XII — Collective ecosystem

Chapitre XII

COLLECTIVE ECOSYSTEM

Autonomous Collectives form an ecosystem: they associate, exchange, and mutually regulate each other. This chapter describes their economic operation, their partnerships, and the philosophy that drives them.

12.1 — AC Revenue Sources

An AC balances its books through several sources:

Residents’ work: captured salaries (external jobs) or internal work

Externals’ work: same logic, lower withholding

Internal production: agriculture, crafts, services sold

Partnership with unemployment insurance: bonus for successful placement

Affiliate contributions: symbolic but numerous

Services to businesses: labor, subcontracting

Diversification ensures resilience. No dependence on a single source.

12.2 — AC Federations

ACs can associate in federations to:

• Have more weight with suppliers (group purchases)
• Exchange experiences and best practices
• Expand possibilities (vacations, mobility, exchanges)
• Pool certain services (training, legal, accounting)

This is the equivalent of a franchise or a cooperative of cooperatives. Economies of scale without loss of local autonomy.

12.3 — Expulsion and Reputation

An AC can expel a member who doesn’t play by the rules. This is essential for self-funding to work: one cannot indefinitely carry free riders.

The expelled member must find another AC. Their reputation follows them—not formally, but through word of mouth between structures. ACs that accept them for trial will see for themselves.

The 15-day trial always remains possible. The door is never permanently closed.

12.4 — Rich and Poor Structures

There will be rich ACs and poor ACs, even very poor ones. To each according to their work. We no longer create generations of dependents—on the contrary, members experience the consequences of their behavior. They learn what they haven’t already learned: real life.

A structure that isn’t productive enough becomes impoverished. It pulls itself together with its members, or it disappears. Residents will then have to find elsewhere, but the experience will serve as a lesson to most.

It’s hard. It’s formative. It’s real life.

12.5 — The Autarkic Option

For those who refuse all collective rules—even the most flexible—there remains rural autarky. An isolated plot, a cabin, basic tools. One gets by alone, taking nothing from society.

This is not a punishment. It’s an offer. You were offered structured ACs, self-managed ACs, all variants. You refuse everything? Then you live with the consequences of your refusal. It’s your choice.

And even there, reversibility exists. Whoever changes their mind can knock on an AC’s door and request a 15-day trial. The door is never locked.

The system remains formative, not punitive.

12.6 — Partnership with Unemployment Insurance

Unemployment insurers (UI) have an interest in directing their insured toward ACs: the faster someone finds a framework, the less time the UI pays benefits.

Immediate information: from day one of unemployment, the UI informs about ACs as an option. Not a threat of “your benefits are ending,” but an offer from the start.

Not an alternative, a complement: one can search for a job from an AC, with the help of an AC, while contributing to an AC. The two reinforce each other. The AC offers a framework, contacts, mutual aid, a network. The unemployed person stays active, useful, surrounded, during their search.

Placement bonus: the UI can pay a bonus to the AC when a member finds a job. The AC becomes a reintegration provider paid by results.

Startup assistance: the UI can help create new ACs without funding them durably: connecting with places (deserted villages, brownfields), grouping interested people, lending temporary housing (pool of portable cabins to return once permanent buildings are ready). No money given, no subsidy—just a logistical boost.

Collaboration and affiliation: there can be formal collaboration between UI and AC, a kind of movement, and this can even be part of AC income. One can also be an external member of a community, temporarily, before, after, or permanently. One lives there, eats there, or brings their food or ingredients home, works there. Reinforced mixing. Smooth transitions.

12.7 — Dormant Resources

Unused resources await mobilization:

Deserted villages: houses for €1, municipalities seeking inhabitants. There are places lacking inhabitants that would welcome people.

Industrial brownfields: buildings to renovate

Abandoned farms: fallow agricultural land

Disused public buildings: former schools, barracks, hospitals

The implicit deal: “We give you the walls, you bring life.”

Building something from nothing, together, not being alone, can give a reason to live to those who have none or no longer have one. They may start living in tents or rather prefabs, this will motivate them to build their community. Others will find abandoned land, industrial brownfields, old buildings, to renovate, start something else.

12.8 — Bootstrapping

How to create the first ACs? History offers models:

The kibbutzim: pioneers with a common vision, available land, the urgency of survival. Cultural homogeneity is also created in action and in the choice of structures. The group’s collective survival will come into play.

Emmaus: work communities self-funded by recycling, founded for “hopeless cases” [194]

The Castors: post-war cooperative self-construction movement

The Familistère de Guise: collective worker housing that functioned for 100 years

The common ingredients: a unifying project, people with nothing left to lose, underused land resources, and the personal urgency of the founders.

The transition (chapter XXXIII) will need to create the conditions for this bootstrapping.

12.9 — What ACs Are Not

Not a hotel where you pay for a night.

Not a restaurant where you pay for a meal.

Not a shelter where you receive aid.

Not a job integration company where you’re a “beneficiary.”

You are a member. You work. You contribute. You share the fruits according to what you consume.

12.10 — Prohibition of Selection

ACs cannot select based on religious, ethnic, political, ideological, or any other identity criteria. They can offer options (vegetarian meals, organic garden, gym) but not impose or exclude.

No ghetto. This prohibition is inscribed in the constitution (protection of fundamental rights, Senate domain, modification at 4/5).

12.11 — The Philosophy: Voluntary Mutualism

ACs embody what socialism claimed to be—solidarity, mutual aid, the collective—without what it actually was—coercion, the State, spoliation.

This is voluntary collectivism within a libertarian framework. Free entry, free exit, self-funded, no State. ACs coexist with the market. No one is forced to live there. It’s one option among others.

Socialism failed because it was mandatory. The same model, made voluntary and competitive, works.

People will feel at home there, and continue living there. The diversity of rules will ensure the majority find a good fit. Only those who want to follow no rules, or be helped, will still be “on the street.” And still, one can easily envision autarkic living systems in the countryside for some of them. There is no magic wand, but one will need to seek formulas varied enough to satisfy everyone, or almost. But the key is that each entity must be financially autonomous.

12.12 — The Contemporary Relevance of Autonomous Collectives

The existence of autonomous collectives does not rest on their popularity, but on a fundamental principle: free individuals must be able to associate to live according to their values, as long as everyone’s rights are respected. However, recent history offers an important empirical indicator: certain forms of community life remain relevant today because they respond to real human needs.

Persistent Demand Despite Ambient Individualism

More than a century after their creation, in an Israeli society that has become very liberal, very individualistic, and highly urbanized, families continue to request permanent settlement in kibbutzim. The figures confirm this phenomenon: the kibbutz population has notably increased over the past two decades, from about 117,000 inhabitants in 2000 to nearly 190,000 in the early 2020s [46]. This growth is not explained solely by internal birth rates: it includes the arrival of new households wishing to adopt a community lifestyle.

Recent reports show that some kibbutzim organize welcome days attracting dozens of families interested in permanent settlement [47]. In 2025, a real movement of people seeking to leave big cities to join structured communities developed to the point where some kibbutzim have waiting lists and require financial participation at entry [48].

After the events of October 7, 2023, several organizations set up mechanisms to facilitate family relocation to kibbutzim in the border area, with the goal of welcoming up to 1,000 [49][50]. These initiatives do not concern temporary stays: they target families wishing to settle and fully participate in collective life. New educator kibbutzim have been created, welcoming hundreds of young adults wishing to live in community while contributing to reconstruction of affected areas [51].

Entry and Exit Conditions

The entry system in a contemporary kibbutz illustrates an interesting balance between openness and commitment:

Progressive entry. Most kibbutzim offer a trial period of several months to a year before definitive membership. The candidate lives on site, works with others, and both parties evaluate compatibility. This is precisely the 15-day trial model that ACs generalize.

Financial contribution at entry. Some kibbutzim now request an “entry fee” that can reach several tens of thousands of euros [48]. This is not a discriminatory obstacle but a guarantee of commitment: the candidate invests in their new community. This sum may be partially refundable upon departure.

Exit with compensation. Contrary to the image of a community one leaves empty-handed, modern (so-called “renewed”) kibbutzim allow departing members to leave with their accumulated personal savings, even a share of real estate appreciation if the model provides for it [42][43]. This possibility of “exiting with something” is fundamental: it guarantees that entry is not a trap.

These mechanisms—trial before commitment, contribution at entry, compensation at exit—correspond exactly to AC principles: transparency about rules, freedom of exit, and accumulation of personal savings.

What Persistent Demand Shows

These data do not “legitimize” autonomous collectives in themselves—their legitimacy derives from the principle of free association—but they clearly demonstrate that this model remains relevant and useful in a contemporary context. They show that, despite a social environment dominated by individualism:

• Some people choose collective structures for reasons of meaning (contributing to a common project)
• Others seek stability (predictable living framework, supportive community)
• Others still solidarity (not facing difficulties alone)
• Or simply a different quality of life (less stress, more human connections)

The persistent choice of community life, more than a century after the model’s invention, shows that this type of life is neither anachronistic nor marginal: it responds to a lasting human demand.

12.13 — A New Profession: Community Placement Counselor

If a pluralist society authorizes a great diversity of autonomous collectives—solidarity communities, cooperative villages, liberal structures, ecological groups, modernized kibbutzim, hamlet federations—a new need appears: helping individuals choose the community environment that best matches their values and lifestyle.

The Emergence of Intermediaries

In current reality, we already see structures emerging that partially play this role. In Israel, organizations like Torenu or the Kibbutz Movement serve as a liaison desk between kibbutzim and families seeking to settle there, directing candidates according to their preferences and community needs [49][51]. Similar mechanisms exist for moshavim and other forms of community life.

The proposed model generalizes this phenomenon and formalizes the emergence of a new profession: the community placement counselor.

The Counselor’s Role

This counselor helps each person or family identify:

• Their relationship to solidarity (strong, moderate, minimal)
• Their desire for collective life or conversely their need for autonomy
• Their cultural, educational, professional, and social expectations
• The type of collective likely to match their values
• The practical implications of entry or departure

The point is not to promote a particular model, but to make a pluralist social landscape readable. The counselor translates theoretical freedom into practicable freedom, avoiding that collective diversity only advantages the most informed or experienced.

A Key Function in a Society of Freedom of Association

The existence of families still seeking to join kibbutzim in 2025—despite an individualist society—illustrates the necessity of such a role: people genuinely desire to live differently, but need help identifying the community that will suit them best.

The community placement counselor becomes a key actor in pluralist society:

• They accompany diversity without ideologically directing it
• They secure transitions (information on rules, rights, obligations)
• They facilitate trials (connecting with ACs accepting newcomers)
• They follow pathways (help change structure if the first choice doesn’t suit)

This profession can be exercised by independents, associations, AC federations, or even unemployment insurers as part of their reintegration mission. Its existence guarantees that the freedom to choose one’s way of life does not remain theoretical.