Posted on 09/15/2003 8:12:35 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Hippie commune thrives on capitalism
SUMMERTOWN, TENN.--Three decades after the golden age of the hippie, about 200 of them are still thriving in a self-supporting commune that operates a midwife service, a soy products company, a mushroom grower and a factory producing personal radiation detectors.
Known simply as The Farm, the sprawling collective about an hour southwest of Nashville has outlived nearly all of its tie-dyed contemporaries with a mix of entrepreneurship and idealism, and a touch of sweat.
Stephen Gaskin, the former writing instructor who brought his flock to this 1,800-acre site back in 1971, puts it plainly.
"We were hippies wanting to live together, and we accepted the discipline it took to do that," says Gaskin, a self-described "hippie priest and freelance rabble-rouser" who ran for president as a Green Party candidate in 2000.
Gaskin, now 68, was teaching in San Francisco when in 1966 he began holding meetings every Monday night on "what was happening outside his window," according The Farm's history posted on its Web site.
His ponderings were deep and the crowds grew, so Gaskin took the gatherings on the road, attracting a throng of followers. The caravan of about 1,500 bought some land in the Lewis County hills and The Farm was formed.
The early days, which Gaskin says were guided by agreements "looser than handshakes," turned to tough times. Some bad investments and an equally poor national economy in the late '70s put The Farm about $400,000 in debt, says Douglas Stevenson, a Farm resident since 1973.
What resulted was "the changeover" in 1983, which Stevenson described as the decision to make "every adult responsible for bringing in some cash." Part of The Farm remains collectively held -- the land and the commercial buildings remain owned by everyone -- but all residents must work.
Stevenson contributes his share of work through Village Media. It started out as a satellite installation company, but now does audio, video and Web work.
Phil Schweitzer, who works with Stevenson, can recall recording Gaskin's first Monday classes on reel-to-reel film. Now he sits editing a couple's wedding using a high-tech video system Village Media is testing for a consumer magazine.
Except for their casual jeans and T-shirts, these graying men in their 50s don't look or act much like the stereotypical, free-spirit hippies. They live with other residents in modest homes spread liberally across the vast fields and forests of the commune property, and they talk wistfully about how they once took their children to play Little League games in nearby Lawrenceburg.
People here may live under a different system than others, Stevenson says, but nobody came here "trying to escape from anything."
"Our real objective is communication," Schweitzer adds. "We support ourselves by doing little jobs."
When it comes to money, The Farm's handle on the books is less exacting than at most businesses. Leaders say they don't know what the commune's overall annual income is.
But SE International, the personal radiation detector factory which Farm residents say is the commune's most profitable business, had revenues of $2.1 million for the most recent fiscal year. Despite its pastoral location, SE International is fully insured and compliant with government regulations.
SE International consists of a collection of mobile homes, with a large one housing a dozen or so workers turning blank circuit boards into the 15 or so models of detectors that sell for $280 to $675 dollars apiece.
With emergency agencies and police and fire departments as customers, SE International's business has been booming since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, says Corey Walker, the company's director of marketing.
While Walker says SE International takes care that its clients don't make purchases out of fear, she acknowledges that "we're doing very well."
Book publishing was The Farm's original business, and remains collectively owned. Business has grown from the first title -- "This Is The Farm Book," published in 1974 -- to a catalog of vegetarian books including "Flax: The Super Food" and "Native Plants, Native Healing." The Farm's Web site links shoppers to Amazon.com, where most of the books are available for about $10.
Warren Jefferson, who came to The Farm on the original caravan and works at the publishing company, says he doesn't think The Farm has turned its back on its hippie roots to become just another capitalist tool.
Instead, he says, The Farm "honors" free enterprise and hasn't compromised the original "right livelihood" ideals, such as helping mankind by excelling at a task.
Still, he acknowledges: "It's always been difficult to pin down what we're about and what we believe in."
Gaskin also doesn't see any compromise in The Farm's success, but can't help but notice the inescapable change in the residents who came here 30 years ago to rebel against their parents and society.
"Now," he says, "we have become the grown-ups."
You left off the earliest such American group---the Shakers.
That's because they're not about anything and they don't have any beliefs.
Jamestown was founded as commune, with everyone entitled to an equal share of the production no matter what they did. Of course, it was a horrific failure until everyone was assigned an equal sized plot of ground and told that 'come next year, you pay six bushels of wheat or you get corporal punishment.'
That made Jamestown a great success of practially overnight.
But they are sure that the rest of us are wrong.
That’s ridiculous. I lived there for a bit and sure they turned culture on it’s head a little, but it’s not anything like a cult. It’s just a bunch of old hippies living on a communal plot of land.
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