Capitalism vs. Communalism: I Just Spent 24 Hours in a Town That Pools All Their Possessions

Baby Concord and I drove nearly 1,000 miles before we entered the gates of the Bruderhof community in the village of Darvell, located on the outskirts of the pretty medieval town of Robertsbridge, England. The long driveway arced gracefully past an apple orchard before passing a pine forest, whose sustainable wood growth would eventually be fed into the community’s house-sized wood boiler to heat the entire village of 200 people. Upon arriving in the parking lot, the first thing I noticed was their cars. Every single one of the dozen vehicles was backed into its parking space, nose facing out. In other words, these are forward-thinking people. A happy couple holding hands greeted me within seconds of exiting my Volkswagen. “That’s not at all creepy,” I said. Klaas, from Germany, laughed. “The security guard registered your license plate, knew we were hosting you, and called us on your way in.” “You have cell phones?” I said with surprise. “We used to have a pager network but that got unruly. We’ve had dumb phones for years now, but during Covid, we switched to smartphones. But no one has wifi or personal computers at home — we leave our work at the office — and everything can be centrally looked up as a community, so we have accountability.” <a href="https://survivingtomorrow.org/capitalism-vs-communalism-i-just-spent-24-hours-in-a-town-that-pools-all-their-possessions-ab8edfcafaf">Website</a>