The Human Element
We realize that adjusting to the "Greatest Good for All" Concept will take some readjustment in thinking for most folks as they join the Village. So, all prospective residents will take free classes on consensus thinking, personalities, meditation, and be assigned a Mentor to aid in their six month transition into the Village. After that transition time all of their needs will be supplied for life - shelter, food, utilities, education, job training, family, security, etc.
The other concept that may be difficult to grasp is decision making on a scale necessary to cover 500 residents in the Village. But if the Village has its basic needs for economic and social security met, the smaller Hubs should be able to handle the rest of the internal decisions necessary to govern themselves by consensus.
Discrimination
To an alien it would appear that practically all "civilized" cultures, as
defined by historians, had and have homeless and poverty level people.
All “civilized” cultures had and have second class citizens and Discrimination. It can be deduced that this is to balance out the economic system and allow those in control to profit on the unfortunate lower class. If it were not profitable it would not continue.
Because this is too hard to admit, over generations humans have replaced the real reason with bogus reasons that make no sense at all, but allow those in power to live with themselves as they continue to profit.
Aliens might conclude that the root basis for all of this is humanity’s fear that “there is not enough to go around”. Oddly enough though, “uncivilized” cultures on earth (indigenous tribes) do not have second class citizens, homelessness, poverty or discrimination. Nor do they share the belief that “there is not enough to go around”.
One of the founding principles of the village is that there is more than enough to go around, therefore no one would be able to profit from discrimination - social, racial, economic, religious or any other type - and that all of the village would suffer if any one member was discriminated against.
Redundant Pensions
One of the biggest problems facing Americans today is the continuing loss of pensions, benefits and the probable shrinking of Social Security benefits. One’s entire security system could be wiped out by the actions of one bankruptcy attorney or the vote of congressmen. This scenario is not hard to imagine as it is repeated over and over again.
But now imagine an economic system in which you earn a 100% vested interest in your entire pension benefits package the first year on the job. Now imagine that you control that pension plan totally; not outside investors, not bankruptcy attorneys, but you. You decide if the benefits should increase or decrease. This would make current pensions that we sell our soul for obsolete, redundant! Imagine the impact that would have on this nation. Now imagine the Co-Op Village . . .
Stored Wealth
In order for one person to profit from gaining power over another and taking wealth from them, the taker must be able to store the wealth gained. Early in our history the storage method was most likely grain or precious metals whereas our current storage medium is cash. However, in a cashless society, such as the village, there is no storage medium. Because food and utilities are given equally to all, even those cannot be used for wealth storage. Therefore, unless someone was willing to eat more than their share of beans for dinner that night it would not be profitable to gain power over another.
Transformer Toys
Please keep in mind that what we are attempting to do is build something similar to the transformer toys of ten years ago. You know, the ones that looked like a candy bar but then with a little manipulation transformed into a jet plane. We are building a Village that utilizes technology of today. But we are also mindful that some of this technology may become obsolete in a few years if financially things should go bump in the dark. We intend to be both resilient enough and in a position to quickly transform ourselves so that we can help others. So now you see "A" but maybe in a few years you will see "B".
$30,000 per House?
How can the village build a house for $30,000 when developers can’t build one for less than $200,000? Our biggest savings is that all labor costs and profits are cut out entirely because the village will provide all labor. Another savings is that the buildings are smaller than what developers are offering.
A tremendous advantage of the village is that by having a Community Land Trust own all of the land it will not need to be broken up into individual lots for each house. This allows the land to remain zoned as agriculture and avoids the costly fights to get the property rezoned as residential. It also avoids being classified as a residential neighborhood development. This allows the village to escape county requirements for road systems, sidewalks, expensive storm water holding ponds and drainage systems, twice the number of septic tanks, underground utilities, street lights etc. The only major county jurisdiction over the village is the building code requirements. This is a developer’s dream come true!
All of these advantages are things that for profit developers can never do. This assures us that where a village is being built it will never have to fear competition from developers moving into our price range. They can’t touch it.