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  • From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Walled Communities
  • Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 08:00:07 -0700


On Tuesday, July 1, 2003, at 10:33 AM, John Schinnerer wrote:

Some are there because founders/organizers have been through the process a
few times (unsuccessfully) and don't want to waste any more of their time
with people who have lots of talk but never actually contribute (whether
in money, sweat equity, whatever the options are). One possible response
is to simply raise the up-front price bar.

I agree. It may seem discriminatory that money often becomes the criterion for entry into ecovillages (any criterion can be called elitist--it by definition discriminates in some way), but it is a useful and straightforward measure that is less complicated to apply than others. It would be nice if there were other criteria that seem to correlate so well with a successful community! A friend who is the principal financier of an intentional community in Hawai'i says it's always those who have no "skin in the game" who disappear at the first tough challenge, and I've seen that happen many places. Another reason that a financial buy-in works is that people who have accumulated some cash have shown that they can stick to a job, and they tend to have useful (i.e. marketable) skills. It's a sad fact that often (with notable exceptions) people without cash also don't have skills, experience, or sometimes the will to persevere, which are all useful to a community.

It does discriminate against younger people and against the involuntarily poor, and I've seen communities create special positions to include those without cash, such as sweat-equity buy-ins and differently-tiered memberships (there's that elitism, again). But it's my observation that the people sitting around getting high while a community is going broke or otherwise failing are often those who have no equity position.

Toby





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