> JCWisc at aol.com wrote:
> > 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.
Communes, retreats, and other lifestyle institutions are about as easy to start as a new business - sometimes even harder. They aren't revolutionary in the least. I don't see what good they do in pressing for any kind of social change, in fact.
Social change can only be accomplished by DIRECT ORGANIZING where the problems lay - not by fleeing from them. The revolutions of the past were not had by people copping out of society to start their own "alternative communities" - they were the products of confrontational organizing *at the point of oppression*. The ruling class has no problem with the kind of escapism represented by communes. They do have a problem with people who will not flee, but who instead choose to resist where capital encroaches into their lives.
Brian