June 13 1902 III

A DESIGN FOR LIFE
Food
Tobacco
Clothing
Housing
Tools
Intellectual Needs
Personal Needs
Workdays

Instructions and ideas for the first annual meeting of the Kalevan Kansa on Malcolm Island.

As I have been thinking about ways of organizing the book-keeping of the KK, I have become aware of the fact that we cannot avoid the dangers of private ownership, even if we are able to get rid of the everyday use of money among us. If for example the company’s warehouse is giving out products against workday coupons to everyone that needs them, or saving them in his account, then we are in the exact same situation as if we were actually using money. A person becomes rich or poor depending on how hard he is willing to torment himself with work and self-denial, and even depending on how much he has assets from before and how he is able to speculate with them. We will still not be able to move from private economies to collective ones, from private family life to a collective one. The demands of one’s own family and securing its future are always in the way, disturbing us and stopping us from sacrificing everything for the sake of the whole. Our own good and the good of the company will remain separate and in continuous conflict.

As a warning example we have to remember, that it was actually the family, that tore down the original society of the first Christians. They were not able to break free from the ties of private family life.

Responsibilities towards the family are of less value than responsibilities towards a whole, they are nothing more than expanded selfishness. With the same right a married person primarily thinks of his family as an unmarried person thinks first of himself and secondarily of the whole.

But if they would both give everything up for the sake of the whole, they would not exist anymore and there would be no more responsibilities – by this I mean financial responsibilities – towards the self or towards the family. Those responsibilities would be shifted to the shoulders of the whole.

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All necessities of life must be included in our joint need right from the beginning. They must be freely available to everyone, just as oxygen or sunshine. These natural vital conditions are as follows:

Food
Food will be free for everyone in Sointula, no matter how it’s produced; in our own field, from our own cattle, fishing, hunting or bought from the outside. It will, after all, have to be acquired with joint funds, and no one will eat more than one stomach full at a time. We will eat it together and we will pay for the costs together.

Food will be free for those fit to work, as well as for those unable to work, for children, for the sick and for the elderly, for those working independently or for the company. Children, you see, will grow up to bring us food when we are old. The sick will get well and pay our bills during the time that we may be sick.

If the company didn’t have work to offer to a member, would he have to go on without eating? Or if the company doesn’t need certain workers during certain times. No, not at all. Our joint bills will be paid by those, whose work at the given time is most profitably turned into money. At other times, another group will be making money. It is the responsibility of those, who have been chosen as leaders, to distribute the profitable and non-profitable fields of work for each year in a way that we won’t get into difficulties. They will also arrange work from the outside for those who are not needed on the island at certain times.

And if someone just eats, but doesn’t work?

When the manager reports to the board of directors that someone has refused to obey his orders, the board of directors will question the person concerned, and will deal with the matter according to company rules and taking the circumstances into account.

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What about tobacco?

It should actually be considered an extra treat, as long as we are buying it from the outside. Despite this, I am suggesting that it be freely given to those, who are incurably accustomed to it – not because I am one of them, but because I have come up with an excellent way in which smokers can pay their private pleasure back to the company. It is an extra item of expenditure for the company, and therefore it must be paid back with extra work. And as far as I see, the best extra work in this case is cleaning the outhouses. That should be left to the smokers for two reasons: first, their weakened sense of smell suffers less, and second, as they are performing this task, they can get an idea of the unpleasant effect their smoking has on the noses of the non-smokers. For the less hardened it can also be an exhortation to give up their bad habit, but it will not be enough to convert someone that has reached the same stage as I have. I intend to stay in the group of smokers.

The only book-keeping that food products require is one showing where each product has come from, what the consumption has been and how much they have cost the company either in work or in money. Between the company and the individual members, there will, however, be no account of consumption.

Clothing
Clothing will be just as free as the food, including underwear, work and other clothes, nightclothes, shoes, hats etc. Each and everyone of us will quite equally need them, and no one can wear more than one suit at a time. The persons concerned should once again take into account, what is reasonable in view of joint funds and individual demands. One has to realize, that in some fields of work, clothes wear out faster than in others.

In the beginning, the poor financial situation of the company will be felt in everything, and it can especially be seen in the clothing. Therefore those staying at home need to be more poorly dressed, so that those travelling in the name of the company can be provided with better clothes.

As the company becomes wealthier and we will be able to make our own clothes, our dress will become better. He who now wants to hurry ahead of the poor times, and dress up over the average, can privately pay for his fancy things, perhaps through the mediation of the company. But the company will clothe all the children.

It will be a joint advantage that most of us, especially the families, already have some clothes of their own. I will not suggest that they be claimed by the company, or compensated in any way. Let each person use their own clothes as long as they last. The more will be saved in the company’s annual account. Those with families can console themselves with the fact, that bachelors, who don’t have very many clothes with them, will eventually do their share to clothe the children, when their current clothes are worn out. And that day is probably not that far away.

Housing
The poorest of us have suffered from the lack of housing enough elsewhere. In Sointula, the lack of personal funds will no longer be an obstacle in getting a place to live. Accommodation is as natural and necessary a condition to human life as food and clothes.

Once the island has a sawmill and enough carpenters, what will stop us from getting houses built? The board of directors can acquire the funds that are needed for building through other work and other men.

There will be no account for how much each dwelling has come to cost the company. After all, each dwelling will have a price. We have our own materials, our own machines, men, food – everything is ours. The materials that will be ordered from the outside will also be paid jointly.

After questioning the persons concerned, the board of directors will determine the upper limit for the building expenditures as well as the quality of the materials. For example 3 rooms for each family, an entrance hall, a storage room and an outhouse. He who wants for example an upstairs room, should make it or pay for it by himself , if he is not willing to wait for the time we can build one for everyone. The area and height of the rooms will also be determined. He who wishes to have something considerably bigger or longs for ornaments, pays for the extra himself.

There may be some families that have a long term friendship and are so attached to each other that they want or at least would be content living together. This would naturally be cheaper and the company could reward this by adding some amenities – for example an upstairs room ready now – and by building these houses first, because this way more people would have a roof over their heads sooner . (The most urgent needs, however, are some community buildings.) Some see the 1 acre lot decided earlier as too big. They could be compensated by letting two, who feel this way, live in the same house on the same lot. But the lots would still be measured 50 fathoms long and 25 fathoms wide. A group of young, single men could, for some time, live together in one house.

How can those, that have money hasten the building process for their own benefit? By buying more shares or by depositing their money to their savings account in the company. The company can use the money where it is needed the most at the given time. The more money the company will have at its use, the faster the buildings will rise.

If there is no other way to decide, whose house will be built before the others’, let it be decided by lot. This will also be used, if several people want the same lot or the same apartment in a building reserved for more than one family.

Tools
The tools are already now common property. Some valuable tools that have been privately owned, have been bought for the company, and will be bought in the future as well. Each work organizer has to carefully see to it that the tools are taken care of properly. Otherwise they will soon get lost or be damaged.

Also the necessary cooking utensils and dishes have to be supplied on behalf of the company for the kitchen as well as for the homes that need them.

Intellectual needs

As a rule, intellectual needs have to be taken into consideration. The desired books and newspapers (first and foremost the ones out of our own printing press) must be kept freely available for everyone at the library, in the reading-room, and some will even be distributed into the homes.

Getting a piano is already a certainty, there is already a drama group, and an orchestra is still on the wish list, but without a doubt it will be formed in due time. We are sure to have lectures and ennobling discussions, so that intellectual pursuits in Sointula will be livelier than anywhere else among our countrymen.

He, who wishes to acquire something extra, for example a book or a newspaper which is not subscribed to with joint funds, can get it privately, most profitably through the company. The same goes for musical instruments for private homes.

Intellectual needs have naturally been kept in mind in paragraph 32 of the rules, according to which half of the annual profit will be used “for the benefit and the good of the full members”.

Personal Needs
If everything is organized in the way described above, there will be very few personal needs among us, and hardly any in the future.

There are, however, needs on the outside. Someone has a wife and children in Finland, the other a nice girl looked up or a friend he has to help come here. Someone might have debts to take care of. For expenses such as these, the daily pay and the other half of the annual profit must be divided among those that have worked for the company, the same amount for each workday, since everyone is getting the same daily pay. If the engagements cannot wait for the annual account – our only actual payday – the board of directors can consider, which of the proposed needs can be partly or wholly met beforehand with the company’s assets, and which should be
postponed. What an incredible relief for an individual, when his burden is shared by hundreds!

Besides, this is the only effective way against Finnish uncommunicativeness. Since everyone will be aware of each others’ private matters, there will be no envy or gossip.

The brotherliness of the Laestadians [A religious movement in Finland. Translator’s note.] is a fine example for us, even if we can’t follow them in other aspects. They openly confess their “sins” to each other, so that they do not have any secrets among them. We will do the same by confessing our debts and by confidentially submitting our case to be negotiated among benign comrades.

Won’t this lend itself to grow and maintain the purest spirit of comradeship?

Workdays
Workdays need to be kept track of, because otherwise their amount and their value in money would not be known. If someone doesn’t have any of the above mentioned personal needs to take care of, after he has made the annual account, he can collect his part of the pay and invest it how he pleases, preferably into KK shares, which are always worth the full amount of money.

The book-keeping of the company will eventually be reduced to the normal book-keeping of a “big house”, whose purpose is to merely show, what each field of activities has produced or taken from the company during the year. It will also keep our accounts straight with the outside world, but it won’t interfere with the regular everyday dealings of our big family in any other way than by counting their wages. In this way one man is able to take care of the whole thing for a long time ahead. If we started keeping track of each piece of bread and cup of coffee, our book-keeping would sooner or later require a whole office full of personnel and a large amount of paper.

And what purpose would this serve? It would only keep us in the shackles of private ownership. I believe there is no better way I could help organize the book-keeping of the KK, a task that I have been chosen to do, than suggesting that people’s natural and necessary needs need not be accounted to the company. I am, however, ready to keep precise accounts on everything else.

Already in drawing up the current year’s accounts, I see that it is important that the above mentioned matter of principle be discussed and decided on in the upcoming annual meeting.

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