trees and because of how much they rely on consensus, and how easily these processes reach deadlock. Getting to know a potential member and deciding about keeping them is a very long-winded process, and people compare that to finding a partner to marry. Many of them are also spiritual and anti-technology, which I'm not.

I think the deadlock problem could be greatly reduced if they used different procedures for decisions, however you have to consider that there is also a practical reason for using consensus, as impractical as it often appears: Suppose your group's manifesto states you will implement decisions reached just by majority (using some procedure like Robert's Rules), how do you then actually get the minority to get along with what the majority decides? Because we all read the document and gave our pinkie-promise here? I think precise distinctions should be written down here between active support and sabotage. That is, an outvoted minority shouldn't sabotage a project (talking negatively about it does not count as sabotage), results of their past work in form of money or physical things can be used towards it (big projects requiring super-majorities), and they shouldn't be required to contribute directly with their brains and hands to it.

If you want to rely on huge super-majorities or consensus, you should definitely give people ways to air frustration or disagreement in a way that doesn't totally block everything forever, like a voting option to say that they are neutral or even rather against it, but willing to go with the bigger side for the sake of the group.

People who say communes are stupid because they don't destroy capitalism are missing the obvious advantage that living together has: Just by sharing rent and utilities, the amount of money you have to spend is drastically reduced. The people I talked to seemed a bit more content than people are on average. If the idea of only having to work part time and spending a ton of time talking with your antifa super roommates (you have to do that to organize living together) appeals to you, joining a commune makes sense. Here is a directory of communes all over the world: ic.org/directory/search/

OP, I want to live in a global equitable society, not hidden in the woods with a bunch of hippies. Capitalism isn't only bad for how it effects me but how it effects others and the planet and our future, even if I lived like Bill Gates I would still want it gone. So, shutting myself away in seclusion won't solve anything. Besides which, I want to live with the benefits of industrial society, most of which were invented outside of private industry anyway.

brainlet: If we live together and share the rent, I figure we save a lot of money.
you, leftcom intellectual: I want to live in a global equitable society, not hidden in the woods with a bunch of hippies. Capitalism isn't only bad for how it effects me but how it effects others and the planet and our future, even if I lived like Bill Gates I would still want it gone.

Dropping out is not revolutionary, unless you can convince everyone to do it, which you can't

A shared house is a commune now?

Joining a what?

When people who are not a family live together and share their expenses and have meals together (and possibly some religious rituals) they actually do call that a commune now, yes. It's true that people who live indawoods and grow their own food together are the classical example of communal living. But people who call themselves communards now also exist in cities.

I don't have a real issue with a bunch of gommies hanging out in a big house together but when you say commune it's hippies growing turnips that comes to mind.

in London we call those "flatmates", and there's nothing revolutionary about it

There is no strict demarcation between these two concepts. When you know there is a group of 20 to 30 people buying a house together and living in it and eating together and changing the house to fit their needs and bring up children together and do all sorts of activities together, and they put some or even all of their income into the community pot they use for their expenses, what would you call that if not a commune, X-treme Flatmates?

There is nothing socialist in living in a common apartment and pulling together income. It's all about means of production, dummies. IRL communes offer individual houses and personal dividends, it's the workplace that is owned and managed collectively.

i once lived in a democratically-run house. it wasn't a commune since we didn't produce food or have property in common, only a shared dwelling. but even this alone appeared too difficult to organize for this small group. meetings could last hours with no definite result agreed upon. one time a member even refused to abstain during a vote. no i am not joking, they were told if they didn't want to vote they needed to abstain in order to validate the vote, and the member refused to abstain.

tl;dr this is why stalinism is the only workable expression of socialism.

It appears that you are hallucinating a position that nobody has to be then mad about that.

99% chance I wouldn't join. The 1% is for the time it is a state wide commune. A commune isn't going innawoods with no production and just sharing shit. Any Marxist knows you can't just quit and share things. "Socialism will be stamped with the birthpains of Capitalism". Something along those lines, anyways.
Why didn't you just make a decision that was all agreed upon? If that can't be done, why not just kick the extra fucker out? Why not just ignore what he wants if he maintains being an asshole? Why not just say "You can't abstain forever" instead of that bullshit.

Communes are hippy bullshit

Most things that were popular in the 70s can be considered hippie bullshit.

lifestylism

the alternative is
so whether ancap is good or not I am not even going to debate but it is certainly anarchy

so you are saying for it o have a nice standard of living it would need to be big enough for some intense specialization to take place, thats something I never considered but it makes sense as far as I can tell

perhaps I am misunderstanding, but as far as I could tell in an actual capitalist system (meaning no taxes) a commune could spring up with no problem as long as there are people willing to be in it, and those taxes seem to be the only thing stopping you, unless I still dont understand.

I have seen this concept, in the book a stranger in a strange land (although they were a little cultish about it)
I myself actually communalize my rent and live with a few others, and dont see why you couldnt do the same with things other then rent if you wished and I suppose you have just told me that people in fact do that, neat
I find what you said about the decision making process interesting, it seems you are under the impression that it should be some sort of democracy with a founding document. this dosnt sound too terrible to me but what do you think of ancom?

there seems to be a common theme here about wanting factories and whatnot instead of just farms, and while I know this is nearly impossible for a small commune why not just make one in a large commune?

I have done my best not to be inflamatory in my posts and I have no ill will when I make this one, but it appears that a large chunk of Holla Forums literally do not want to live under communism or start to try, this is interesting to me

bud, good news, somone picked up my slack

Do you have land secured?

*sigh* Here you go: spliddit.org/ This website has implementations of various algorithms for allocating items and chores and so on.