The ideal khadi center is (or is a central institution of) a true community in the sense given to the word “community” by Daly and Cobb. (13) In a true community: (i) Membership contributes to self-identification. (ii) There is extensive participation by its members in the decisions by which life is governed. (iii) The community as a whole takes responsibility for meeting the needs of the members. (iv) This responsibility includes respect for the diverse individuality of its members. 

The key item is the third. The community cares for the members. The processes of exchange are shaped to serve the ends of use.  

Against Gandhi’s swadeshi ideal, and against any proposal for true community, a common objection is that it runs contrary to human nature. It allegedly expects people to be sentimental altruists, when allegedly the fact is that people are rational egoists. But dharma is not sentiment. It is norm. To be sure, in a sense, in Max Weber’s terminology, Gandhi is proposing to turn back the clock so that people are no longer modern in the sense of instrumentally rational, but traditional in the sense of being governed by customs. (governed by Wertrationalitat instead of by a Zweckrationalitat that drives them to maximize personal payoffs). But it is hardly open to a Weberian to argue that it is contrary to human nature for people to be governed by conventional norms. According to Max Weber, most people have been so governed, in most societies, for most of history. (13A) Indeed it can be argued that even now people are governed by what Weber called customary norms; it just happens that the customary norms expect people to be rational egoists. Emile Durkheim’s theory that modern individualism is itself the product of a modern conscience collective provides a good fit to the empirically observed facts. (14) Therefore, modern economic rationality is not categorically different from Wertrationalitat. It is a particular kind of customary norm.