Abstract
Communes are a type of close-knit community, with strong social norms that characterize moralnets. In her book Commitment and Community, Kanter (1972) analyzes historical data from 9 success ful and 21 unsuccessful communes in terms of a variety of customs. She identifies a number of customs that characterized successful nineteenth-century communes. Kanter's Commitment mechanisms are customs that would be expected to foster the traits of strong moralnets. Therefore, analysis of the correlation between the presence of these mechanisms and commune success may be regarded as a test of moralnet theory. If moralnet theory is correct, successful communes should practice these customs more frequently than unsuccesful communes. A sample of contemporary communes oper ating in the seventies was selected to test the predictive power of the scales over time, and assess their usefulness for describing twentieth-century communes. The mechanisms tested are the presence of strong leaders, cultural homogeneity of members joint investment, isolation, shared ideology, distinctive customs, and disciplinary action for deviency. Despite differences, the results of these analyses indicate that the commitment scales are robust; their patterns persist across samples, methods, and centuries.
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