Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Anti-capitalists of the world, cohouse?

[David L. Mandel (75407.2361]

        First off, count me among those who identify with the spirit of
anticapitalism but were utterly turned off by the name-calling of Scott Cowley's
anonymous friend.
        That said, may I briefly try to clear up the confusion I've been seeing
here about what anti-capitalism entails? Briefly (well, sort of), because as
I'll explain, this is only a little connected with my life as a cohousing
organizer and dweller, so I agree we shouldn't turn this into a forum on
capitalism vs. socialism. Nevertheless, the issue's been raised ...
        This is hard for most Americans, because unlike the situation in most of
the world, Marx, Engels and other giants in the intellectual critique of
capitalism are not considered important or even relevant in our basic
educational system here. That's a tragedy, and it leads to no end of confusion
among great numbers of people whose instincts and common sense lead them to be
vaguely or even stridently disturbed by the effects of modern advanced
capitalism. Nowhere else in the industrialized world is there such a total
absence of a significant political party that identifies its essence as aspiring
to represent the interest of the working class. Nowhere else is it so
overwhelmingly true that the large majority of people have been brainwashed into
voting against their clear class interest (or not voting at all).
        What does it all have to do with cohousing and intentional communities?
Less that a lot of us might imagine. Capitalism can accommodate any number of
"alternative" lifestyles; and it's true what Rob and Mac and others might say --
that the market will find a niche for nearly anything if there's an articulated
demand and a profit to be made. 
        An "off the grid," highly communal village may well be a beautiful
utopian island, but it has almost no impact on the struggle to defeat the
capitalist system that is exploiting most of the planet's population and raping
its environment. In fact, such a village's value in demonstrating a better way
to live may be outweighed by its distraction of a core of good people from the
larger battle that needs to be fought to enable a better life for everyone. This
battle can be won only by the well-organized class of people who create the
goods and provide the services; and with the internationalization of capital,
this needs to be a worldwide effort (which may be the main reason the effort
seems so difficult in these times).
        My decision to live in an urban community, cohousing or not, stems not
only from my own personal cultural affinities but also from a conscious decision
that the decisive long-term effort to transform our society into a socialist one
needs to be centered not out in the woods but where most people are. Avoiding
suburban sprawl is also more environmentally responsible. But still, for the
most part, my desire to live in a cohousing community is a matter of personal
choice. Even in the democratic socialist society I envision, I don't expect that
most people will want to share meals regularly with their neighbors. Just
sharing stuff a little more is not what socialism is about. Rather, it's about a
very different overall system in which the concept of democracy is expanded to
encompass real popular control of the basic decisions about what we produce and
how our resources are allocated. 
        Under such a system, there will likely be a lot more creativity of
expression and cooperation on every level, since we will be liberated from the
culture of individual consumerism and the competition for deliberately scarce
jobs and other resources that feeds our racism, sexism and other destructive
ways of relating to each other. 
        In a small way, cohousing and other intentional communities do provide a
service in the struggle against capitalism by flouting the conventional wisdom
of what we supposedly all want and offering a glimpse of how lives might be
different. On some level, the fact that by organizing our neighborhoods the way
we do we can get by without consuming as much is a wee bit threatening to the
system that depends on our lust to consume. But it is a mistake to overestimate
our power to change by mere example or to underestimate capitalism's power to
coopt the "alternative." The Disney development will likely be a perfect
example. A less speculative one is what has become of the kibbutz movement in
Israel. Its far-reaching utopian socialist vision has been somewhat browbeaten
and mostly co-opted by the course of more than half a century of capitalist
development.
        This has gone on longer than I intended. I hope it's been a little 
useful
for the many cohousers who are justifiably angry at what capitalism has wrought
and wonder whether cohousing is the solution. My reply is that anything we do
that challenges the ideological assumptions used to brainwash so many of our
fellow citizens can indeed be part of the solution, and cohousing can do that.
But not alone; we need to understand the limits of our efforts at creating an
alternative lifestyle at the same time we use our experiences in forming
communities to stimulate fresh thinking and perhaps most of all, to infuse our
own lives with some added energy that will be devoted to the larger and much
longer struggle for a society that serves people and the earth, not profit.
        Thanks for listening. And read Marx.

David Mandel, Southside Park Cohousing, Sacramento