Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Should individual "sponsorship" be allowed of community property?

[Sue Pniewski (SPniewski]

Joe- 
I think your system seems very fair, and to put my viewpoint in perspective
for Elizabeth's sake, what we are discussing is not random gifts of swimming
pools, but a person or persons gifting something that the community has
already agreed is desirable.  It is not possible that a community could
obtain everything they as a group decide is desirable, it isn't generally
economically feasable.  We are not talking about a person deciding he wants
red paint on the common house, so he pays and everybody suffers.  THis is
about things which have already been decided are desirable.  So if it isn't
in the budget, but everybody wants it, what is the problem?  I'm sorry if I
fail to understand how that makes the decision making process invalid, since
it was already DECIDED AS A GROUP that it was desirable.  
Elizabeth, nobody is attacking the idea of group decision making, this is
post decision making gifting.  But your hyper sensitivity is self evident in
your tone, and the cop out about hyper sensitive groups like gays is way off
base, like if everybody doesn't adhere to your strict interpretation of how
consensus is supposed to work they are gay bashers and feminist haters.
Hyper sensitive is assuming everybody must adhere to YOUR interpretation of
a process.  Consensus is about learning together, and working together, and
growing together, and if some people have more cash to offer, well others
may have more time to offer, so would you throw in their face the offer to
spend an extra 5 hours weeding because they might not weed the area YOU want
weeded?  This is just plain silly.  A gift is a gift.  I can't imagine that
if our community decided that we really wanted a computer, and Apple just
called and decided they would give us one, but it would be an iMac, and we
decided on a Dell, we should say no way, because Apple was getting to make
the decision on what kind of computer we used by their greater economic
power?  Worse, if one of our members engineered the gift because they like
the iMac, shoud we reject it because he, the holder of powerful friends and
beneficiaries, got to override the decision making process?  Or should we
accept the gift with grace and dignity, say thank you, and then decide if
WE, as a group, want to spend the money to buy the Dell we had decided on,
or just live with the freebie.
I suspect that is group interaction that flexes with the varying situations.
Of course, from now on when anybody in your community wants to give
something to the community, and you don't want to take it because it's
circumventing your process, you can just send them our way because all gifts
are gratefully accepted with prolific thanks and well wishes.


-------------------------------------
Susan Pniewski, Esq.


-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Nolan [mailto:jnolan [at] adobe.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 3:30 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_Should individual "sponsorship" be allowed of
community property?



Elizabeth Stevenson wrote:

>I'm sorry, but I still don't see how allowing people to contribute what
they
>want to specific projects is fair. Those with more money have more say.
>Period. Doesn't this bother anyone else?
>
I'm just putting out what seems to work well for us (a system that has 
evolved over 7 years) - YMMV.

If someone kicks in an extra $40 because they really want those cherry 
trees, then I personally don't experience that as unfair. For me it's a 
wonderful example of a "gift economy". If they were doing something 
objectionable with the money, the proposal would have been rejected. I 
guess it comes down to how you see your neighbors - loving benefactors 
or self-serving capitalists.

>Why is this necessary? If your process is working, the community should be
>getting things paid for that need paying for,
>
I don't know if it's necessary, but we have found it desirable and 
efficient. Part of the issue, I think, is that the system saves us from 
having many hours of discussion trying to prioritize relatively trivial 
projects - everyone allocating their portion in parallel makes for a 
very speedy process. You could use the same system & get this benefit, 
but disallow the extra contributions if you wanted.

(If you really want an egalitarian community, you need to equalize 
incomes, not just spending, yes?)



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