The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
History
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
"Having provided the associates and candidates with these facilities for
industry, and made them responsible each for his own support, and, at
first, for that of his dependents, the projectors propose to have them
distribute themselves into organizations for industrial operations, and
select or invent their own kinds and mode of cultivation and other
practical processes, under regulations prescribed by themselves. They
will be indulged with the largest liberty, consistent with the
protection of rights and the preservation of order, in choosing their
own employments, and their own industrial and social companions; in
appointing, concurrently with those with whom they are immediately
associated, their own hours of labor, recreation, and repose; and,
generally, in directing their activity in such manner and to such
purposes as their taste or interest may induce them to prefer. We hope
thus to demonstrate that interference with individual choice is
necessary only to restrain people from transgressing their own proper
sphere and encroaching upon that of others, and that restraints, even
for that purpose, will seldom be required, and not at all except during
the rudimentary stage of industrial organization.
"No efforts, therefore, will be made to select persons of similar views
or beliefs, or to mould them afterward to any uniform pattern. That
unanimity which is not expected in regard to practical operations, is
much less expected in regard to those subjects transcending the sphere
of human experience about which opinions are now so irreconcilably
conflicting. All that will be required is that each shall accord to
others as much freedom of thought and action as he enjoys himself, and
shall respect the rights and interests of others as he desires his own
to be respected by them.
"The apprehension that our experiment might be greatly embarrassed by
admitting the totally destitute to participate in it, compels us to say
that such cannot at present be received. The means applicable to our
purpose, considerable as they are, might become inadequate if subjected
to the burden of maintaining objects of charity; while but few could be
thus relieved, even if all the means at command were devoted to that
single object. Our system, if we do not misapprehend it, will, in its
maturity, provide abundantly for all.
"But though we insist that the first participators in our enterprise
shall not be pecuniarily destitute, the amount insisted upon is not
large. So much, however, as is required must be amply secured by the
following cash advances:
"First: rent of rooms and board paid two months in advance for each
person admitted to reside on the domain, including each member of the
applicant's family; and at the end of the first month, payment of these
items for another month, so that they shall again be paid two months in
advance, and so from month to month indefinitely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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