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Amish find simple living a challenge in both financial boom and economic bust
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One might assume if anyone would know how to live simply and avoid the perils of economic boom and bust cycles, it would be the Amish. Long known to be financially prudent people who eschew worldly goods, it would stand to reason that the Amish would be largely immune from the current economic downturn. However, that is not necessarily the case.
According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, a significant number of Amish in northern Indiana have been negatively impacted by the economic downturn. During the recent boom years, many Amish took advantage of the new business opportunities available and chose to work in factories, open their own businesses and such rather than focusing on farming. From A Bank Run Teaches the Plain People About the Risks of Modernity:
Like Amish in other parts of the U.S., the Indiana community strayed from their traditional reliance on farming in recent decades as their numbers grew and land prices rose. Many opened family businesses, often in furniture and other wood crafts.
By 2007, more than half of Amish men in these parts were working full time in manufacturing, and earning, on average, $30 an hour, says Steven Nolt, a professor at Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., who studies the community.
The great increase in discretionary income spawned a "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality," says Mervin Lehman, 39, an Amish father of four who says he was making more than $50-an-hour and working up to 60 hours a week as an RV plant supervisor before he was laid off in November.
The article goes on to explain how many Amish spent lavishly on fancier carriages, second homes in Florida, larger weddings, dining out, and frequent taxi use. Obviously there is nothing intrinsicly wrong with any of those expenditures. But they do seem to run counter to what most people think of when they consider the simplicity of the Amish culture.
Choosing to live a simple life is never, well, simple. Living simply means regularly weighing options and making choices in light of the current situation in which a person finds him/herself. So whether a person is trying to cope with economic disaster in the state of California or the changing opportunities in Amish country Indiana, the simple life will always involve trying to make decisions in line with core beliefs and values while also dealing with the current cultural realities in which a person finds him/herself.
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