Introduction

Nothing liberates us from a monopolist more readily than the revelation that we don't want his wares.

-- Yanis Varoufakis

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism.

The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.

By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

-- From "Preamble to the IWW Constitution", by the Industrial Workers of the World

Forget, for now, about solving all the world's problems. What does a solution for small groups look like?

This document proposes one answer to that question: a co-op/startup/commune/hackspace in the model of the kibbutzim, or Amish communities, or Twin Oaks/East Wind. Internally communist/anarchist, interfacing with the outside world via the default capitalist framework.

The aim is to provide an alternative to the default life of work and consumption and rent and mortgages, that emphasizes freedom and life and joy.

Make material goods that are useful, or profitable, or ideally both. Make things to sell, to make money, to buy the things we can't make ourselves yet.

The work we do should either reduce our dependence on the external capitalist economy (how much we need to buy from them), or increase our value to them (how much they buy from us).

Those are opposite sides of the scale of the economic interaction. But the goal is not to successfully trade with the external capitalist economy - the goal is to secede from it.

Goals

Self sufficiency/independence
Egalitarian
- radical transparency
- decentralization of authority
Healthy
Ecologically sound
Inter-generational
Peaceful
Prosperous
Free as in freedom
Be well positioned, socially and economically, for coming adversities and opportunities (climate change, political upheaval, AI, nanotech, etc)
Nurture connections to a network of like-minded individuals, communities, and organizations both for social contact and for economic strength

Physiological Needs

By Hamish.croker - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=164544166

1 gallon/person/day water
2,500 calories/person/day food
- 4% carbs, 25g
- 16% protein, 107g
- 80% fat, 242g
Shelter/real estate:
- ~150 sqft bedroom/person
- ~100 sqft bathroom/family
- ~100 sqft kitchen/family
- ~400 sqft living room/family
- ~200 sqft garage-shop/family
Energy (electricity, fuels)
Clothes

Higher needs:

furniture
tools
weapons
bandwidth
health care
education

Independence

Independence means independence from capitalist coersion, not independence from society or ecology.

Independence is a sliding scale, quantified by the measurement of Vitamins. Anything you have to pay money for is a Vitamin.

Independence doesn't apply just to fabrication, but to all of humanity's material conditions: from the basics of survival and procreation; air, water, food, shelter, to higher needs like education, health care, etc.

Track your fucking budget. Count your vitamins. The revolution needs accountants. See where you're tied to capitalism. Focus on strengthening your independence by cutting those bonds:

Find ways to produce what you need. If you need an item, and the default way of getting it is to buy it from an external supplier, try to figure out what it would take to produce it internally. Maybe you'd need tooling and raw materials (machine X and lower-level vitamins Y and Z), plus the skill and time to use this new productive capacity. While the initial capital outlay of buying the tooling might be considerable, and climbing the learning curve might initially take longer than just clicking "Buy Now" on JLCPCB or whatever, this investment might make economic sense if it can be amortized over a long productive life. The new productive capacity might serve the enclave and aligned external sibling-enclaves.
Acquire what you need by trading with your network instead of with the capitalist superstructure. This is the flip side of option 1: maybe some sibling-enclave has already taken on the task of internalizing the relevant production, and now we can lean on them (while supporting them) to satisfy our needs.
Do without. This one is simple enough - but the goal is abundance, not austerity. Material conditions will determine our actions, and many goods are worthless. Be stingy by default.

Bootstrap

Minimize up-front capital outlay!

This means:

Make do with the space/infrastructure/tools I have available right now. This includes my house & garage, and the hackspace.
Bootstrap while making money at a dayjob? I sure don't want to burn through my retirement savings while trying to start this up.
Generally emphasize learning & using skills over spending money. This dovetails with the ultimate goal of independence and resiliency. But also note that sometimes, spending money is more efficient than DIY.
When learning new skills, first review the literature of those who went before. Try to collaborate on their documentation, or start new public documents with info & links to help the next person.
Fabricate open-source hardware, primarily for use by the comrades but also for sale to the public.

Perform wage labor in the external capitalist economy, in order to earn currency, to fund our existance and our development towards FALC. Remote software engineering jobs are an obvious target here, as it keeps us together and earns good money (in 2023 when this was first written).

The work should both make money and offset living expenses. It should scale up as you add people and capital, to provide work and/or sustenance for others. The work should fit into a larger picture of diversification, building towards resilience.

Traps to avoid

Working on stuff that makes money but doesn't further the mission.
Working on stuff that furthers the mission but isn't economically sustainable.
Spending down my retirement savings and having to go back to a normal day job.

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