The Community Course
Part 3 - Specific Community Interests
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16. Community Economics

Life’s Economic Basis
Every person and every community has an economic basis. We must have air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, clothes to wear, housing to protect us from the weather, roads and vehicles for travel and for transporting necessities. Since these are what economics deals with, an economic basis for living is absolutely essential, and to talk of being superior to economic considerations is nonsense.

Freedom from Economic Stress
Yet, every person and every community wants to be free from economic stress and compulsion, to be in a position to act as he or she wishes and according to his or her convictions, without being limited or driven by economic need. There are two ways by which this freedom can be achieved; first, by supplying economic needs so that a full, normal, and wholesome economic life is possible; and second, by self-restraint, by limiting our wants, by simplicity of living, so that the filling of economic needs will not be an undue burden and distraction. In many communities every increase of income is followed by increased elaboration and ostentation of expenditures, with the result that increase of income does not bring increase of freedom, but makes life more hectic and wearing. When misfortune or a period of depression comes, such a community and its members find themselves in great distress.

Frugality and Community
Both ways for achieving freedom from extreme economic stress are necessary. Neither can bring good results without the other. A good community will strive to secure a fair economic income and wholesome economic conditions, while at the same time it will strive to maintain simple and unpretentious standards of living, and will undertake to accumulate reserves for times of stress. It will be considered bad taste for its members to try to show superiority to neighbors by spending more money. A community of good breeding and of a variety of interests will find the spending of money to take a relatively smaller part in its satis­factions. In a community of good breeding people will not be ashamed to do any work which adds to the quality and convenience of living. A well bred person will not ask his or her neighbor to do for him or her what he or she would consider to be beneath himself or herself to do for his neighbor. A good community is made up of neighbors in that sense.

Community Self-Support
Many communities could profit greatly by an increased degree of self-support. It may be feasible for a community to raise and to preserve more of its own food. It may be getting its craft services -- plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, etc. -- from nearby larger towns, while young men of the community would make good plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, and young women who could be skillful at helping people, or who would be good dress designers, milliners, etc., are compelled to go to the city because there is no work for them in the home community. In the fairly well balanced community of Yellow Springs in the 1950s, with a population of 1600 or l800, it was found that about 60 men and women were making a living by serving the community in these various crafts, each directing his or her own work and not working for a “boss”; and that if well-trained men and women should be available, there would be room for several more.

Craft Services
A productive undertaking for many a small community would be to discover what kind of craft services could be used in the community, and what young men and women are competent to learn those crafts; and then to help them to thorough training. If there is room for a carpenter, and if there is a young man who has capacity and interest to become a good carpenter, then it may be possible to find some exceptionally good carpenter in the region who would let the young man work as his assistant while learning the craft. The young man could find a calling in his home community, and the community would have the satisfaction throughout the years of having its carpenter work well done.

Training Young People
It is by such practical steps as this, taken one at a time, rather than great dramatic action, that excellent quality in a community can develop. With suitable inquiry and advice most communities can find unfilled needs for which their own young people can be trained, thus making a career at home while making a better community. By an occasional community economic survey the feasibility of a larger degree of economic self-support can be discovered, while it is possible for one or a few persons in the community to make it a habit of knowing young people who could be helped by friendly counsel, and to find ways for them to prepare to fill such openings.

Economic Monotony
One of the limitations of the American small community is its economic monotony. A mining town generally is only a mining town. In a farm village there usually is no way to make a living except by farming or by serving the needs of farmers. Somewhat the same tends to be true of small factory towns, college towns, lumbering towns, and fishing towns. Young people growing up in such communities have little chance at life in their home communities except along the line of the town's dominant interest.

Yellow Springs Economics
A good community will develop a variety of economic interests, so that people of varying interests and capacities can find livelihoods there. As an example, Yellow Springs, Ohio, a village of about 1600 people in the 1940s, had at that time almost no sources of income except farming and a small college. Through the years an effort was made to develop a greater variety of economic undertakings. Today, in addition to the farming community and the college, a number of small industries are well established. Among these are printing and publishing, an aluminum foundry for making difficult castings, an art bronze foundry, a large hybrid seed corn industry, a chemical industry, a local power plant, a genetics research institute, and a farm seed business. None of these, except the college, employs more than a hundred persons, yet nearly every person in the community, and many from the surrounding farms, have found employment, and there is considerable range of choice in fields of work. Some of these industries serve the surrounding country. Others are such as might have been undertaken almost anywhere in the United States. In this development the permanent population has been only slightly increased. The hope has been, not to have a bigger community, but economically a better community. Not every small community can arrive at such a diversified economic life, but with careful planning it frequently is possible to secure considerable variety.

Duplications and Inadequacies
In many communities there are too many competing stores, filling stations, and poor eating places, while there may be a lack of other undertakings which would make a better community. There may be no suitable provisions for caring for mechan­ical equipment such as furnaces, refrigerators, radios, lawn mowers, and the many mechanical conveniences used in the home. There may be no organized recreational opportunities of good quality. There may be no local sanitarium or hospital.

Good Proportion
One of the first principles of community economic design is good proportion--not too much of anything, and no lack of what is essential. This good proportion will not be achieved by drifting. It requires very little imagination to start another filling station or food store or pool hall. To bring a community into good economic balance requires planning, search for persons who are competent to undertake the necessary enterprises, thorough training of such persons, and intelligent community support for them and for their undertakings.

Pioneers in developing well-proportioned communities will not have an easy task, for the small community has been neglected, and few if any educational institutions are prepared to train young people for competent direction of community undertakings. If some educational institution should qualify itself, with competent leadership, to train young people to administer community economic enterprises, it might do a very useful work.

Missing Economic Services

The following are some kinds of economic services which commonly are lacking in small communities:

An accounting and bookkeeping service, to help individuals and firms with income tax, social security reports, and the many taxes and reports required by government. Charge for such services should be on the community level, and not on the level of a public accountant dealing with large affairs.

A service for maintaining all kinds of mechanical equipment.

A recreation place where, at moderate expense to their families, boys and girls can find varied recreation, intelligently guided and administered by persons who are trained for their work, and who have an interest in young people beyond getting their money.

A small establishment for collecting and processing surplus food products such as vegetables, fruit, and meat, primarily for later use in the community but sometimes for sale outside.

A small community clinic and hospital.

A community nursery school, perhaps in a private home.

A community clearing house, for the exchange of services and produce.

A Community Clearing House
In many rural communities there are competent persons who have not found effective use for their time and energy. An interesting career for such a person would be the development of a community clearing house. In most small American communities one of the principal shortcomings is the lack of money as a medium of exchange. Even within the community there are many services which the members could render one another which are not rendered because of lack of money to pay for them.

A well managed community clearing house can overcome much of this handicap, and can enable the community to serve itself much better. Whenever any member of a community has goods or can render services which some other member wants, the goods or services can be supplied without money. The person supplying the goods or services can be credited on the clearing house books with their agreed value, while the person receiving the services or goods can be debited on the clearing house books. The management would deduct a percentage of credit from each transaction to pay for administration.

With this system in operation the community members can serve each other to the limit of their time and resources, largely unhampered by lack of money. Good management is necessary, and a considerable period of time and experience may be required before confidence and habits develop which will make such a clearing house generally effective. Detailed methods for such a community clearing house have been worked out. As a phase of such a community clearing house, a service might be developed for renting or lending equipment which is used only occasionally. In one town a man made it his business to gather up much of such equipment, baby carriages, wheeled chairs, crutches, sick room appliances, etc., which were made available to whoever wanted then. He found many people were glad to empty their attics of such equipment and to give it more frequent use.

Buy at Home
In a good community the "buy at home" policy will not be carried to excess. The aim will be not to buy at home as much as possible, but to be self supporting to the greatest degree that is beneficial. For instance, it may be unnecessarily expensive and wasteful in a region which raises livestock, to ship livestock to a distant market, and then to ship meat products back again. A local packing and freezing plant may add a new industry to the community and save much of the cost of shipping and of commercial overhead. The same may be true as to canned foods and other food products, and as to recreation facilities. The economic monotony of most American small communities is due only partly to economy of large scale operation. Partly it is due to bad economic habits or to lack of economic education.

Cooperatives
In Nova Scotia the development of cooperatives has raised a poverty stricken region to a much higher economic level, and to a better social level in the process. Similar opportunities are awaiting leadership in many parts of America. The co-operative movement is too extensive to be adequately discussed in this place.

Public Finance in Small Communities
The public economics of the small community has been studied to a considerable degree, and yet we know all too little about public expenditures for small towns and villages. The problem is more difficult because much of the control of public expenditures lies with the county, the state, and the national government. Yet, the difference between good and bad public finances for small communities is so great as sometimes make the difference as to whether or not they are favorable places to live and to do business. A great service can be rendered to any community by a qualified citizen or group of citizens who will make it their business to understand public expenditures in the community, who will help to the adoption of well-planned community budgets, and who will help to bring order and simplicity into community public expenditures. There are public service organizations which will help in this process. 

An Economic Survey
As a basis for understanding the economic possibilities and needs of the community an economic survey is desirable. The following account of such a survey of a village of about 2000 people, made in the course of a few weeks with almost no cash outlay, indicates how such an undertaking may be begun. This particular survey had a special and limited purpose, that of finding out how the people of a village actually made their living, but it illustrates a method.

A list was built up of the names and addresses of every person in the village of income-earning age and condition, or whose support was not provided for.

The local telephone book was used to begin the list. Then the lists of persons who paid for water, electric light, or gas were examined, and other names were added. Then the voters lists were similarly examined. Most employers supplied lists of their employees. Then several persons who were acquainted with various elements of the community looked over the resulting list, and added a few names that had been missed.

An effort was made to learn how each one of these persons earned a living. The lists of employees were self explanatory. The local banker gave information concerning several, as did the grocer, the man who reads water and light meters, the ministers, and others. The few remaining names required special inquiry. All these names were then classified according to classes of occupations and according to whether the occupation was continuous or intermittent. While this list was being prepared a visit was made to every business and professional establishment in the village.

Types of Information
The information gathered included the nature of the business, the date established, the number of full time and part time employees with their names and whether they were white or colored; the number who lived in the village and the number who came into the village from outside the area served by the business, the source of its materials, what competition it had from inside and outside the village, and what the prospects were for the business. During these visits each proprietor was asked what opportunities and needs, in his opinion, existed in the village for new businesses or new services. Various other individuals were asked what they considered to be the chief economic needs and opportunities of the village.

Survey Conclusions
When this information was classified it threw considerable light on economic conditions in the community. Twenty years before this village had served surrounding farm community and was the home of a struggling small college. There was small hope for employment at home for more than few of its young people. Through the development of a number of small industries and other undertakings, and through the regeneration of the college, it had become a fairly well-balanced economic unit during the twenty years. The survey showed that a considerable number of young African Americans lacked employment, and that condition has been somewhat relieved. The survey showed the need of a small industry which would employ young African Americans. Otherwise it appeared that nearly all labor was employed, and that if another industry of any size should be added to the community it would have to bring its labor from outside. There was room for a number of additional carpenters and other crafts people.

Various additional undertakings seemed possible, if they should be thoroughly well-managed, including a small bakery, a small laundry, and a local dairy. It was observed that relatively few business people had suggestions as to new enterprises. The survey would have been more valuable if it had disclosed what additional or different services could be supplied by residents of the village. Also, for a true community survey, the surrounding farm district which deals with the village should have been included. 

Other Kinds of Surveys
Another type of economic survey would be to determine what foods and other goods are very generally sold in the community, and then to find out to what degree the community might profitably fill its own needs in this respect. Still another type of survey might be a study of local raw materials, with inquiry as to the possibility of processing them for local use or for general sale  No definite form can be prescribed for a community economic survey. The problem of finding the economic needs of the community and discovering or developing ways to meet them must be met by each community in its own way.