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ABSTRACT The aims of this paper are twofold: first, to gain a fuller understanding of factors that foster community cohesion and contribute to the residents' social and economic well-being; and, second, to move beyond previous research that used larger spatial units such as states, counties, or aggregates of counties and to focus instead on American small towns (population 2,500–20,000). The data on small towns are drawn from public-use files and from confidential microdata from various economic censuses. From these sources we construct measures of locally oriented firms, self-employment, business establishments that serve as gathering places, and associations. The local capitalism and civic engagement variables generally perform as hypothesized; in some cases they are related quite strongly to civic welfare outcomes such as income levels, poverty rates, and nonmigration rates. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working with place-level data and suggest some strategies for subsequent work on small towns and other incorporated places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents reply of the author on the comments of Susan A. Mann and James M. Dickinson on the utility of a Marx-Weber synthesis for the study of rural stratification. Recognition of only a formal rationality necessitates a view of simple commodity producers as aspiring capitalists who either succeeds in that endeavor or, in failing, join the proletariat. The concept of substantive rationality allows us to conceive these actors as more than mere carriers of the "logic of capital," and thus as active agents in creating social structure. If the variations on the new Marxist theme within rural sociology are to be critiqued for refusal to accept the particular Althusserian position that history is a process without a subject, then it will be believed that advances will be of limited significance. Marxism without people may be better able to present itself as scientific theory, but it simultaneously loses much of its critical potential. Given the traditions and body of literature already established, such an "all or nothing" presentation of Marxism would probably serve to exclude many rural sociologists who might otherwise incorporate aspects of Marx's analysis into their research.