I suspect that there's potential for a reskin of the notion of the "fraternal organization" that could work for contemporary urban professionals.
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Now you can do value-creating things with this group of trusted people that you can't do otherwise. For instance: members must provide professional services (like legal advice) free of charge to other members.
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Dues can pay for a house (or ideally several in several cities) to host social events for the organization and offer free accommodations to members visiting from out of town.
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Membership can also involve high-trust financial resource sharing, like a communal pool that offers interest-free loans to members whose loan applications meet the organization's approval.
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You can add lots of community activities onto the basic structure -- a daycare co-op, charitable work, a lending library (books or tools), various hobby/social activities, as you prefer.
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Unlike a professional organization, alumni organization, or college fraternity, this goes beyond providing a network; membership comes with formal obligations to contribute resources to other members. So it has to have a higher standard of trust than mere "networks".
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Of course, it's a lot like a church, except it's for secular people. A combination of ceremonies and aspirational ideals, like the Freemasons have, wouldn't hurt either. Maybe give it a "systems thinking"/"ecological"/"integrative" flavor.
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Does sound very interesting, even doable. I suspect the sticking point is what "lives together" means, and what kind of things get people kicked out.
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That’s tricky, but basically this is a system that can’t support people who are net recipients of aid in expectation. At least not at first. I used to be excited about using mutual aid to get people out of poverty, and then I saw firsthand how hard that is.
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The Bohemian Club (the one with the Bohemian Grove) is an interesting related model. Two kinds of members AIUI: the *very* professionally successful and skilled performing artists (music, theater etc), paying accordingly different dues.
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The VIPs get to hobnob with each other and enjoy (and sometimes join in, categories are not disjoint) pro-level performances in a club setting tailored to their tastes. The artists of course get to hobnob with VIPs, but also...
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