Organization and distributional equality in a network of communes: the shakers

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  April, 1997  by Metin M. Cosgel,  Thomas J. Miceli,  John E. Murray

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I

Introduction

Individuals who share a common ideology or religious belief sometimes form a commune to jointly pursue prescribed goals. The fundamental principles that distinguish a commune from other religious or ideological organizations are the communal sharing of wealth and egalitarian distribution of output. Upon joining a commune, all members typically surrender their private property, contribute labor to cooperative production, and share both wealth and income with other members.

Ideally, to meet the principles of sharing and egalitarianism, all members live, work, and consume together in a single commune. As the membership of a commune grows, however, a single commune becomes harder to maintain. The initial scale of available land, living quarters, and production capacity can become either insufficient, or become inefficient, in providing adequately for the needs of existing members and new entrants. Most communes, for example the kibbutzim of Israel and the Hutterite Colonies, thus typically respond to increasing membership by setting up new communes, and even when they are geographically distant, they all comprise a communal network.(1)

The shift from the case of a single commune to a communal network raises an important organizational question for communes: how should each unit in the network be economically related to the others? To see the importance of the question, suppose that each unit is economically independent of others. In that case, the production of output and the sharing of wealth and income take place within each unit. But this economic independence might have adverse consequences for the fundamental communal principles within the whole network since some communes will own more wealth or generate more income per member than do the others. Given the potential for such a conflict with communal principles, the questions arise whether and why a commune might choose an organizational structure of a network consisting of economically independent units.

These issues arise in the history of a religious group called the United Society of Believers, better known as the Shakers. Communal ownership of assets and egalitarianism were integral aspects of Shaker religious practice. During the nineteenth century, the Shakers established several communities in seven states. From an organizational perspective, a distinct feature of the Shaker organization of communes was to further divide each community into economically independent subdivisions called "Families." Using the data from the 1850, 1860, and 1870 US Census enumeration schedules, this paper estimates the wealth and income per capita of Shaker Families in order to examine the consequences of the Shaker organizational structure of a network of independent Families. Both wealth and income per capita differed substantially across Shaker communities and even among Families within the same community. The sources of the observed inequality of wealth and income are examined, and an explanation is offered for why the Shakers chose to organize their communities in this way.

Understanding the Shakers also contributes to understanding the operation of egalitarian allocation schemes in general. The purposes served by the Family system and its consequences for communal principles give insight into alternative paths created by non-market, non-hierarchical organizations. When Richard T. Ely, a founder of the American Economic Association, visited the Shakers in 1885, he found the community to be a useful "social observatory" from which to view the day-to-day worldly economy (Ely 1886, 2). By inverting Ely's metaphor, his observatory can be examined in order to derive broader principles of non-market allocation mechanisms.

II

The Shakers and Their Communalism

Non-market allocative systems have long been a subject of scholarly study. Patterns of distribution within families and hierarchies have been examined closely (Pitt, Rosenzweig, and Hassan 1990; Williamson 1975). Producer cooperatives have been studied sufficiently to recognize the gap between theory and empirical results (Bonin, Jones, and Putterman 1993). The commune combines characteristics of the family, hierarchy, and cooperative. Like the cooperative, assets of the commune are jointly owned by its members; like the hierarchy, many decisions are determined by leaders, not by bargaining in a market setting; and like the family, members must care for those who are unable to care for themselves. In addition, each member's share of the gains from cooperative efforts is determined not by his or her contribution to production but according to egalitarian principles.

Common ownership and egalitarian distribution schemes raise several important issues for the social scientist. Well known examples are the problem of the tragedy of commons and the incentive problems caused by the independence of income from effort.(2) This paper focuses on organizational issues that affect a commune's ability to pursue communal principles. Although the organizational structure of a commune ideally might be based solely on these principles, it is also subject to various social and economic realities that affect the choice of structure. The interaction between communal principles and socio-economic forces might thus present various trade-offs to the commune, making the prevailing organizational structure one that ultimately limits the commune's ability to achieve equality in wealth and income among all its members. Inequality in communes have previously been studied, especially in the context of the Israeli kibbutz.(3) For example, Rosner and Tannenbaum (1987: 521) find that "[k]ibbutzim differ from one another in democratic and egalitarian practice and in equality itself." Similarly, Amiel, Cowell, and Polovin (1996) study recent changes in inequality among the kibbutzim. Parallel issues are studied here in the context of the Shakers, along with analyzing the organizational dimension. Shaker communalism is examined in theory and in practice, and the nature, consequences, and causes of the distinct features of the organization of Shaker communities is discussed.