When my mother was a kid living in Brooklyn, New York, she would spend a few weeks during the summer in Brentwood, Long Island. Her Uncle Jack and Aunt Rose had an acre or two of land where they raised goats, chickens, and rabbits. They also had a large vegetable garden. My mom loved leaving the city and spending time out "in the country"
When I was a kid we would occasionally pay a visit too. Uncle Jack had suffered a stroke and was really a sedentary, silent presence by then, but Aunt Rose was still an energetic host, cooking Italian favorites and pies. I enjoyed playing with the few rabbits she still kept in Uncle Jack's hutches.
I didn't know at the time that Brentwood was originally founded as a Utopian enclave called Modern Times
Modern Times was a Utopian community existing from 1851 to 1864 in what is now Brentwood, New York. Founded by Josiah Warren, the community based its structure on Warren’s ideas of individual sovereignty and equitable commerce.
It was a strange place, sort of reminiscent of the hippie communes of the late 60s and early 70s. Self sovereignty ruled. There were no laws, rules, marriages, or conventional money. Josiah Warren, who grew disenchanted with socialism because it failed to respect private property, came up with this notion of money:
He believed that goods and services should be traded according to how much labor was exerted to produce them and bring them to market, instead of according to what individuals subjectively believed them to be worth. Therefore, he proposed a system to pay people with certificates indicating how many hours of work they did. They could either exchange the notes at the local time stores for goods that took the same amount of time to produce, or they could exchange their labor notes with other residents for an equivalent amount of labor.
Sadly, the community failed. Still, I was fascinated by this quirky commune long before I discovered bitcoin. I'm not sure how strong the analogy is, but I now feel that his ideas of self sovereignty and "proof of work" do echo a sort of pre bitcoin philosophy.
Maybe it's a reach? You can read more about the community here: