Capitalist pain hits a village commune

CNN ^

[The Lion Roars]

Oaks is experiencing a midlife crisis. The Virginia commune supported its throwback hippie lifestyle for more than 38 years by selling hammocks and tofu. But in 2004, Twin Oaks lost one of its biggest hammock customers, Pier 1 Imports (Research).

Last year revenues slipped to $1.1 million from a 2000 peak of more than $2 million. And expenses such as gas and health care for the commune's aging population are climbing fast. "I hoped we would be financially secure by now," says founder Kat Kinkade, 75. "We're not."

Kinkade and seven other dreamers launched Twin Oaks on 69 acres of rolling Virginia farmland that they bought for $26,500 in 1967. (Today the commune owns 450 acres.) Like many other idealistic, left-leaning young Americans in those days, they hoped to escape the political and social tumult of the 1960s by forming a self-sustaining rural community. Since then hundreds of dropouts, drifters, and seekers have passed through Twin Oaks.

"A lot of people come here searching for something," says Kinkade, who worked as a secretary before she left the outside world behind

[posterchild]

I'm game. After the better part of a decade living in Cambrdge ma I could use the experience to slowly transition to the outside world:) Perhaps Anne and I can share a hut.

[dljordan]

"The real world cuts through the bong smoke."

There is an old Hippie commune in Summertown, Tn. that was founded by Stephen Gaskin many years ago that had a lot of problems. They woke up, threw the bums out and started manufacturing Tofu (yeah I know) and growing Shitake mushrooms. They do quite well now.

[pissant]

Nothing like a feel good story about smelly hippies.

[posterchild]

I wonder what one needs to do to be classified as a 'bum' in a commune. I wonder if the commune 'bums' were able to organize their own bum commune.

[Libertarian444]

Most [commune members] don't aspire to join the managerial ranks. "You don't get more money or a bigger room being a manager, just more of a headache," says Apple, 32, who joined the commune in 2003

Gee, ya' think??   You can almost see the lightbulb beginning to flicker in little "Apple's" soy-soaked brain.

[No.6]

"I'll bet they also have a corrupt leadership."

Of course they do! I've seen similar efforts elsewhere, and if you get into the legalities every single one of those vests all real controlling interest in a very few persons. I'd bet the same is true here.

If push comes to shove the seven founders walk away with the proceeds of the land, and everyone else walks away with the clothes on their back and a bad memory.

I've never yet seen one of these 'cooperative' efforts that didn't, in reality, revolve around a little soviet of power brokers who get everyone to bust tail for nearly free.

[Mr. Jeeves]

So lemme get this straight. You work a minimum of 42 hours a week. You get 1 bedroom, share a car with 3 other people, eat crappy soy hippie food and only get 75 bucks a month to spend in the outside world.

But it offers the greatest benefit these types could ever want: they don't have to think for themselves.

[yankeedame]

Kinkade and seven other dreamers launched Twin Oaks on 69 acres of rolling Virginia farmland that they bought for $26,500 in 1967.

These figures struck me as an awful lot of dough for 1967. So poking around the web I found one of those "How-much-would-it-cost-today?" conversion thingies.

Yes, I know, it is a very ball-park figure, but turns out the equivalent of $26.5K in 1967 is $105.3K in 2005. This mean that Miss Kinade -- who was a secretary at the time, I believe-- and seven others "dreamers" ponied up the equivalent of at least $105K in today's money to "open a commune to they hoped to escape the political and social tumult of the 1960s by forming a self-sustaining rural community."

Has the distinct wiff of Varsallies about it.....

[posterchild]

Makes perfect sense. Socialism is in part predicated on the idea that 'others' cannot manage their lives and affairs as well as the leadership can, and hence the leadership must control, in their wise and benevolent hands, the assets of the group.

[kalee]

Did you read that FAQ? My son and I were ROFLOL!!

[TChris]

How is this different from a beijing sweatshop??

Could it be that they aren't forced to be there?

[ByDesign]

"Other members argue that salvation lies in ramping up Twin Oaks tofu.... the tofu hut is a literal sweatshop: hot, damp, and factory-like. The tofu managers have had a hard time persuading residents to pick up the extra shifts that are needed to expand production.... There's concern that the communal culture will change if members are pushed into the scheduled, repetitive, money-oriented labor that many of them joined Twin Oaks to escape. If that happens, some residents will probably move on."

And there's the crux of the matter: these "residents" don't want to work, they are lazy. They all have this pie in the sky fantasy of communal living where food and clothes just appear, and they can sit around all day writing bad poetry and attending protests and smoking weed.

It sounds like there's a core group that keeps things running, but it also sounds like they get a lot of drifters who think it's a Greatfeul Dead parking lot party 24/7.

How many farmers would KILL to have 500 acres and a live-in workforce, and make a great living? They whine and cry and hold to their idiotic ideals, and don't realize how wealthy they truly are - typical hippies.

Fine with me if they want to live that way, as long as they don't get government money or support, and god help any kids raised there. But I just have to laugh, that yet again, a bunch of flunkies from the 60's find out yet again socialism is unsustainable.

Maybe in 40 years more, they'll learn what "diviersification" means, and expand their product line from 2 things. Hammocks and tofu for everyone! Bwahahahahahahaha!

Stupid hippies.

[Tulane]

QUOTE OF THE YEAR:

"Pier 1 was a boon to the community," says Kathryn, a 29-year-old manager in the hammock business. "For a lot of us, losing them was also kind of exciting - no more working for a multinational. But now we really have to deal with what we want to be as a business."

HAHAHAHA....I can't stop laughing..."losing a multinational customer was exciting" Oh my god, only a leftist would find this exciting...

[ByDesign]

"HAHAHAHA....I can't stop laughing..."losing a multinational customer was exciting" Oh my god, only a leftist would find this exciting..."

I would'nt even call them leftists, they're beyond that. They're sad.

Generally, when I've dealt with people who would find this place attractive, are one thing: LAZY. They don't want to deal with the real world. BUT, they want to enjoy the perks of the real world, and use electricity, computers, cd players, cars, tvs, movies, healthcare, whatever, but they simply cannot handle the responsibility of fending for themselves and taking any risks, so they create this smug, cucooned community where they can indulge themselves day and night.

I'd have more respect for them if they'd never worked for Pier 1, but they sure took Pier 1's evil capitalist money for a long time, did'nt they? And they made a LOT of money, and they get tax breaks. Hypocrits, the lot of them.

I'd be impressed if they lived more like the Amish, and kept contact with the outside world at a minimum, and were truly self-sustaining. An Amish farmer would do well with 50 acres, let alone 500.

Heck, it's Virginia. Grow tobacco. There's your cash crop.

Stupid hippies.

[Sensei Ern]

This sounds like "Animal Farm".

Gee, maybe if instead of making hammocks and tofu, they diversified into items with greater profit margins and were in greater demand? Like tennis shoes.

[Sensei Ern]

"attending protests"

Any bets that these people are filling out the numbers as hired protesters in DC?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Ok, there are around 100 residents (according to their FAQ). Why don't they try a new experiment? They could save the original 69 acres, divide the remaining 381 acres amongst the residents (3.81 acres each) and let each resident do with it what they wish.

Happened to turn the Plymouth colony from a starving group of Pilgrims to a prosperous group of Pilgrims in a very short period of time when Bradford tried this.

[Alouette]

A lot of people come here searching for something

Weed, hash and acid.

How is this different from a beijing sweatshop??

Weed, hash and acid.

[Getready]

How does losing a multinational like Pier 1, differ from
now selling your product on eBay?
You still have to distribute. Now instead of Pier1 handling
all the distribution, pick up, and sending a nice check( I wonder
if they use checks, cuz it might be backed by multinational
bank) they themselves have to to send it...oh my gawd, they'll have
to use a multinational delivery company, or even worse,
the US post office...maybe they can hand deliver it to customers.
....somehow, I get the clinical feeling that marijuana and/or
alcohol hampers the brains ability to process information..and these
folks are graphically, and financially showing the effects of those two
psychotropic agents.

[Sensei Ern]

SOmething smells fishy...$1,000,000.00 annual revenue, and each person get $60 per month($720.00 annual).

From their web site: http://www.twinoaks.org/

It states there are "around 85 adult members and 15 children." Surely they are not disobeying child labor laws...sarc...so that makes the labor cost: $61,200.00 annually.

That means $1,038,800.00 is being spent elsewhere. I am sure some goes for the web site and utilities, and some goes for equipment and replentishing the tofu crop and hammock crop, but there is still a large chunk going somewhere else...I suspect it is going for imported Columbian hemp....because you know it makes better hammocks.