Amish Enterprise: From Plow to Profits

Rating:
Summary: Surprising entrepreneurs: Old Order Amish
Review: * Kraybill, Donald B. and Steven M. Nolt. 1995. _Amish Enterprise; From Plows to Profits_. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. xiv + 300. Notes, photographs, references. ISBN: 0-8018-5063-0 (pbk).

Kraybill and Nolt present a history and analysis of Amish businesses in the 1980s and early 1990s. These authors tell how hundreds of Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, engaged in an unprecedented economic adaptation after hundreds of years during which their devotion to family farming as the economic center of life did not change. The new adaptation was a remarkable fluorescence of entrepreneurial activity in which Lancaster Amish created enterprises catering to Amish and non-Amish market needs. These enterprises operate within the strictures of Amish thinking about how people should exist in the world, and this is the central question the authors explore. The contents are broad and include a profile of Amish businesses in chapter three, technology in chapter eight, and marketing and networking in chapter nine. Other chapters cover labor issues, business morality, Amish businesses and the law, and relations with the state.

What is surprising about Amish enterprise is that it exists. To explain this, both in its vigor and in the ways business owners refrain from fully adopting present-day business plans and procedures, the authors use a culture-centered model. They describe how the Amish interpret their beliefs in negotiating the new behaviors and statuses businesses require (pp. 16-19). From one perspective, the process described in this book is a prime example of conscious, selective acculturation.

Negotiation and tension between adopted business behaviors and _Gelassenheit_, a core value informing normative behavior, is highlighted throughout. Gelassenheit asks Amish to be patient and yielding, to submit to the community and to avoid individuation and excess. Gelassenheit asks Amish to be plain and not fancy (pp. 13-16). Business success threatens Gelassenheit. Success creates wealth differentials greater than ones in the farm-based economy. Success affects gender roles because women entrepreneurs own and operate their own enterprises. Success can mean that children receive less attention as business demands increase. Success increases the visibility and importance of business people in district churches, and has fundamental implications for the status of less wealthy but culturally more highly valued farmers.

Kraybill and Nolt do not strive for theoretical finesse but let a few well chosen concepts carry much of their argument about cultural negotiation and economic adaptation. Core values presented early surface throughout as they discuss the problems, solutions and limits of the business adaptation. Like another book that Kraybill edited, _Amish Enterprise_ "...shows no awareness of postmodern theory." (Reschly, 1997). But considering what readers the authors are apparently trying to reach, the anthropological analysis is as theoretical as it should be. That is, Kraybill and Nolt do a workmanly job explaining complex information within a framework of 1) economic behavior influenced by religious beliefs; 2) seemingly inflexible cultural norms that are malleable; and 3) ideas about the family, community and church that are specifically Amish.

The authors are academic experts on the Amish and base the book on a survey of Lancaster businesses, on intensive interviews profiling entrepreneurs and on ethnographic observation. Anthropologists, rural sociologists, microeconomists, church historians and economic development specialists will all find something interesting and insightful in it. _Amish Enterprise_ occupies the middle ground between the mass market and a thoroughly academic monograph; the contents are accessible to a wide range of readers who have a sincere interest in the Amish and their culture.

The text is well illustrated with photographs. The bibliography provides sources of further reading but it is somewhat dated. Comparative material on Amish economic adaptations elsewhere is missing and would add to the analysis. _Amish Enterprise_ is a clear, succinct and detailed discussion of a surprising change in Amish life.

Reference:

Reschly, Steven D. 1997. Review of Kraybill, D. and M. Olshan, eds. _The Amish Struggle With Modernity_. _Journal of Church and State_ 39(2):372. Spring 1997.

Rating:
Summary: Surprising entrepreneurs: Old Order Amish
Review: * Kraybill, Donald B. and Steven M. Nolt. 1995. _Amish Enterprise; From Plows to Profits_. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. xiv + 300. Notes, photographs, references. ISBN: 0-8018-5063-0 (pbk).

Kraybill and Nolt present a history and analysis of Amish businesses in the 1980s and early 1990s. These authors tell how hundreds of Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, engaged in an unprecedented economic adaptation after hundreds of years during which their devotion to family farming as the economic center of life did not change. The new adaptation was a remarkable fluorescence of entrepreneurial activity in which Lancaster Amish created enterprises catering to Amish and non-Amish market needs. These enterprises operate within the strictures of Amish thinking about how people should exist in the world, and this is the central question the authors explore. The contents are broad and include a profile of Amish businesses in chapter three, technology in chapter eight, and marketing and networking in chapter nine. Other chapters cover labor issues, business morality, Amish businesses and the law, and relations with the state.

What is surprising about Amish enterprise is that it exists. To explain this, both in its vigor and in the ways business owners refrain from fully adopting present-day business plans and procedures, the authors use a culture-centered model. They describe how the Amish interpret their beliefs in negotiating the new behaviors and statuses businesses require (pp. 16-19). From one perspective, the process described in this book is a prime example of conscious, selective acculturation.

Negotiation and tension between adopted business behaviors and _Gelassenheit_, a core value informing normative behavior, is highlighted throughout. Gelassenheit asks Amish to be patient and yielding, to submit to the community and to avoid individuation and excess. Gelassenheit asks Amish to be plain and not fancy (pp. 13-16). Business success threatens Gelassenheit. Success creates wealth differentials greater than ones in the farm-based economy. Success affects gender roles because women entrepreneurs own and operate their own enterprises. Success can mean that children receive less attention as business demands increase. Success increases the visibility and importance of business people in district churches, and has fundamental implications for the status of less wealthy but culturally more highly valued farmers.

Kraybill and Nolt do not strive for theoretical finesse but let a few well chosen concepts carry much of their argument about cultural negotiation and economic adaptation. Core values presented early surface throughout as they discuss the problems, solutions and limits of the business adaptation. Like another book that Kraybill edited, _Amish Enterprise_ "...shows no awareness of postmodern theory." (Reschly, 1997). But considering what readers the authors are apparently trying to reach, the anthropological analysis is as theoretical as it should be. That is, Kraybill and Nolt do a workmanly job explaining complex information within a framework of 1) economic behavior influenced by religious beliefs; 2) seemingly inflexible cultural norms that are malleable; and 3) ideas about the family, community and church that are specifically Amish.

The authors are academic experts on the Amish and base the book on a survey of Lancaster businesses, on intensive interviews profiling entrepreneurs and on ethnographic observation. Anthropologists, rural sociologists, microeconomists, church historians and economic development specialists will all find something interesting and insightful in it. _Amish Enterprise_ occupies the middle ground between the mass market and a thoroughly academic monograph; the contents are accessible to a wide range of readers who have a sincere interest in the Amish and their culture.

The text is well illustrated with photographs. The bibliography provides sources of further reading but it is somewhat dated. Comparative material on Amish economic adaptations elsewhere is missing and would add to the analysis. _Amish Enterprise_ is a clear, succinct and detailed discussion of a surprising change in Amish life.

Reference:

Reschly, Steven D. 1997. Review of Kraybill, D. and M. Olshan, eds. _The Amish Struggle With Modernity_. _Journal of Church and State_ 39(2):372. Spring 1997.