As I embark on the revision and editing of my speculative fiction novel, Life in Slake Patch the unusual living arrangements in the story will be the basis for my weekly Wednesday post. In Slake Patch, the men and women live in separate compounds.
Today’s living choice is one many people know about – The Commune. Many of us think about hippy communes of free love, flower power, and unstructured living. However, the name came from the 12th-century medieval Latin word ‘communia’ which meant a large gathering of people sharing a common life.
A commune is in fact, people living together sharing property, possessions, resources, and interests. The more advanced communes have the residents sharing work, income and assets. This gives rise to a non-hierarchical community with core principals agreed upon through consensus decision-making. The free-love refuges were actually well0rdered, financially solvent cooperatives run pragmatically rather than drug induced.
The commune principal has been utilized around the globe, some run by like minded individuals wanting to live within a community and others, such as in China as large co-operatives of farmers working towards making quotas for the government.
Whatever the structure the central point is that together these people work for the common good and benefit.
Mandy Eve-Barnett's Blog for Readers & Writers 