Community, however, aspires toward stability. It strives to balance change with constancy. That is why community life places such high value on neighborly love, marital fidelity, local loyalty, the integrity and continuity of family life, respect for the old, and instruction of the young. And a vital community draws its life, so far as is possible, from local sources. It prefers to solve its problems, for example, by nonmonetary exchanges of help, not buying things. A community cannot survive under the rule of competition.

– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace: Economy and Pleasure p. 212