The "Jack of all trades" role was promoted among the settlers, with the desire being to create and develop all the needed skills among the residents that "heads and hands might be employed" according to the demand."
When the need for a particular skill temporarily ceased, Warren maintained it was "absolutely necessary" that persons thus trained seek "full employment" in another way; "he is ten times a citizen who can perform a citizen's part in ten different positions; and more than this, when he is ready and willing to teach others to be as useful as himself."12
The labor note currency was adopted, and a time store selling basic merchandise at the usual drastically reduced prices found the same support from its patrons and aroused the customary resentment among merchants.13 Warren began his music training school once more on the labor exchange basis, with no conventional currency transactions and with children as young as nine years of age participating. His summary of the prevailing situation at "Utopia" in the spring of 1848 is a recital of material and spiritual gains which would have gladdened the heart of any individual anarchist half a century later: 14
"Throughout the whole of our operations on the ground, everything has been conducted so nearly upon the Individual basis that not one meeting for legislation has taken place. No organization, no indefinite delegated power, no "Constitutions," no "laws" or "bye laws","rules" or "regulations" but such as each individual makes for himself and his own business. No officers, no priests nor prophets have been resorted to- nothing of either kind has been in demand. We have had a few meetings, but they were for friendly conversation, for music, dancing or some other social and pleasant pastime. Not even a single lecture upon the principles which we were acting has been given on the premises! It was not necessary; for (as a lady remarked yesterday) " the subject once stated and understood, there is nothing left to talk about" -All is action after that."
Warren went on to say that rights of person and property prevailing in the community existed by grace and were defined by "public opinion." in essence a re-affirmation of his belief in the superiority of common law over statute law as a guide for human affairs. Judgments on what he termed "mere differences of opinion" in all other relationships were left to " the supreme decision of each individual" operating under the understanding that responsibility or "cost" was an integral part of any act on the part of mature individuals. Failure to assume the responsibility for act placed the person in the same category as minor children, but nothing was said as to how such delinquency was dealt with at "Utopia."
"Utopia" not only was a community without a formal government; it also persevered without the presence of a patriarch and escaped the general fate which fell to those whose fortunes were inextricably interwoven with those of a dominant leader. Sensitive to criticism and troubled at this time by discussions elsewhere as to the credit for originality of the principles of "equitable commerce," it became Warren's conviction that his personality stood in the way of the growth of the movement. Shortly before leaving "Utopia" he declared, " I have a thousand times felt that if this subject had originated with someone who was dead I could have done perhaps a thousand times more for it." Restless as ever, he left when the venture was hardly more than a year old, 15 placing the little band of pioneers in anarchist decentralism entirely upon their own devices. The spirit of Warrenism remained there for a quarter of a century, however. In 1849, Amos E. Senter published a second edition of his Equitable Commerce on the grounds. 16 and by the end of the following year most of Warren's economic teachings had become part of the life of the gathering individualists.
The residents of "Utopia" wasted no time in fruitless wrangling over differences of opinion connected with Warren's cost economy. Where critics aimed such shafts as the impossibility of determining the absolute accuracy of the labor hour as a medium of exchange, the small group of adherents preferred to work out a practical compromise. By the end of 1851, including the three other experiments where the mutual labor exchange had been introduced, several thousand people had participated. Two contemporary observations summarizing the results of this varied interchange of labor notes gives some evidence of the degree of advancement toward realization of their objective. When the decision was made to adopt corn as a medium of exchange at the rate of 20 pounds to the hour as an alternative to supplying the actual labor, a suspicion set in that disorder would result due to wildly fluctuating extremes. An examination of the labor notes indicated that variation from the 20 pound yard stick was a third above or below this figure, reflecting changing costs of production which were expected to alter all labor notes payable only in hours of labor as well. In a number of other aspects of economic life at "Utopia" several products found the "general level" which Warren claimed earlier would occur as a result of the action of "public opinion" It is more likely that the determining factor was the existing pattern of technical learning and the stage of machine production which the colony tended to become adapted to.
The labor exchange as it worked here is quiet illuminating, nevertheless. With respect to agricultural products, the customary price for wheat became six hours to the bushel, milk settled to ten minutes per quart, while eggs remained undisturbed at twenty minutes a dozen. Some manufactured goods also became "fixed"; shoes varied from three to nine hours, depending on the quality, with eighteen hours the figure for boots. 17 Still it was expected that the labor price would always be subject to change as new production methods were introduced, with the expectation that such changes would work for the increase of the volume of goods per hour of time expended in production, a gain for everyone in the community. There was a choice for the producer as well, however, in all this. The individual might choose increased prosperity for increased work, or a shortened work day if he had more modest material ambitions. In either case, the decision was to be made with understanding the consequences were to be borne by the individual concerned.18
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