what ever happened to the detroit commune ?
i mean there's still a lot of potential there to actually accomplish something, besides we don't have forever to get it started, soon real estate whores will start buying the cheap property and start bulldozing all the cheap property to build condos and suburban houses
It was a shit tier idea. How, pray tell, are you going to create a socialist commune when you are going to be reliant on accumulation of capital to survive?
Anonymity basically killed the Detroit commune before anything could be done.
we produce things in the commune
there's abandoned factories in Detroit cheap too
I think anons couldn't come to an agreement about setting the funding method for the commune. I remember they talking about setting up some kind of international fund to provide the financial support for the development of the land, and so on, but can't recall what happened after that.
i would but i can't
(have to hike in from cali)
I'm still up for it, but I need help. I can't go there on my own. Hell, I'll work 12 hours in an abandoned factory there producing things to make value to sustain a commune if that's what it takes.
So will this commune make money by selling products?
presumably. not like there's a lot of option.
what products are you going to make that capitalists can't? only way that would make any sense is an agricultural thing where you grow food and sell the surplus at a farmer's market to pay for water/electricity/etc
Iphones
I mean, I'm sure I'd change my mind after I trip and fall on a pile of rusty heroin needles, but still. That pic is going in the folder.
This was a big part of the plan. Some anons were looking into hydroponic farming
Back taxes make the abandoned buildings in Detroit far too expensive. I preferred the Birmingham commune idea.
We should look towards East Wind as an example. They each get $150/month plus free food, shelter, medical care and education by making their own nut butter.
You don't have to make things that capitalists can't make, you just have to make things well enough to compete with the capitalists.
well enough AND cheap enough
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I think forming communes like this is an attractive idea, but probably not that helpful for leftism overall
You'd be gathering people from the small percentage of those with strong socialist/communist views and thereby filtering them out of the greater population, preventing them from acting to spread leftist thought
the commune might be super fun and fulfilling for the few involved, but it's ultimately poaching the kinds of people that we need to have spreading ideas in the wider community
Not if you let others in and by doing so it would covert them
That's true, but the new members would then stay in the commune, it seems like too much of a local effect
It's not my place to tell people they shouldn't join a commune if they want to, but I think a case can be made for staying out in the wider community and looking for opportunities to win people over
This in part.
There was plenty of interest, but no core team developed that was able to coordinate effectively. Everyone involved was scattered not just around the US, but the world. None of them had any experience setting up a commune or was within a reasonable distance to Detroit to really effect anything.
Part of the plan was to provide community outreach/services that would entitle the commune to money from the state. At least initially, there were plenty of grants both from the state government and other NGOs that would have provided a strong supplement to whatever income the commune generated.
There are also other communes in the area that we were considering operating in conjunction with.
I've posted about a similar idea several times now.
The thing is makin random communes doesn't create a revolution, we need to create a system of co-operatives lending mutual support to each other, with the end goal that they all chip in to buy out the private property these co-ops will exist on.
In this way you could gradually but out and integrate supply chains while providing public services like healthcare and education (like the black panthers did) and expand until you have a financial power base with some real clout, then demand tax exemptions etc
But simply making q commune is more dropping out of society that trying to change it.
Probably a tanky who wants to "wait for the revolution" I.e do nothing and meme and fantasise about violence
Basically, all the co-ops need to be chipping in to a mutual credit bank whose only purpose is for the buying out of co-ops so that they own the land they stand on and aren't paying off any debts.
I set up an email address for people to mail but everyone just send burners and forgot. I can post it again if people are interested in discussing this seriously just I don't think chans or even irc is a good place. We need real email addresses so it is easier to know who is involved and willing to do what
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Irc is good for talking, not good for organizing.
You could bring them to you offering free classes in shit.