To keep ongoing community
monetary requirements (which individual members are asked to contribute
towards) to such levels, that the members with the least income can
easily meet those requirements.
Excessive
monetary requirements
generally neither being conductive to ecological living, or human
liberation. There is on old "eastern" saying that there can be no
happiness as long as there is worry about money. The present
"system" is great for a few, and hell for most. And even if
most Americans think it's great, so what! Our continually
manifesting wars, the condition of our health (both mental and physical)
the trashing of our planet, and probably a dozen other effects of our " great
society" scream out an all together different message, scream out
the need for us
to conduct ourselves in a vastly different way.
Is
this particular aspect a recipe for living at a "lowest common denominator" level?
No,
standards would/could simply be established for everything communal from the
very beginning; such as regarding buildings, equipment, and tools. And
replacement and maintenance costs would be planned for, and
established as well.
Again, important reasons to live this way
are to foster and make
available the time necessary to be aware, knowledgeable, and caring
citizens-both locally, and globally; and to allow for both activism, self
development and self fulfillment. If dollar costs are allowed to be dictated by those who's
primary concerns are materialistic advancement for the community, these
important reasons for living cooperatively will quickly be extinguished.
This goal makes that an impossibility.
Note: In the strictest sense, this is not a totally "egalitarian"
idea. The theory, or hope is that this concept
represents a better idea.
Better to allow each other the freedom to decide for ourselves what our
personal needs are, and how to meet them. This is assumed, a
basic human need. And in the context of the community ethics
and goals, this will be okay and not a fallback
into the kind of individual survival economics; the kind of which that
creates
such "murder and mayhem" in the world at large.
So in this spirit, there is
NO need to set arbitrary personal income limitations on what members
may earn, or possess for themselves on their own, or with other community members.
As long as, of course, usury and exploitive economics are not engaged in.
See the usury and exploitation page for the
"transitional phase-in"
exceptions.
