What now might the members of such a community expect to gain by their experiment? Would they, to answer the second question above, improve their lives and condition?
Pecuniarily, they would begin at once a vast economy and saving of waste, which could hardly help but make them prosperous, and in time wealthy. A commune pays no wages; its members "work for their board and clothes," as the phrase is; and these supplies are either cheaply produced or bought at wholesale. A commune has no blue Mondays, or idle periods whatever; every thing is systematized, and there is useful employment for all in all kinds of weather and at all seasons of the year. A commune wastes no time in "going to town," for it has its own shops of all kinds. It totally abolishes the middleman of every kind, and saves all the large percentage of gain on which the "store-keepers" live and grow rich elsewhere. It spends neither time nor money in dram-shops or other places of common resort. It secures, by plain living and freedom from low cares, good health in all, and thus saves "doctors' bills." It does not heed the changes in fashion, and thus saves time and strength to its women. Finally, the communal life is so systematized that every thing is done well, at the right time, and thus comes another important saving of time and material. The communal wood-house is always full of well-seasoned firewood: here is a saving of time and temper which almost every Western farmer's wife will appreciate.
If you consider well these different economies, it will cease to be surprising that communistic societies become wealthy; and this without severe or exhausting toil. The Zoarites acknowledge that they could not have paid for their land had they not formed themselves into a commune; the Amana Inspirationists confess that they could not have maintained themselves near Buffalo had they not adopted the communal system.
I have said nothing about the gain of the commune by the thorough culture it is able and likely to give to land; its ability to command at any moment a large laboring force for an emergency, and its advantage in producing the best, and selling its surplus consequently at the highest market price. But these are not slight advantages. I should say that the reputation for honesty and for always selling a good article is worth to the Shakers, the Amana and other communes, at least ten per cent. over their competitors.
On the moral side the gain is evidently great. In a society so intimately bound together, if there are slight tendencies to evil in any member, they are checked and controlled by the prevailing public sentiment. The possibility of providing with ease and without the expenditure of money good training and education for children, is an immense advantage for the commune over the individualist who is a farmer or mechanic in a new country. The social advantages are very great and evident. Finally, the effect of the communal life upon the character of the individual is good. Diversity of employments, as I have noticed in another chapter, broadens the men's faculties. Ingenuity and mechanical dexterity are developed to a surprising degree in a commune, as well as business skill. The constant necessity of living in intimate association with others, and taking into consideration their prejudices and weaknesses, makes the communist somewhat a man of the world; teaches him self-restraint; gives him a liberal and tolerant spirit; makes him an amiable being. Why are all communists remarkably cleanly? I imagine largely because filth or carelessness would be unendurable in so large a family, and because system and method are absolutely necessary to existence.
But, to come to my third question, the communes I have visited do not appear to me to make nearly as much of their lives as they might. Most of them are ascetics, who avoid the beautiful as tending to sin; and most of them, moreover, out of the force of old habits, and a conservative spirit which dreads change, rigidly maintain the old ways.
In the beginning, a commune must live with great economy, and deny itself many things desirable and proper. It is an advantage that it should have to do this, just as it is undoubtedly an advantage to a young couple just starting out in life to be compelled by narrow circumstances to frugal living and self-denial. It gives unselfishness and a wholesome development of character. But I cannot see why a prosperous commune should not own the best books; why it should not have music; why it should not hear the most eloquent lecturers; why it should not have pleasant pleasure-grounds, and devote some means to the highest form of material art—fine architecture. It seems to me that in these respects the communes I have visited have failed of their proper and just development; and I believe this inattention to the higher and intellectual wants of men to be the main reason of their generally failing numbers. They keep their lives on the plane of the common farmer's life out of which most of the older members were gathered—and their young people leave them, just as the farmers of our country complain that their boys run off to the cities. The individual farmer or country mechanic cannot control this; he cannot greatly beautify his life, or make it intellectually richer. But to the commune, once well established and prosperous, all needful things are possible, so far as money cost is concerned; and it is my belief that neither books nor music, nor eloquence nor flowers, nor finely kept pleasure-grounds nor good architecture would be dangerous to the success of a commune.
In another respect, the communistic societies fall short of what they ought to be and do. The permanence of their establishments gives them extraordinary advantages for observing the phenomena of climate and nature; and it would add greatly to the interest of their lives did they busy and interest themselves with observations of temperature, and of the various natural phenomena which depend upon or denote climate: the arrival and departure of birds; the first and last frosts; the blossoming of flowers and trees. A Shaker family ought to produce records of this kind of great value and interest; and I wonder that such a book as White's "Selborne" has not empted some communist to such observations. But I nowhere, except at Oneida, found more than a very superficial interest in natural phenomena.
It is easy to see that here is a field of innocent and healthful amusement which, with the abundant leisure the members of a prosperous commune enjoy, could be worked so as to give a new and ever-fresh interest to the lives of young and old.
I find fault also with the isolation in which communal societies live. They would be the better if they communicated fully and frequently among each other, and interchanged thoughts and experiences. Not only do the different societies hold aloof from each other, but among the Shakers even families do not communicate or advise with others living at a distance. But I believe this is to be remedied.