The Passion Economy: Nine Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century by Adam Davidson

Author:Adam Davidson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: business, self help
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2020-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

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Wayne didn’t realize it at the time, but in becoming a businessman, he was part of a revolution that was transforming the Amish. Over the past century, the main Amish communities in the farmlands of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were within fifty or so miles of big cities, such as Philadelphia and Cleveland. Before widespread freeway systems, those fifty miles posed an unthinkable commute for anybody who worked in the cities. But more freeways, combined with a movement to the exurbs in the 1970s through the 1990s, meant that farmland was getting gobbled up by developers. People were willing to put up with a bit of a commute in exchange for larger, cheaper homes than the ones available closer to the cities. That new demand pushed farmland prices higher and higher.

At the same time, the Amish were going through a baby boom. The Amish population doubled between 1970 and 1990 and then doubled again by 2010. Retention—the number of Amish children who choose to remain Amish as adults—also grew, to more than 90 percent. This seems to be a side effect of the widening gap between Amish and non-Amish life. Before World War II, an Amish person with an eighth-grade education and a plow driven by a mule wasn’t all that distinguishable from many of his non-Amish neighbors. This made it fairly easy for Amish children to leave their community and still make a decent living. Today, of course, America is far more urban, and our economy rewards education and engagement with technology. A young Amish person considering leaving the church is confronted with a much larger gap.

There was another factor keeping the Amish within the community: there were a lot more ways to make a living. No longer did every Amish parent expect every Amish kid to farm. They couldn’t, because the math was clear: Amish families are typically quite large, and with land prices rising, many young Amish couldn’t afford to go into farming. Others realized that they didn’t particularly want to farm and preferred the idea of opening craft-based businesses, like home building, landscape management, carpentry, and such.

Amish life is, by tradition and definition, communal. An Amish person needs to live in a community with other Amish people, or else they are not Amish. The Amish are not against technology, in and of itself. They are just against technology that could destroy the community. That is why they do not drive cars or regularly ride in airplanes—because doing so would allow Amish people to live far apart from one another. They do not invite computers and phones into their homes because they would disrupt family time. Many do not allow motorized tractors because farming should encourage families to work together, building a sustainable but modest business. Motorized tractors, automatic feeding machinery, automatic milking systems, and the like encourage massive growth and the kind of efficiency that allows one farmer to handle hundreds of acres alone, with no chores for the children. Modernity

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