The Oil Drum

The Amish lifestyle is not the sustainable dream many believe.

There's a lot of variation, of course, since each community is free to set their own rules. But they are not anti-technology. They just want to remain separate from the "English." So they may have phones, but not in the house. They use propane powered farm equipment and appliances, so they are not connected to the grid (but they are not immune to peak oil, either). Generally, they do not own cars, but they do hire vans to go shopping. Those black garments are often made of polyester. If they get sick, they go to modern doctors and hospitals. They are economically connected with the rest of the world, buying from and selling to the rest of us.

Perhaps most strikingly...they have a lot of kids, and thus are constantly expanding. That is not sustainable.

What the Amish are doing right: they think of the effects technology will have on the community before adopting it. For example, a man may be allowed to own a tractor, if he attaches a horse to it. Why? They fear that a tractor will make a man greedy, encouraging him to buy up his neighbors' lands and forcing them to get tractors, too, to compete. But if a horse has to be hooked to it, the farmer can still only plow so much land in a day.

I think that kind of community orientation is possible without religion. Certainly, religion on its own does not create sustainability. (See mega-churches. So big many have their own public transportation systems.) Why it works for the Amish is that their communities are small. It would work for non-religious small communities, too. (And has. I've posted some stories about hippie communities that have survived and thrived over the past couple of weeks.)