I took a couple minutes today to jot down some ideas about my intentional community project. My first question to answer is, “What’s the goal of this community?” And at it’s practical core, The Community will exist to provide its members with the basic necessities for pursuing one’s own happiness. To do this, The Community will provide food, living space, utilities (to include some kind of internet connection), and ideally basic medical care (maybe traveling nurse/doctor for routine check ups??). In exchange, individual members would pay a flat rate of X amount of credits to The Community. Credits could be obtained by working on communal projects (these might be things like utility upgrades, making potluck dinners, organizing the pantry, cleaning the grounds) or by paying cash into the community’s coffers. The theory behind the “credits” are that time and money can be interchanged equally. A person would be able to work in the community and earn enough credit to pay for his basics without the need to have a steady job; alternatively, a member could spend his time working full-time outside the community and have all of his basics payed for. Eventually, it would be cool to have a diverse set of members who could provide many different services to their fellow members or the outside world, but until that happens, members who want or need anything not provided would need to use their own cash to obtain it.
Post questions and comments. I need other thoughts to help me expand on this.
