On the Necessity of Self-Sufficient Communities

I posted last time (back in February--before the craziness of the Lenten season really got underway) about two models of community that accord closely with the way in which God intended society to be set up: the household and the village. Now I'd like to address why exactly I find a return to these models to be necessary for the economic and cultural survival of our country. The answer has to do with self-sufficiency.

Consider, for example, the situation with GM. Here in Michigan, the financial plight of that gigantic corporation has a devastating effect upon whole communities, however small. Because a few executives over the years made poor decisions, and because a selfish labor union made stubborn and unreasonable demands (or wherever you want to place the blame for GM's decline), many in a wide geographical area find themselves with no source of income. How different the situation would be if we were not dependent upon large, outside companies for our livelihood. Imagine if we lived more as did our ancestors on the small homestead or the large farming estate. Rather than working for outsiders in a wage-earning situation, we would be cultivating our own resources, namely our richly productive land. We would be producing enough to live on within our own households and villages, with perhaps enough surplus to sell to the outside world in return for luxuries (and a few necessities like salt). Now, however, even those who do still farm are largely dependent upon outside markets for their livelihood. The bulk of their work is directed toward the production of profitable crops that will be used far outside the local community for the production of sugar, dough, ethanol, and other such commodities. Prosperity is determined not by how much you produce for the use of your own household and community, but by how much outsiders are willing to pay for what you produce. Present-day laborers, both farmers and wage-earners, are therefore subject to the vagaries of the national and even global market, which at the present time (and for the foreseeable future) is a decided liability.

The solution? Return, as much as possible, to a system of small communities in the form of households and villages whose chief economic activity is the satisfaction of their own immediate needs, namely food, clothing, and shelter. Other things, what any reasonable person would consider to be dispensable "extras," would be only incidental, supplied by the surplus produce generated by the self-sufficient community. Such a system would mean that when one community experiences crisis, the others may not, and may even be in a position to offer effective (and voluntary!) help. Concentration of economic activity in the local community could therefore actually contribute to much greater economic stability in the nation as a whole. Also, self-sufficiency among households and villages would go a long way in freeing individuals from the influence of "big business," rendering moot the whole question of governmental intervention in the market for the protection of individual or small-scale interests.

Trained economists may see immediately some obvious flaws in my proposed system, but it seems to me an obvious answer to our current problems. And not just an answer, but even desirable in itself as being the mode of community life for which humanity has been designed.

I'm not a utopian, but...

The way we live now falls so far short of the ideal, I think we really need to reexamine our lifestyles. The present economic crisis wouldn't be so much of a problem if more of us lived the way God intended us to live. I don't mean simply not sinning. I mean having a clearer sense of where we fit in the divine economy, i.e. God's process of getting the things we need from "nature" to us. It seems to me that there are two basic community models that do that especially well. One is the "household" model, and the other is the "village" model.

I'll address the household model first, because it's the first one to have come into existence. In the household model, every family is a self-sufficient community. The head of the household (originally Adam) provides leadership. He owns all the property, and he assigns duties or offices. I think that we can assume that Adam assigned Cain to the office of farmer so that the world's first household would have a supply of grain. He then assigned Abel to the office of shepherd to provide a supply of milk and wool (no meat until after the Flood). I'm sure that various daughters were assigned to care for the fowl (for eggs) and to process the grain, milk, and wool (to get bread, butter, cheese, and fabric for clothing and shelter). And of course the producers Cain and Abel were responsible for returning to God the firstfruits of their produce. All in all, we can visualize a smooth-running (until the murder of Abel) household that made efficient use of the land into which Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden.

Households may legitimately expand pretty dramatically beyond this. A household may include servants (who are not family and are therefore paid for their service to the household) and various employees who contribute such products and skills as specialized cooking, metalworking, mechanical arts, printing, and, of course, preaching and teaching. The point is, each household produces everything it needs to exist comfortably. It may import raw materials and products, but these are always extras.

The village is much like the household except that it is de-centralized. Authority lies not with the head of the household but with some form of government (of course fatherhood or patriarchy is itself the first and most basic form of government), whether elected or hereditary or whatever else.  A village is made up of households, but each household is not self-sufficient. Instead of the household employing servants or assigning children to perform specialized tasks, each household in the village is itself specialized, most engaged in farming but some dedicated to various trades and arts, including the Preaching Office. These specialized households, when banded together to form a village, become a self-sufficient community. Really, the village is just the household on a larger scale and with fewer bonds of blood-relation. By the way, the household as a component of the village is what Dr. Luther assumes when he says that each Chief Part of the Catechism is presented "as the head of the family should teach it in a simple way to his household."

Why is this important? Other than being simply beautiful and the way in which we were created to live, I consider it an economic necessity. We cannot continue as we've been doing, with every laborer integrated not into a small and self-sufficient community but into a huge and global community--which becomes no community at all. I have an inkling that smaller communities are more efficient than larger ones. Yes, the larger the community, the greater the division of labor. But a small community can react so much more quickly and meaningfully to crises among its members, and the leader of a small community can be more effective and personal in his administration than can the leader of a "community" of millions.

There is vastly more to say about this, and I hope to do so eventually.

Following

Anyone who would be interested in reading my posts regularly (to the extent that my posting activity itself can be called "regular") is welcome to become a "follower" of The Persistent Barbarian. I think that at this point that just means Matthew/Slash. One would be enough, though. By the way, Matthew--maybe you should add the "followers" widget. I would sign up.