Search our Archives!

Not yet a member? Register now.
Username
Password

May 19, 2013 9:28 am PDT

Advertise | Subscribe | Email Newsletter | Archive Search | |

Tribe

November 18, 2011

In the land of dreamers

By Roberto Loiederman

0 Comments

Share

(Page 2 - Previous Page)

Nicholas explained why he calls the Holigent Plan a “hybrid”: It combines elements of capitalism (businesses are free to locate there and to make a profit) with a concept not normally discussed in capitalist theory: using community service hours as currency.

“Residents participate in community service based on their skill and abilities,” he explained. This service, which is entirely voluntary, and is coordinated by the nonprofit management, earns the residents “community credits,” which they can use to pay rent.
During severe economic downturns, businesses have the option of slowing down or even shutting down altogether, which the Franks refer to as a “dormant” phase. During a dormant period, the employees/residents go on unpaid furlough. Employees can weather these dormant periods, when they are out of work entirely, by doing more community service to pay the cost of living. At the same time, all participating employers must be able to show they have the resources to survive a dormant period.

According to Nicholas, “This aspect of the Holigent Plan provides a kind of insurance that would preserve a business’ workforce and assets, and it would also preserve the employee/residents’ housing and essential quality of life.”

An underlying belief in the Franks’ book is that “people will come to live and work in Holigent communities attracted by cost-of-living advantages, job security, housing security, physical safety and stress-free healthful living.” According to the Franks, the Holigent Proposal “has no foreseeable negative aspects.”

Asked about issues such as education, health care and social services, Nicholas said they would be handled by “an unconventional combination based on prevention and reducing social, economic and environmental stresses.” He added that the detailed solutions to these complex issues are in the book — titled “The Holigent Solution: How to Win the Transition Race to Economic Security, Quality of Life, Peace, and Sustainability” —which he expects will be available on Amazon by January 2012.

Nicholas pointed out that the Holigent Plan differs from other planned communities for two main reasons: 1) The Holigent Delta Plan takes economic downturns into account; and 2) each Holigent Village will be run by a nonprofit management organization, which — the Franks believe — would be less subject to corruption. Also, because members of the management team live in the village, there would be a sense of pride in the success of the community as a motivating force.

Because the Holigent Village model bears some resemblance to an Israeli kibbutz, Nicholas explained the key differences.

“In my opinion,” Nicholas said, “the kibbutz is too regimented; it does not take into account the individual need for self-expression and creativity.” He explained that in a kibbutz, the entire community — not the individual kibbutz member — decides on what businesses or factories to build and develop. In a Holigent Village, an individual entrepreneur can establish any business — an essential capitalist tenet — so long as that business’ owner agrees to abide by the Holigent rules.

The Holigent Plan has not yet been subjected to peer review or assessed by those who have written and thought long and hard about what future sustainable communities could look like. But that may soon change. The Franks expect that once their book and ideas become known, experts from various fields of study will weigh in with their thoughts, suggestions and critiques.

The Franks, meanwhile, are charging ahead. Their next step, now that their book is completed, is to launch a fundraising campaign to attract large donors to support the building of the demonstration village.

Elisa, soft-spoken and articulate, realizes she and her father are going to meet with dismissive doubters, those who suspect the Holigent Plan is some sort of scam — after all, we now live in the post-Madoff era. Elisa said she understands the skepticism, given that their plan is radical and untested, and that it doesn’t come from a well-known, wealthy developer or the established academic world.

“We’re aware that what we’re proposing sounds pretty far-out to a lot of people,” Elisa said. “So we’re attempting to be an open book. What my dad wrote opens all the doors, gives people much more background, much more of an inside story. We’ve got nothing to hide, so [if] anybody wants to know anything, it’s there.”

In spite of the resistance and disbelief they’re sure to encounter, father and daughter are unwaveringly optimistic. They’re convinced the Holigent Solution can change mankind’s trajectory. Their book’s original subtitle says it all: “How I Hope My Children and Yours Will Survive and Thrive on Our Wonderful but Troubled and Endangered Planet.”

The Franks, by all appearances, are a typical nuclear family: Nicholas and his wife, Marsha, have been married for more than 30 years, and Elisa and her older brother, Devin, grew up in a family-friendly middle-class neighborhood near the Pico-Robertson area. They are, by any measure, people we’d all recognize as friends and neighbors.

And yet what’s jarring is the contrast between this conventional family and the radical ideas that have been developed here — ideas which, if put into effect, could dramatically alter the way people live. Sitting in her family’s home, Elisa leafed through the manuscript of their book.

“This is very personal for me,” Elisa said of the pages that contain not only their far-reaching ideas, but also her father’s family history. “It’s such a powerful story ... several times I broke down sobbing.”

Nicholas was also moved to tears as he carefully turned the fragile pages of an old notebook: the writings of his father, who died when Nicholas was 4 years old. Choked with emotion, Nicholas said that his father was a dreamer, too, who wrote about how to improve the lives of European workers.

Grandfather, father, daughter. Three generations of dreamers.

As history has often proved, the line between dreamer and visionary depends less on the substance of the dream than on whether that dream gets carried out. Who knows if, generations from now, someone will look back at these ideas as a turning point in the history of mankind?

Great societal shifts — from communism to Zionism to democracy, from social networks to personal computers, from public transport to public libraries — all begin with a seemingly wild dream, a castle in the air.

But as Henry David Thoreau wrote, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

That is exactly what Nicholas Frank, a retired Hungarian Shoah survivor, a solitary thinker living in a modest home in West Los Angeles, is now doing. After spending decades building castles in the air, he and his daughter are putting out their ideas for public scrutiny, hoping that others agree with — and support — their vision.

On a single page

1 | 2

---

Post your comment below!

COMMENTS

We welcome your feedback.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

Terms of Service

JewishJournal.com has rules for its commenting community.Get all the details.

Publication

JewishJournal.com reserves the right to use your comment in our weekly print publication.

Tribe Magazine

Promote Your Page Too

Blogs

	Rack ‘em up TRIBE 2.012 Sleepless in Bell Canyon Tikkun Olam: Food Forward The pawn king Community gathering: Kadima Day School, Idan Raichel, Gilad Shalit