> > There's nothing stopping anyone who wants to from founding a utopian
> colony
> > today, is there?
>
> The fact that almost all private property is concentrated in a small
> elite makes it rather difficult to obtain the rescources need to get
> started.
>
> Joe
Oh, it may be difficult, but it can be done. You can always start small. There's a whole subculture of people in this country who are into the back-to-the-land lifestyle. There's a magazine called Countryside, published in Withee, Wis., that caters to them
http://www.countrysidemag.com/
Most of them call themselves "homesteaders." They are not utopians, or for the most part very ideological; they're just interested in living lives of "voluntary simplicity." They somehow manage to acquire their farms. Countryside sometimes carries articles about getting started in homesteading on a shoestring. Southwestern Wisconsin, for example, is a fairly depressed area where land can be had at relatively low prices. That's why lots of Amish have migrated there in recent years. I'll bet there are plenty of real estate agents who would be happy to show you some ramshackle farm properties.
The magazine is also full of many useful tips on things like raising goats, canning tomatoes, composting, keeping the deer out of your garden, plucking chickens, and generating your own electricity. Generating electricity is a problem for these folks, since a lot of them want to get "off the grid." Again, not easy, but it can be done. Unless you decide to do without. You can still get kerosene lamps. I highly recommend it. Lots of old-timey recipes too.
Not that a utopian colony has to be rural. With a few like-minded friends, you could pool your resources and be an urban homesteader. When I lived in the Haight years ago there was a bunch of people who pooled their resources, lived semi-communally and ran a restaurant. I wonder what ever happened to them?
Jacob Conrad