The Quick and Dirty

A short crash course on the Emma Goldman Finishing School. The purpose of this document is to briefly introduce our community and cover those things which are most often deal breakers with potential members.

Values as Practice: The key to understanding our community is that we work to put our values and politics in the practice of how we live. All house members have their own politics and priorities, but the shared values on which the house is based are Society Change, Egalitarianism, Non-violence, Ecology, Simplicity, and Community Living. We gain many gifts from putting these values into practice and we also make sacrifices to make this happen. For example, we are able to effect greater social change, live more frugally, and with less impact than if were were living on our own—but we also require considerable labor and participation from members.

Political Project: Another key to understanding EGFS is that we are as much a political project as we are a community. In one sense, we are a bunch of people living together under one roof. In another sense, we are also a political project with a strategy of focusing on building alternatives. Our project is to create an alternative infrastructure, a dense network of radically democratic institutions which can challenge and replace the dominant system.

Economic System: Our economic system is an attempt to translate our value of Egalitarianism into practice. As it turns out, when living in a society based on inequality attempting to create a bubble of equality is complex. We may find it second nature, but we often get puzzled looks when trying to explain it. In brief, our system attempts to value all labor equally. Every house member contributes the same number of hours to the community, and chooses a combinations of hours worked around the house and hours worked at an income generating job. In this way, some members contribute very little money to the community, and others contribute a great deal, but everyone is working the same number of hours for the community.

Vegetarian: Almost all food is shared communally, and we have group dinners on most nights. We attempt to buy local and organic, avoid organic agribusiness, and grow and gather our own. No meat is allowed in the house, but we do use eggs and dairy products.

No Smoking or Drugs: For various reasons, and despite our rejection of the State, we do not allow smoking or illegal drugs in the house.

No Pets: Because we have many members with allergies, we do not allow dogs or cats, and other pets are allowed only by special exemption.

Car Sharing: House members may choose to join the house car co-op, but individuals may not own personal cars. In addition, all bus fare and bike repair costs are covered by the house.

Health Care: We attempt to meet all the basic needs of house members, including health care. Your are required to have health insurance, either individually or through work, and then the house pays for the expenses. However, the community also has say over what health care services the community is willing to pay for.

Spending Caps: We do not practice full income sharing, where all the income from all the members is communalized. Because of this, there is the potential for some members of the community to have much more spending money than others. In order to help one another reduce consumption, maintain a similar standard of living, and to save money for an expansion fund, we practice “Spending Caps” where members are limited in how much they may spend. Some people find this onerous, but so far we have settled on this as a good balance between fully communal finances and fully private personal finances.

Membership Document #2

2005-07-25T13:58:17