Social Activity and Management

An examination of the administrative procedures in communal settlements points to conspicuous elements of authoritarian leadership. In most commmunes there were no democratically-elected institutions as was the case in most American communities of a similar size. Alexander Kent, who visited the communes in 1901 as representative of the Federal Department of Labor, remarked in his conclusions that “democracy in a cooperative community has so far proven a source of weakness rather than of strength. ¹ ”