To achieve this we need people, but we also need land and resources. The target of this campaign is to raise sufficient funds to gain buildings and to make them functional to start a community, ideally of at least 20 people. This would not necessarily be in the UK, where property prices are very high. Having purchased property and lived in Bulgaria I know the circumstances of the country, and that property there can be acquired much more cheaply. To purchase a building of the necessary size and requirements in suitable condition or one in need of renovation, would require about £10,000. I have £2000 I can use from the sale of an existing modest property, so I am looking for £8000 to get this project started.

Part of the building would be developed as a workshop manufactory for sale of finished products, thus assuring the future financial sustainability of the community. I have previous experience of running a retail clothing enterprise so I know what is required in running such an entity. If there is sufficient space, the community would also accommodate paying guests. The vision is for a flexibility of tenure in the community, from those who want to stay only briefly, to those who want to commit to a longer stay and may partly contribute labour, and those most committed to the project who wish to become permanent members of the community.

Any donations, no matter the size, will make you a supporter of the community and give you the right to inclusion in projects and advance notice about them. Donations between £10 and £50 will make you a friend of the community, with the right to visit the community and stay temporarily at reduced rates to observe and experience it in practice. Donations over £50 will give you automatic right to membership of the community, with voting rights and hence to shared ownership of all assets of the community.

As a working member of the community, it’s not just shared ownership and voting rights you’d get. You’d probably get a pay rise. It would run on a system of labour equality, meaning everyone should be getting paid according to the average salary income, which in the UK at the moment is about £37,400 per annum. And that’s regardless of what work you choose to do. And yes, you would get to choose. You’d apply for jobs just like you do now, only this time you’d stand much more chance of getting them. Unemployment, which is mostly caused in capitalist societies by excessive profit-taking which creates a permanent deficit of jobs to the number of people available to do them, would be very low in this society. So even if you couldn’t straight away get your ideal job you’d certainly be able to get another job until you do.

And that average salary figure would go further, probably much further, than it does now in the UK because the cost of living would be much lower. Your accommodation costs would be much lower in this community and other aspects weighing into the cost of living would be lower too. The building could be situated in a remote location, so we would have a shop on site for purchase of many daily items at subsidized rates for members, at which only paying guests would need to pay full price.

And it’s not just your pay that would improve. Conditions of work generally would be much better. Who wants you working long hours in often miserable conditions? The private owner of your labour, who wants to extract as much profit from it as possible. As the shared owners of our own labour we wouldn’t stand for it. The leaders of this community would be accountable to us in regular elections and would not be in the pockets of powerful lobbyists, so no abusing their position would be tolerated.

All monies raised will be used towards paying for buildings and any assets necessary to bring them into a suitable condition for the community.

This is a society where you could take pride in your work knowing you are keeping the fruits of your own labour because you own the process, where you can socialize with others in a system of economic and social equality, and in a society whose rules are genuinely determined by you and not by politicians remote from your life and who are governed not by your vote but by big money lobbyists. Such a world is within our grasp today if we reach for it. Today the bourgeois capitalist system is in crisis across the world and there has never been a stronger case for a new kind of society. Together we can make this happen and find a new way of living.