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.