Sounds like they aren't against "transactions" as a thing - they are limiting _their_ transactions with society at large.

After all, the number of transactions required to make even a pencil is astonishingly high, as Adam Smith pointed out two hundred years ago.

That's my understanding, yes. For instance, for fabric, they avoid retail, going to manufacturers (or at least wholesalers) and buying a community-year's worth in a single transaction.

I guess it's channeling https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17%3A15-16... ; transactions between english and amish are necessary (from being in the world) but to be minimised (not being of the world), whereas transactions between english or between amish don't count for flow across that boundary.

(too much rumination concerning flows across boundaries leads us across a different boundary: out of theology and into physical mathematics, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_theorem#Maxwell's_eq... )

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Edit: unfortunately https://www.jstor.org/stable/44257359 (amish & tourism, 1997) is paywalled

see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonconformity_to_the_world#Bib...

For historical developments, see https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Nonconformity#Europe.2C_As...

For intersection with hippiedom, consider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6itauSnrSZA