"The commune movement is part of a reawakening of belief in the possibilities for utopia that existed in the nineteenth century and exist again today, a belief that by creating the right social institution, human satisfaction and growth can be achieved"
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There is a quiet provocation in Kanter framing communes not as a 1960s lifestyle fad but as management theory in homespun clothing. She’s smuggling a big claim past the reader’s cynicism: that “utopia” isn’t just a dream or a warning label, it’s a design problem. The key phrase is “the right social institution.” That’s the voice of someone who studies organizations for a living, translating the messy yearning for community into a solvable architecture of rules, roles, incentives, and belonging.
The intent is less to romanticize communes than to rehabilitate institutional optimism at a moment when modern life often feels over-engineered and under-nourishing. By tethering the commune movement to “the nineteenth century,” she invokes the era of intentional communities, socialist experiments, and religious settlements - not because they all worked, but because they shared a faith that structure can reshape the self. The subtext is ambitious and slightly dangerous: people are malleable. If you get the container right, “human satisfaction and growth” follow.
That promise lands like a pitch and a warning. It appeals to a culture disappointed by individual self-help and tempted by collective fixes: build a better system, stop blaming individuals for failing inside a bad one. At the same time, “belief” does heavy lifting - it hints that utopian experiments run on morale as much as logistics, and that the reawakening can be as cyclical as it is sincere. Kanter is capturing a recurring American impulse: when institutions fail, people try to prototype new ones from scratch.
The intent is less to romanticize communes than to rehabilitate institutional optimism at a moment when modern life often feels over-engineered and under-nourishing. By tethering the commune movement to “the nineteenth century,” she invokes the era of intentional communities, socialist experiments, and religious settlements - not because they all worked, but because they shared a faith that structure can reshape the self. The subtext is ambitious and slightly dangerous: people are malleable. If you get the container right, “human satisfaction and growth” follow.
That promise lands like a pitch and a warning. It appeals to a culture disappointed by individual self-help and tempted by collective fixes: build a better system, stop blaming individuals for failing inside a bad one. At the same time, “belief” does heavy lifting - it hints that utopian experiments run on morale as much as logistics, and that the reawakening can be as cyclical as it is sincere. Kanter is capturing a recurring American impulse: when institutions fail, people try to prototype new ones from scratch.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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