Commune Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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In its most technical sense, the term commune refers to a local level of social organization that became rooted in the administration of many European nations, especially France, where it represents the lowest level of government. When used in this sense, it is roughly equivalent to a township, civil parish, or municipality. In its more familiar usage, the term describes a voluntary association of people who seek to realize a common end through cooperative communal living.

Communes as vehicles of low-level social coordination flourished in medieval Europe, most notably in northern Italy. These communities initially banded together principally for the sake of common defense. Modern conceptions of commune reflect this notion of unity around a common end, though in more recent centuries this common end has tended to be spiritual or ideological rather than defensive. Consequently, modern communes are often referred to as intentional communities where “intent” implies not only the conscious design of living arrangements, but also a commitment to adopt a particular way of life; typically, this involves the pooling of property and consensus decision making. Usually communes are established and overseen by the grassroots initiative of a core group and supported by the like-minded consent of their membership, though occasionally the establishment has been imposed from above (like the Maoist “people’s communes”). The vast majority of communes are short-lived, although in some instances, like the kibbutzim in Israel, they have proven extremely resilient.

The nineteenth century is often seen as the heyday of religious communes underpinned by shared faith, especially in the United States, where groups like the Shakers and the Hutterites established durable and influential settlements with thousands of members. The nineteenth century was also a time of secular social experimentation, however, spawning communal enterprises inspired by the works of Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and Etienne Cabet, and informed by socialism and utopianism. In the twentieth century, the 1960s are particularly notable for the explosion of communal activity that took place in the context of the radical counterculture. The communes that were formed in this era often reflected, on one hand, the desire to “drop out” of mainstream society (like the hippie commune “Drop City”) and, on the other hand, more self-conscious attempts to realize alternative lifestyles and provide models intended to influence future social arrangements.

When commune appears with a capital C, the intended reference is generally the Paris Commune of 1871, the most famous historical example of a commune, itself inspired by the commune that controlled Paris from 1792 until 1794 following the French Revolution. The Paris Commune was an administrative unit overseen by revolutionaries who sought autonomy from the national government of Adolphe Thiers, which ultimately suppressed the communards militarily.

Bibliography:

Jones, Philip. The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Miller,Timothy. The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1999.
Pitzer, Donald E., ed. America’s Communal Utopias. Chapel Hill:The University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Shafer, David A. The Paris Commune. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.