8: The Flip Sides of Community Work

Publication Date:
19 Jul 2024
Pages:
133–153
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529236804.ch008
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This chapter looks at the flip sides of community work. It illustrates, on the advantages side, the intrinsic rewards of community work and the possibilities for freedom in effectuating it are not always enough to mobilize the required labour. Extrinsic non-monetary rewards – the positive flip side of work – complete the range of expected benefits. But there is also a dark side of productive activities, which are not always as pleasant as utopian rhetoric might suggest. On this constraint side, peer pressure and threats are effective ways of limiting insufficient commitment to work, even when the job is not to a person’s liking. At Twin Oaks, communards who fail to meet their quotas fall into the ‘labour hole’.

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