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Forty-three years after co-founding The Farm, one of the first 鈥渉ippie communes鈥� in the United States, Stephen Gaskin died on July 1 at the age of 79. What started in 1971 as an experiment in collective living for free thinkers, spiritual students from San Francisco, and psychedelic explorers, has evolved into one of the most enduring models of intentional community in the country.

鈥淎ll the stuff that we have done here, we鈥檝e never asked anyone for permission: no church, no corporation, no state.鈥�

After learning how to farm on 1,750 acres of rough and rugged terrain in rural Tennessee, The Farm became an internationally known model and an exporter of farming skills, tools, nutrition, midwifery, and other forms of appropriate technology for village-scale societies. It has also become a training center for midwifery, permaculture, solar building design, mushroom cultivation, composting, book publishing, and other enterprises. It has maintained its own independent school system for decades, and is often credited with kick-starting the popularity of tofu.

Building on a common understanding core to many intentional communities鈥攖he idea that 鈥渋nterdependence equals independence鈥濃�擥askin鈥檚 vision for The Farm was not just an escape from mainstream culture. From the beginning, it also included a social outreach arm called Plenty International, a nonprofit organization that in 1980 for its work in the South Bronx, Washington, D.C., and in Guatemala鈥檚 indigenous villages.

In November 2005, I interviewed Gaskin at his home on The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. What follows are a few excerpts from the interview, including Gaskin鈥檚 reflections on his life, his activism, and what he learned about himself and the world from decades of successful community living.

Erin McCarley: What would you say were the founding principles of The Farm?

Stephen Gaskin: We had all been spiritual students of one kind or another. We still are. I used to say, 鈥淚f you took all religions, like on IBM punch cards, some of the holes would go clear through the stack.鈥� And that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e interested in. We agreed that if you felt like we were all one, we could live collectively in a way in which everybody could have some of what was happening.

鈥淒o you have the right to take all these experienced, intelligent activists out of the system and lose them in the woods?鈥�

And we were not Marxist. I think Marx talked about the problem pretty well, but what he said to do about it didn鈥檛 work very well because almost everybody who鈥檚 tried it has slid into some kind of dictatorship. He even uses that phrase, 鈥渢he dictatorship of the proletariat.鈥� Well, who speaks for the proletariat? Some guys who represented us who ended up with all the power?

So we knew we were going to be some kind of collective, and at that time when we came here we did everything in full meeting and consensus because everybody was there and anyone who wanted to argue, could. That part was good at the time, but we got too big for that … soon we had 600 people at meetings.

McCarley: When you first arrived here in Tennessee, how many were you?

Gaskin: We were about 275 when we first got here. And we鈥檙e probably around that number right now.

People think I started The Farm because I had this lust for power. But when I started in San Francisco, only the people who liked me came to hear my stuff. And only people who liked me came on the caravan with me. We were pretty good friends; we got along well. Many of us had tripped together. Many of us had been lovers. You know, we were tight. But then the movement grew.

And we were getting people so fast, we weren’t getting them initiated into the ways as quickly as we ought to have.

McCarley: In 1974, members of your intentional community started the humanitarian organization Plenty, International. What was the idea behind that?

Gaskin: When we first came here, it was 鈥淩ight now, get some clean water. Right now, get a place to poop.鈥� We had our nose to the grindstone for about the first four years, until we finally got the chance to take a breath and look around.

Then we decided we鈥檇 go on a tour to California and see how the guys back there were doing. When we got out there, I was asked the same question almost everywhere we went: 鈥淒o you have the right to take all these experienced, intelligent activists out of the system and lose them in the woods?鈥�

So we had to take that seriously. We needed an outreach arm. We thought we鈥檇 call it Plenty because it sounds so innocuous until you explain that there would be 鈥減lenty鈥� if resources were accurately distributed. Then suddenly you become radical.

So, I came out one Sunday morning and put the idea out to the group. And everyone said, “Hey, let’s go for it! Let’s do it!” The first thing we did was to help out some farmers out in Alabama that got into some tornado trouble. Then we heard that the crop had been rained out in Honduras. So we said, “We’ll find the beans and get them down there.鈥� We found a sea captain who was bringing freight up from Honduras and going back empty, and was happy to take food back. So we sent 50,000 bushels down there on that trip. It was fun to multiply our muscle with other folks.

Then the next thing that happened was they had a big earthquake in Guatemala. It was 1976. The country was torn in half. Half the country was six feet higher than the other half. None of the rivers and roads matched. It literally tore the country in half. A lot of people were killed from that. And so Peter Schweitzer鈥攚ho’s currently Plenty鈥檚 executive director鈥攚ent down there. He said, “These guys are in bad enough trouble that the technology we’ve had to learn here at The Farm is actually useful.”

So we sent three guys, two toolboxes, and $135. And then Canada had sent an entire shipload of building materials, but they had no one to administer it. And our guys, speaking English and whatnot, got in with the Canadians, made some deals with them, and unloaded their supplies into a giant soccer field at San Andr茅s Itzapa. They filled up the soccer field with two-by-fours and four-by-eights. We built 1,200 houses in that village.

McCarley: I don’t have the kind of historical perspective that you do. Where do you see our country today?

Gaskin: I have no ambitions for the people other than that they do things the best they can. But I think the political situation of the country is flat-out scary. It鈥檚 the worst I鈥檝e ever seen it. I鈥檝e never seen this much rampant corruption with the people knowing about it, but not doing hardly anything about it.

I depend on the system out there as little as I possibly can. We treasure our freedom here.

I think there was a key historical shift when a corporation legally became a 鈥減erson.鈥� They convinced Supreme Court that a corporation has all the rights and privileges of a natural person. That was just after the Civil War. Then later on, this century, there was another decision, which said not only does a corporation have the natural rights of a person, but it has free speech, and its money is its free speech.

And that鈥檚 the trouble with how the corporations treat us. As someone from Allende鈥檚 cabinet in Chile said, it鈥檚 the purpose of the government to protect the population from the ravages of unfettered capitalism.

The ball鈥檚 in our court. You know, when you grow up, you quit being mad at your parents and you can do things your own way. All the stuff that we have done here, we鈥檝e never asked anyone for permission … no church, no corporation, no state.

The thing is that we鈥檙e not beholden to anybody. I can鈥檛 be fired for what I say. I depend on the system out there as little as I possibly can. We treasure our freedom here.

From Ina May Gaskin:
Birth Matters: A Midwife’s Manifesta

I think the way the country is now鈥攊t鈥檚 like a big freeway with a whole bunch of semis on it, and you can鈥檛 be a person out hitchhiking among that. It鈥檚 just too dangerous. So, The Farm … this is our corporation. You know? We all are loyal to it. We might as well be鈥攊t鈥檚 us.

Kids come to me at a certain stage, like kind of an older teenager, and say 鈥淢an, I really want to thank you and the grownups for what you guys did here.鈥� They look at the world and say, 鈥淲e鈥檙e pretty free at The Farm. We don鈥檛 get messed with much, and the stuff we鈥檝e done to stay that way is like … to be nice to our neighbors and stuff we鈥檇 like to be doing anyway.鈥�

In the short run, the guys who are tied together around greed and who use their money to get what they want have a temporary advantage because of their short-term agenda. But in the long run, being nice is just a better level of organization.

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