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communalism

Advocacy of communes.

There is a positive value in individuals cooperating with each other in small groups, rather than relying on individual effort.

Communalism differs from collectivism in that it values groups small enough for all members to be familiar with one another; and in seeing the benefits of co-operation as consisting as much in social and cultural satisfaction as in material efficiency.

Communalism provides the ethical aspiration of which communism was, in its 19th century version, the strategic or political application.

Source:
Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (London, 1982)

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