ABSTRACT
While the Amish clearly desire to maintain their three-hundred-year tradition of cultural "separateness" or distance from the world around them, the burning reality for many in Lancaster County is that they live a "fish bowl" existence. The film professor suggests these are potentially lethal—other scholars are less sure. Some suspect they are looking at the onset of the Amish Industrial Revolution. As the Amish population continues to grow in Lancaster County, a plunge into microenterprises appears to be one reasonably good way for the Plain People to stay in south central Pennsylvania, maintain their communities, and survive economically. Amish are buying land primarily out of religious conviction—because they want to offer their children a chance to be farmers. Put a bit differently, the half million dollar purchase prices do not necessarily constitute the very best economic investment. Indeed, the decisions might well constitute moderately irrational economic behavior.
