I'm not here just to pile on, and for the record I didn't downvote you. Like some others, I never took the word "collective" to mean the same as commune, which

I'm not here just to pile on, and for the record I didn't downvote you. Like some others, I never took the word "collective" to mean the same as commune, which ~explains my reply earlier. I'm not interested in starting a commune where everyone gets strictly equal treatment. Fair, meritocratic treatment is great. I could debate about what a fair accounting of merit looks like from my POV. Back to the point I wanted to make here, though: It's possible in a commune, as with other organizations, to contribute more than the mean and still get back more than you would get for your effort independently. That's the nature of cooperation, that the whole can be more than the sum of the parts, through economies of scale like specialization.