Communities - collapse and renewal
In this post, I’ve tried to synthesize and compare what I’ve read and heard on the topic. Just to name a few sources and inspirations: Vilmos Csányi’s idea of the “one-person community”; András Lányi and his school (e.g. András Takács-Sánta) on the transformative role of small communities in society; György Marosán on organizational dynamics and communal-style operations; Balázs Stumpf Bíró on survival strategies; my son Péter’s housing community; the holiocracy model introduced by Levente Stork; and Alexandra Köves on values inherent in human nature and her unbroken optimism.
Due to the size of the text, the Hungarian version is in a separate post
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1. Introduction – The Disintegration of Communities and the Concept of the "One-Person Community"
Humans are inherently social beings. Throughout history, we have always belonged to communities of various sizes — families, village collectives, clans, religious or cultural groups. These communities were not only means of survival but also carriers of identity: they gave meaning to life, defined roles, and provided a shared framework for interpreting the world.
However, industrial modernization, urbanization, the rise of the information society, and consumerist individualism have gradually dismantled these traditional structures. Mobility, atomized lifestyles, and digital isolation have created a world in which individuals can often rely only on themselves — and where the source of identity is no longer rooted in community experience, but in self-curated personal narratives.
Vilmos Csányi aptly calls this state the “one-person community”: a world of individuals who lack real embeddedness in a social fabric, yet attempt to compensate for this absence through digital substitutes, ideological loyalty, or by retreating into nationalist or fundamentalist identities. This condition leads not only to psychological emptiness and societal mistrust but also poses political dangers, opening the door to authoritarian solutions and the rise of substitute identities. (Communities are held together by three core elements: shared actions among members, shared beliefs, and collectively created social constructs. When these three are in place, a fourth emerges — loyalty to the community.)
🧠 1. Theoretical Foundations – Why Are Communities Important?
According to Vilmos Csányi and other human ethologists, community is the natural operating environment of the human species. Survival, morality, learning, norm-following, and identity are all fundamentally social processes. Even the phenomenon of the “one-person community” reflects this: it shows that humans are wired to function as social beings, and the lack of genuine communities causes psychological, moral, and societal disturbances.
2. Why We Need to Rebuild Communities
Communities offer more than emotional security. Participation in communal life strengthens self-esteem, reduces anxiety, fosters collaboration skills and conflict resolution, and lays the foundation for sustainable societies in the long run. It generates social capital — without which there can be no economic competitiveness, democratic culture, or environmental sustainability.
True competence can only develop within communities, where individuals learn responsibility toward others, interest reconciliation, and how to develop rules and shared values. Community doesn’t suppress the individual — on the contrary, it completes them.
By the early 21st century, most traditional bonds had weakened or dissolved. Communities that once offered identity, security, and moral frameworks — such as families, villages, clans, religious or professional networks — have, in many cases, become mere memories. In their place, “pseudo-communities” have emerged: reliance on national identity, fundamentalist ideologies, or digital groups that promise shared values, but often fail to provide true emotional safety, real cooperation, or long-term societal sustainability.
One of Csányi’s key insights is that identity is inherently a communal phenomenon: humans are biologically wired for group life. When genuine communities are absent, personality fragments, and the individual becomes a “one-person community” — making themselves the sole point of reference. This creates fertile ground for fast-spreading yet dangerous ideologies and social atomization.
Yet this is not an inevitable end state. Community can be rebuilt. But only if we accept that this is neither automatic nor painless. A community doesn’t emerge just because people live or work together. Community must be learned — and taught
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3. Community as a Learning Process
The foundation of community-building is personal participation and commitment. This can — and must — begin in school. According to Csányi, maintaining the classroom as a stable community and having a teacher who also functions as a community organizer play a key role in helping children learn not only curriculum content but also communal norms, trust, and cooperation. The experience of communal life develops transferable skills — ones that individuals can carry into new environments as well.
The relative efficiency of small-group functioning has been experimentally confirmed by the well-known study by Fehr and Gächter (2002), which showed that in groups larger than 5–7 members, “free riders” — those who ignore common rules — begin to appear. Initially, these can be dealt with by the group itself (through altruistic punishment), but beyond a certain size — typically the Dunbar number, around 150 members — norm enforcement requires institutional systems beyond personal relationships: formal rules, procedures, and institutions
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This suggests that real societal stability is not found in one homogeneous community, but in a network of communities — a system in which local small-scale communities operate autonomously but are interlinked within a broader structure that ensures the circulation of values, information, and resources.
4. Why We Need New Forms of Community
The environmental crisis, the dark sides of economic globalization, and the global deterioration of mental health are leading more and more people to seek out community-based alternatives. The eco-political school of András Lányi or Jem Bendell’s “deep adaptation” vision both start from the premise that the collapse of global systems is not only a threat but also an opportunity for local renewal. Self-sufficient producer communities, community-supported agriculture, new modes of co-living and co-learning (such as cooperatives, ecovillages, or co-housing) have already demonstrated their viability in many parts of the world.
However, scaling up — embedding these models into broader social systems — does not happen automatically. Communities need support: training, legal and financial protection, and political recognition. In fact, the operation of communal models often clashes with current market logics, regulatory frameworks, or prevailing consumer expectations.
5. The New Momentum of Communal Thinking
Despite all this, communal thinking is gaining new traction. More and more young people are open to sharing-based economies (carsharing, cohousing), local products, and value-based cooperation. In an increasingly fragmented world, many are seeking a renewed experience of belonging.
However, this requires accepting that community is not a comfort zone. It involves confrontation, compromise, learning, and sacrifice. Community does not offer instant solutions to all problems. But in terms of long-term survival, identity, psychological stability, and sustainability — there is no real alternative.
Community is both a value and a tool. Both a goal and a method. At present, few truly believe that it can be rebuilt. But like any learning process, it begins with small steps:
A shared garden.
A volunteer group.
A joint learning experience.
A real conversation.
The future may not lie in a global techno-utopia — but neither in isolated survival outposts. Rather, it may lie in a network of communities, where people re-learn what it means to rely on one another — as human beings, not merely as consumers.
🛠️ 2. Methods and Tools for Community Building
A) Educational Communities
Stable group structure: keeping children in the same class with a consistent teaching team lays the foundation for community identity and shared norms.
Teacher as community builder: not merely a transmitter of knowledge, but a “ritual master” and social catalyst.
Shared projects, rule-making, and responsibilities: students are not just passive recipients of the system, but active participants in shaping it.
B) Residential and Productive Communities
Micro-communities organized on cooperative principles: for example, food co-ops, local energy networks, and community gardens.
Shared ownership, shared decision-making, shared responsibility: this is not only a model for economic resilience but also for social learning.
Strong internal communication channels: regular forums, general assemblies, and community rituals foster cohesion and transparency.
C) Digital and Thematic Communities
Online groups can also provide real social experiences, if they are built on identity, structure, and cohesion.
Theme-based communities — for example, around sustainability, local culture, or educational innovation — can provide entry points for broader cooperation.
D) Symbolic and Ritual Tools
Shared stories and common goals: these act as the “glue” of the community.
Rituals, celebrations, and collective creation: these deepen emotional bonds and identity.
🧭 3. Realism and Temporality
In practical terms:
Community works best on a small scale: typically in groups of 5 to 150, which aligns with Dunbar’s number — the limit of stable social relationships.
It requires commitment and shared minimum values — which do not emerge spontaneously.
External support is essential: including legal, economic, and infrastructural backing. For example, cooperative legislation or land ownership models that favor community initiatives.
In terms of time:
Building a functioning community takes years. The first stage is always trust-building.
Communities are cyclical: they go through founding, stabilization, crisis, and renewal phases.
Key success factors: stable internal structure, competent facilitation, and external support networks.
🧩 Additional Insight: Community as a “Learning Unit”
A community is viable only if it is capable of self-correction, adaptation, and learning. This is why we should think of it as a living learning organization — where every member is not merely a participant, but also a contributor to the ongoing development of the whole.
🧩 Part 3: What Does It Take to Work? — Limits, Conditions, and the Learnability of Community
Community life is not a romantic idyll. It doesn’t work everywhere, and not always. Like any human system, communities are vulnerable: to internal conflicts, power imbalances, exhaustion — or simply to the fact that there is too much burden and too little time, energy, or support.
Still, more and more people are seeking it — because the alternatives seem to be running out. If we want to avoid being swallowed by apathy, market logic, or authoritarian "order", we need to relearn how to live in community. But this can’t happen overnight. Living in community is a real learning process — with its own challenges, pitfalls, and — if done well — transformative experiences.
⏳ 1. Community Building Takes Time
Many begin the journey, few stay the course. A functioning community does not arise spontaneously: it takes long months — often years — to build mutual trust and the natural rhythm of cooperation.
Communities function best within the size range of 5–150 people — corresponding to Dunbar’s number. Beyond this, coherence requires layered structures, active facilitation, and consciously agreed-upon rules.
Communities move through cycles: founding, momentum, crisis, and transformation. Most fall apart after the second crisis — especially if there is no external support, skilled leadership, or flexible renewal capacity. That’s why external support is crucial: professional guidance, financial infrastructure, and a supportive legal framework.
🧭 2. Structural Conditions and System-Level Support
Community models do not develop in a vacuum. They thrive when the legal and social environment supports — rather than hinders — them. This includes:
Legal conditions: Simplified legal forms for cooperatives and community initiatives; legal security for small-scale producers and residential collectives.
Infrastructure: Access to land, shared spaces, and essential utilities.
Economic tools: Seed funding, favorable loans, tax incentives, and local economic stimuli.
We cannot expect people to experiment with their time, money, and energy — often beyond their capacity — while the dominant system rewards individualism and penalizes cooperation. As long as social collaboration is disincentivized, and the market rewards self-interest, community alternatives will remain accessible only to a privileged few.
🎓 3. Democracy Is Learnable — Through Community
Democracy cannot be taught in lecture format. One can learn the theory — but it can only be lived and understood through real decision-making situations: where people argue, choose, and take responsibility together. In other words: in communities.
That’s why it matters when this learning begins. School communities, project-based learning, student self-government, and classroom-level rulemaking — all these are learning laboratories for participatory decision-making. If these experiences are missing, it is difficult to catch up in adulthood.
But it can be learned in adulthood too. Anyone who has taken part in a participatory decision — whether in a community garden, a cooperative, or a local initiative — is more likely to remain open to participation in the future. Because community experience is self-reinforcing: as competence grows, so does trust — and with it, the willingness to engage.
🤝 4. The Foundations: Trust, Dialogue, Shared Goals
Let’s be clear: community is not built on money or ideology — but on trust. And trust is built on three pillars:
Dialogue: openness to others, acceptance of differing views.
Shared goals: something that matters to everyone, something worth working on together.
Participation: real involvement in decisions — not just formal, but meaningful.
Without these, there is no democracy. But these are precisely the capacities that can be learned, practiced, and developed in communities. And as they grow, so does the civic culture — a culture that not only tolerates democracy, but is capable of making it function, both locally and nationally.
That’s why elections are not enough. A constitution is not enough. The foundation of democracy is that there are people who know how to think, decide, and live democratically. And that ability is not a given — it must be learned.
And that learning happens through community.
If we want democracy, we must first build communities.
💻 5. Online Communities — Illusion or Opportunity?
At first glance, the digital space would seem ideal for community building: easy to join, fast communication, no geographic boundaries. Yet Facebook groups, Discord servers, or comment threads rarely become real communities. Why?
Typical limitations of online communities:
Too many participants: it’s hard to build trust when hundreds or thousands are talking at once.
Lack of focus: cooperation needs clear goals and structure — the online space tends to scatter attention.
No physical presence: nonverbal signals, shared activities, gestures — these give depth to human connection.
Low commitment: the “leave group” button is always there, so many simply opt out instead of facing conflict.
But this does not mean the online space is worthless. Quite the opposite — its complementary and connective role can be vital.
Supplemental function: helps offline communities maintain communication, coordination, and documentation.
Networking: connects local communities with similar goals, enabling national or international collaboration.
Knowledge sharing: exchange of methods, experiences, and educational materials via open or closed platforms.
Just like in ecosystems, layering and interconnection are the key: online tools cannot replace local, personal, offline communities — but they can strengthen and connect them. Not as a foundation, but as an amplifier — if we use them wisely.
🏛️ Part 4 – Can This Become a Social Model?
Systemic Possibilities and Limitations of Community Practice
In the previous sections, we explored how communities can work at a human scale—when they can become vibrant, sustaining, and democratic units. But is it possible to extend this model to a larger society? Can community-based functioning be more than just a lifestyle choice—can it become an alternative approach to organizing society?
🧱 1. Structural Conditions for the Community Model
Although communities are based on small-scale, personal relationships, they can still be linked into a layered, networked system in which different levels operate under different decision-making logics:
Local level: Where life-related decisions are made with high participation and direct democracy.
Regional level: A forum for cooperation among similar types of communities—used for coordination and resource sharing.
National/infrastructure level: Where unified frameworks (e.g., law, tax systems, standards) are necessary—but not necessarily centralized governance.
This logic resembles the operation of ecological systems or cooperative networks: decentralization does not mean disorganization, but rather multi-level cooperation.
However, several prerequisites are necessary for this:
Legal and institutional frameworks: Cooperative laws, strengthened local government competencies, and support for participatory mechanisms.
Resource redistribution: Local communities need access to tools and infrastructure—there can be no self-determination without access to land, energy, and decision-making.
Training and facilitation: Community functioning doesn’t happen "naturally"; it requires learning, community organizing skills, and mediation.
🧭 2. Why Is It Difficult—and What Is Needed at a Societal Scale?
Scaling up the community model is not merely a technical issue. Several deeply rooted obstacles slow the process:
Individualized society: Where identity increasingly unfolds through personal brands and consumer choices, it is difficult to reweave a collective “we.”
Pervasive distrust: Most of society lacks even the minimum trust—both in institutions and in each other—that is essential for community-based functioning.
Fragmented public life: Polarization, digital echo chambers, and the hollowing out of representative democracy do not favor deliberative, consensus-seeking forms.
Overcoming these challenges requires a deliberate, long-term transition policy—not a revolution, but democratic regeneration:
Pilot programs: Support for micro-communities, creation of local economic and social laboratories.
Democratic learning spaces: In schools, public institutions, and the civil sector—where not only knowledge, but participatory competencies are developed.
Narrative shift: Community should not be framed as nostalgic past but as a livable future—we must culturally re-narrate it.
🌉 3. What Role Can Community Functioning Play in Society?
Even if it does not become the dominant system, community-based functioning has a place in the society of the future—as a counterbalance, a learning space, and an alternative socio-economic logic:
Role in climate adaptation: Local resilience is rooted in community organization.
Role in democratic learning: Democracy is not just an institution but a practice—best learned in small communities.
Role in reclaiming human dignity and participation: The community is a space where the individual is not diminished but amplified.
Thus, the community model is not omnipotent—but it is indispensable. It does not replace the state or the national economy, but rather complements, corrects, and reshapes them from below. Without communities, there is no democracy—not just as a political system, but as a lived social practice, a learned behavior, an internalized attitude.
And this attitude only develops in communities—where real decisions are made, where cooperation has real stakes, and where people learn not only to speak, but to listen, reflect, and reach agreement.
And most importantly: it brings back a human scale to a world that has long since lost it.
🌱 Part 5 – A Vision of a Community-Based Society
What can we do with what we already know and have experienced?
Across the world, smaller and larger communities are already trying to reweave the frayed fabric of society. The question is: can all these scattered experiences begin to form a vision of a society that is not just capable of surviving, but of truly living—with sustainability, dignity, and togetherness?
🌍 1. What Would a Community-Based Society Look Like?
It is not a new ideology, nor a uniform system. Rather, it is a pluralistic, human-scale world where communities are not isolated enclaves, but nodes in a living network. A society where communities:
are not opponents of the individual, but spaces for individual flourishing;
are not rivals to the state, but autonomous cells of society;
do not retreat from the world, but offer an alternative within it.
Such a society does not centralize, but coordinates. It does not organize around a single center, but is based on the coexistence of diverse, mutually responsive communities.
🧪 2. Not a Utopia – But a Living Laboratory
The future does not unfold according to a finished blueprint, but through experimentation. A community-based society is the same: it is not complete—it is in the making, built from existing practices, mistakes, and fresh beginnings.
This world:
is rooted in resilience – different communities may find different answers to the same challenge;
is capable of learning – through feedback, debate, and shared experience, it is constantly evolving;
is grounded in real life – it starts from everyday problems, not from abstract ideologies.
Communities do not need to be perfect—but they must be capable of improving themselves and building relationships with others.
🛠️ 3. What Could Such a Society Be Built On?
The building blocks of a community-based society are not high-tech innovations or power structures, but:
trust and participation – re-learning these is the foundation of everything else;
local resources – decentralizing the economy, strengthening local ecosystems;
knowledge sharing – not from elitist centers, but through communal learning and intelligence;
cultural diversity – not a homogenized society, but one built on dialogue and mutual understanding;
systems and network thinking – not hierarchies, but relationships and interconnections.
This model does not exclude the state, infrastructure, or even the market—but it redefines their roles: seeing them not as rulers, but as service providers.
🔄 4. And What Is Our Task Now?
Community cannot simply be decreed “from above”—but it does not arise entirely from below either. Whether we will live in a community-based society is not predetermined—but it is possible.
To get there:
we must name it as a value—not nostalgia, not romantic poverty, but a human need;
we must recognize the value of existing examples—not isolated stories, but building blocks of a new system;
we must learn to think in terms of community—not just about our own survival, but about our shared future.
A community-based society is not a finished vision, but a collective endeavor.
The real question is not whether it will happen on its own—
but whether we are ready to begin building it.