The politics involved in the community are fascinating. They have local committees that decide the rules for a community, anywhere from a neighborhood to a sma

The politics involved in the community are fascinating. They have local committees that decide the rules for a community, anywhere from a neighborhood to a small town. But those local committees also coordinate at a higher regional level to set overall policy, and the various regions also coordinate at the top level. This means a decision made at the top level, like "no electricity in the home" gets filtered down through the communities with different interpretations of the rules. A particularly strict community might ban all automation in the home, while another will ban power lines but allow battery operated tools, while another will ban all electricity but allow air tools causing people to develop air powered hand mixers and refrigerators. You see a lot of clever workarounds for arbitrary rules in the Amish community. It is very common to see rules bent or broken when necessary for a job, like a farmer being allowed to burn gasoline/diesel to run farm equipment even when his local community bans using it for anything else. Some of the furniture makers have rather sophisticated workshops (although nothing CNC) which allow them to make the furniture efficiently enough to sell it for a very low price.