Communitarians use the term ‘common wealth’ to signify the organization of the communal unions that are founded on the principle and practice of achieving economic security through association rather than the usual prejudices of social standing, profession or position, or age or gender. Through the Common Purse economic arrangement, no communitarian is any richer or poorer than any other.

The concept of ‘common wealth’ has ancient roots encompassing many diverse cultures and time periods denoting shared common property, access to land and resources. In modern times this form of collaborative production and distribution (according to need), is most commonly installed by communes as well as Christian and ecologically-integrated intentional communities based on the tenet of ‘holding all things in common’.

In the context of communitarian principles and practices, the term is usually bracketed in italics in order to differentiate its meaning from the 17th Century term ‘Commonwealth’ which runs ‘common’ and ‘wealth’ together to refer to a group of conquered and occupied lands reigned over by a distant Monarch.

Despite common usage, ‘common wealth’s’ true meaning can be easily understood as ‘shared’ wealth via common ownership and therefore access to resources that sustain life, liberty and happiness made sustainably possible by the pooling of funds and resources that are shared by a group, for member and group purposes.