Dedication to Ideals

One reason that intentional communities fail is for lack of dedication to the ideals of the community.  If not much commitment is required to be a member, the community will not be able to retain members because they would be able to easily change their minds and leave the community.  However, if the community requires too much commitment and dedication, it will have a difficult time convincing people to join, and existing members will quit because they disagree with the rules.

 The reason that the Zoar village did not last as a communal society was because it was not the German settlers’ original intention to create a community.  The Zoarites shared everything out of necessity.  After sharing everything, the Zoar villagers were barely able to survive and did not have children.  Because the Zoarites had the chance to help build a section of the Erie Canal, they were able to pay off their land debt and start having children.  The communal system was working well for them, and the Zoarites decided to continue it.  However, the Zoarites lacked the zeal that other successful intentional communities had for a communal system.  Because they Zoarites had no drastic rules that would make reentry into society difficult, people could easily leave when they became unhappy with the system.

The Shaker community functioned very differently than the Zoar community.  The Shaker community had strict rules which required a lot of commitment from its members. The Shakers were celibate and men lived separately from women.  If a man was already married and had children it would be very difficult for him to join the Shaker community, because he would be separated from his wife, and his children would not be raised by him.  If a member did not believe in all of the ideals of the community, he would want to leave the community.  The Shakers began having a difficult time finding members to join their community.  Today, there are only two Shakers left because they have not been able to convince anyone to join their community. 

The Zoar community suffered from a lack of rules, and the Shakers suffered from having too many.  In both cases, membership decreased because of the lack of commitment to the ideals of the community.