The Future UO: A Few Observations on its Characteristics

[_The Nehor]

All the things you mentioned that you will have in your closet are things that have already been produced and accumulated. If there is to be no equality of opportunity in economic or temporal matters in Zion, this would seem to imply that one major purpose of Zion, as a concept and actual social order, is to crush, or at least highly circumscribe individual economic activity and creativity (starting, running, and doing business, in other words).

Right, because doing business will be at best a necessary evil in Zion. We have other things to worry about.

If, in Zion, I have little or no opportunity to use the skills and talents I have in the economic realm, how then, will wealth be created, beyond the stuff you've already crammed into your closet? How are others to come by the same things and amenities?

It will be created by those who want to create it. Basic things like food, power, shelter, and the like all will assist in making sure it happens. If I need more I'll create it. Others can come by them by creating them or asking others with specific skills to help them create. The ruling principle will be charity not profit.

[_The Nehor]

I don't think Nehor is a socialist so much as he is just anti-capitalist, having been, to this point, burdened by what Von Mises called the "anti-capitalist mentality." That mentality has imbued all schools of thought on the Left but is not limited to that. It can be an individual characteristic as well, and I think that's pretty much what we're seeing here.

Wrong!

If I had to choose between capitalism and anything else I'd probably pick capitalism. Learning to love the Lord's plan was hard for me. You remind me of myself when I first saw the contradiction when I started seriously studying the Doctrine and Covenants.

I'm currently a moderate and usually vote Conservative (Republicans and Southern Democrats).

However, I accept that the conservative dogma you espouse will die in the fires of the Second Coming (or hopefully before). Don't get too attached. Idolatry is a dangerous thing.

[_The Nehor]

Now, to cut to the chase, as they say, let's now ask the question of those taking the Proudhonian approach to the concept of the UO: What in the above (accumulating wealth, making profits, investing capital, and saving for a nicer future etc.) is to be considered wrong, evil, anti-gospel or anti-Christian?

Okay.

Let's look at each in turn, in a free market economic sense, and ask that, or a very similar question.

1. Accumulating wealth (saving).

Not trusting in the Lord. While we have to now it was not always so. Adam and Eve just plucked the fruit from the trees.

2. Investing accumulated wealth in productive economic activity ("working" or "venture" capital).

Aren't there better things to do with wealth?

3. Making profits (excess wealth remaining after all costs of production have been met not used for immediate consumption (this can also be on the household level)).

Nothing wrong with producing more then you need in some areas but that is so you get the blessing of sharing with another. The profit motive is a telestial motive, of this earth.

4. Living normal, economic life (hiring and firing, setting prices and productions quotas, and choosing a college and profession, and let's add taking the dog to the groomer, piano and ballet lessons, butterfly collecting, film making, setting up a lemonade stand on the front lawn, or whatever).

No need for hiring, firing, prices, money, quotas may be needed to make sure everyone is fed but that is it. I don't think we'll need colleges and professions will be outmoded as a restrictive and dull way of life. The rest, why not just do it yourself or with others who enjoy it?

What does anybody here see, within any of these categories or specific forms of human action, that is incompatible, inharmonious, or in clear contradiction to the principles of the UO and a Zion society?

They're not in clear contradiction. They're just irrelevant.

[_The Nehor]

So because socialism isn't it it must be capitalism? There's a fallacy there somewhere.

In a formal sense, this could be, but tell me, what is the alternative between freedom and serfdom?

More freedom.

Is there a "middle ground" between being economically free and being enslaved?

Yes, but Zion has no part in it.

Is the condition of people within Zion a semi-enslaved condition?

Giving up the economic order we have today is freedom. Giving up the power to convince your fellow man to labor on your terms because you have cash and he needs food won't work forever. Zion is built on higher principles.

So it's exactly the same as now? Your Zion sucks.

Hardly. Without any wicked around, conditions will otherwise be vastly different than at present.

Indeed, the workers will work harder for those who own capital because that's the honest thing to do. There won't be any cheating or unfairness so we can really get down to the business of digging up the treasures of the earth and using them for our own pleasure and to gain dominion through our economic prowess. Someone had a plan similar to that. Who was that now?

(Insert eye-rolling smiley here)

[_bcspace]

I don't think Nehor is a socialist so much as he is just anti-capitalist

One and the same unless one is an anarchist in the truest sense of the word (not libertarian).

So you're arguing God had no idea what he was talking about when he gave this parable? Seriously?

I think what you're arguing is that the Church doesn't know what the verses mean since you seem to disagree with the doctrine.

[_The Nehor]

Well, in any detail, or in any ultimate sense, I'm not really sure what the clear import of this verse really is. In the context of this discussion (and others like it), I think that perhaps we can move toward some kind of interpretative clarity by working up from the bottom.

At the bottom, we would look at the words ("it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another"), and, if we interpret the term "that" as meaning "anything whatsoever" we would then tend to see in this an absolute or near absolute equality of economic condition. So in this scenario everyone has their little pink house, their white picket fence, a little yard with some flowers and a bird bath, a used Yugo (the Nibley model, with no radio and heat only), a transistor radio on the kitchen table, a bare bulb above that table, and a closet with a small number (the same as everybody else) of olive green Mao suites with matching beret.

That is not what it means.

Somewhere between this communist model of egalitarian uniformity and libertarian anarchism lies both free market, democratic capitalism, and a more refined and perfected social order known as the United Order.

So you're guessing it's this just because you see it in the middle?

Two things, it would appear, would have to be true about the UO for it to be either a righteous or a economically viable social system. The first is that it must, by its very nature be market based (this can be inferred from the fact that there will be no poor within the Zion society, which implies a very substantial and dynamic market society capable of creating a great deal of wealth and keeping the Bishop's storehouse full, as well as, more importantly, providing the means for economic independence for those capable of work and economic contribution).

I deny that this can be inferred. This is your own bias talking.

The second is that the UO, being a social order grounded in the gospel, must be organized around the exaltation, progression, and growth of the people within it. This would seem to obviate the leveling mentality seen so much among some LDS in the message board world who have their heels dug in regarding an egalitarian interpretation of the relevant texts.

Wait, so you want to compare being exalted to making money? Both are examples of grown and are comparable.

I am bewildered.

True, the large poles of wealth we see at present between "rich" and "poor" will be substantially decreased (the rich will be brought low and the poor exalted), but this should not be confused as a mandate requiring a classless society or that, in the rich being abased, they are in some sense being punished for being rich per se.

But the Nephite society collapsed explicitly because they divided into ranks/classes. Of course the rich won't be punished. They will happily help the others. Well, the righteous ones will. The rest will leave the Church in disgust long before we get to that point.

I think those waiting for the rich, including rich people in the Church who are otherwise righteous and faithful Saints, to be "cut down to size" by economic moral nannies in Zion are going to find themselves, like the foolish virgins, with the doors to Zion closed in their faces.

"Cut down to size"? What?

You're also seriously comparing a parable about faith to wealth accumulation again? Oh boy.

The righteous rich will gladly and of their own free will transfer substantial portions of their wealth (on and individual basis and based upon individual characteristics, gifts, abilities and talents) to the Bishop's storehouse, and all the righteous poor in Zion will have an equal claim upon it. Just as importantly, the poor in Zion will have equal access to jobs in a free market economy that is an efficient and prolific creator of jobs and economic opportunity.

So, same old, same old. Again, this Zion sucks.

Keep in mind this statement by President Lorenzo Snow:

It was a law which, if observed, would have made the people the richest and wealthiest of any people in the world. There would not have been a poor Latter-day Saint in their midst. Every man would have had all he needed to make him happy and comfortable, so far as financial matters were concerned.

Well, everybody being rich and comfortable? What this patently is not, if this is the case, is socialism of any kind.

Again with the socialist strawman.

Is it "capitalism"? Well, strong capitalistic (individual initiative based, free market economic dynamics) must certainly be present for this kind of economic performance to be considered.

You believe this because of your economic philosophies not because of the gospel. If they're rich they have to be capitalists. The word of Adam Smith is the Word of God on this matter.

Baloney.

Is is the secularist economic world we deal with at present? Clearly no. What is it? Well, until the present or a future Prophet reveals the finer details of the system, that remains a good bit theoretical.

Indeed, but not in the way you think.

It seems to me the the scriptures Joseph Smith issued to the world were very concerned with the plight of the poor and down trodden. The Book of Mormon certainly is. So is the D&C. And really that is not surprising considering the poverty of the Smith family and the economic losses sustained by Joseph Senior.

I am not saying Joseph Smith was a socialist. But I am skeptical he would have been the enthusiastic free marked capitalist you and BC seem to be in favor of.

But why wouldn't he have been, as this is the only system of production and resource allocation that has any proven, historical record, both in theory and in practice, of providing the poor with a way out of their poverty - productive work, or, in other words, wealth creation?

Except for the early Christians, the Enochians, and the Nephites.

It is also the only system human beings have ever attempted that has the capacity to provide relatively comfortable levels of economic security and living standards for all, including the poor (who benefit directly and indirectly the vast plethora of goods and services available, job growth, and the continual diminishing of prices created by competitive free markets, bringing, over time, even luxury goods available only to the upper classes when they are introduced, within their reach).

It has done this but that does not make it the best of all systems.

The UO economically will be, as I have said before, a more refined, purified and perfect form of a free market order, but with the imperfections and weaknesses of that system "weeded out," so to speak, and much of this will be in the form of the weeding out corrupt aspects of the present political and social set of conditions we live under that corrupt and pervert free market economics to their own ends (such as protectionism, barring of entry to trades and professions through the power of government, mercantilism, crony capitalism, high, punitive and politically motivated taxation etc.).

So Jesus doesn't need to come? If Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck had their way it would have the same effect?

[_The Nehor]

I don't think Nehor is a socialist so much as he is just anti-capitalist

One and the same unless one is an anarchist in the truest sense of the word (not libertarian).

So is feudalism socialism or capitalism? How about tribalism?

So you're arguing God had no idea what he was talking about when he gave this parable? Seriously?

I think what you're arguing is that the Church doesn't know what the verses mean since you seem to disagree with the doctrine.

I've been taught exactly the interpretation I've given here from great men and women in the Church, including a Seventy. Look at the context of the parable. It's clear what God was saying. That you don't want it to say what it clearly says is not a good justification for claiming no one gets it.

[_Nightlion]

What then would you classify an economy where everyone seeks the interests of his neighbor with an eye single to the glory of God? Hmm?

D&C 82: 19
19 Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God.

Well sir you have certainly panned this discussion.

Let's call such an economy.......a united order. Hmm?

[_Droopy]

Droopy:

1. In a democratic, rule of law grounded free market"capitalist" economic order, no one decides for anybody else who has what, or how much of it, and this core fact renders the relevance of this verse moot.

So you're arguing God had no idea what he was talking about when he gave this parable? Seriously?

Obviously not. I am arguing that the parable you've used above does not actually have any relevance to the issues we are discussing because its context - someone determining for others what they shall have, how much, and at what level of quality - does not accurately reflect a free, democratic capitalist society in its economic aspect.

Droopy:

2. Your analysis in in contradiction to virtually every modern General Authority who has ever discoursed on the matter at any detail. As Ezra Taft Benson said, "The law of consecration "is a celestial law, not an economic experiment.

Of course it's not an experiment. It's been used before. Enoch, Nephites and Lamanites after Christ came, early Christians in the Old World, and Joseph and Brigham's attempts to bring it into being in this dispensation, failing because of the weakness of the saints.

This assumes that you really have a substantial grasp on just what the UO was in those ages and among those peoples, something for which we have virtually no scriptural record as to any details of the system, and that the future, pre-Millennial UO is going to be simply a carbon copy of those ancient systems, or of the incomplete and partly experimental system in force under Brigham Young. I am dubious regarding both points.

For verily I say unto you, the time has come, and is now at hand; and behold, and lo, it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place and in the land of Zion—

For a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church, to advance the cause, which ye have espoused, to the salvation of man, and to the glory of your Father who is in heaven;

That you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things.

For if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things;

These are the same old tired, threadbare, isolated and incontextual proof texts used in precisely the same manner that EVs use Paul to prove salvation by grace alone. As has been pointed out again and again here, and by GAs elsewhere over much of the 20th century, the "equality" spoken of here is equality of claim or access to the economic blessings of a Zion community. It has no relation to economic egalitarianism in any literal sense.

So you're saying that the Law of Consecration is capitalism and we were already living it? That whole United Order thing was a step backwards?

Where have I argued or implied this? It is you, David Bokovoy, and a few others (such as the late Dr. Nibley) who are arguing that the UO represents an alternative to or repudiation of free market, private property based economic relations. I'm not saying that the LoC is "capitalism" because the concept of capitalism is a creation the Marx and of the Left, and in the real world, it comes in a number of forms, not all of which can supply the temporal blessings that its proper form can.

What I have long argued is that the UO is structured and organized as fundamentally a free market, individual initiative and de facto private property (private stewardship) based system, in its economc aspect, and cannot possibly function successfully in an economic sense (providing economic independence and self sufficiency for most and a comfortable standard of living for the intermittently poor and for those who cannot support themselves). Nor can either free agency or the development of the individuated, unique talents and capacities of each person that is the core of the plan of salvation be maintained in any other system in any gospel-harmonious way.

So in other words the equality is the standard "American dream" tripe about how everyone could be rich if they wanted to be.

I don't know anything about such "tripe," as I've never heard it expressed by any serious free market thinker.

Seems God would have been more clear and spent more time praising the saints for gouging the new immigrants to their communities rather then rebuking them then. They were just taking advantage of their "economic blessings".

I guess one good tripe deserves another.

But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.

Droopy:

Yes they will, but you're still a long, long way, given what we know about the proper interpretation of such verses from our modern prophets, seers, and revelators, from demonstrating any equality of condition or economic results.

Nope. And it states quite clearly there will be no rich...at least not until everyone is rich. Doesn't square with your "equality of opportunity" ideas.

Yes, it states that there will be no rich...and no poor, which would appear to suggest a general level of affluence or economic condition placed in a median bwtween these to extreme poles (and as you have not defined what you mean by "rich," I have no idea where the one pole resides).

Perhaps "middle class" is as good a term as any, even though it carries connotations that will not be present in the UO and which free market capitalism has rendered rather moot in any case.

I'm following the plain meaning of scripture.

No, you're quite clearly not, which is why I can't find a single General Authority in the entirety of the last century, and as yet in this one, who supports or has taught your "plain meaning of scripture." in the Church.

Perhaps you could show me where these GA teachings reside, as I've obviously managed to miss them.

[Guest]

Right, because doing business will be at best a necessary evil in Zion. We have other things to worry about.

1. How will wealth be created in Zion Nehor - the wealth necessary to fund Zion's infrastructure and render most able bodied members of it self sufficient and economically independent, and to fill the Bishop's storehouse and maintain its welfare function?

2. Who will maintain us and our families at decent standards of existence while we do these unspecified "other things?"

It will be created by those who want to create it. Basic things like food, power, shelter, and the like all will assist in making sure it happens. If I need more I'll create it. Others can come by them by creating them or asking others with specific skills to help them create. The ruling principle will be charity not profit.

Not only does the above answer, clarify, and elucidate nothing (demonstrating that your knowledge of just what the ancient Zion communities were really like, like your knowledge of what the future UO will be like, is, like the rest of us, appreciably zero, as to any particulars) but I should I suppose thank you for overtly descending into intellectually vacuous blather at the last moment, demonstrating, yet again, that you have not the slightest idea what you're talking about, and care little for a philosophically and theologically serious discussion of this subject. You're here to beat your breast, as has been the case for years, and is the case with so many others who share your beliefs.

Too bad, as here in the Celestial room, discussion is supposed to remain at a respectable intellectual level. Vague, fragmented, obfuscatory ink squirting as you've written above just makes it look like you're running away because you've been cornered and have left yourself no exit.

Sorry I had to say it, but if you don't intend to meet me halfway and have a philosophically mature debate and wish to continue insulting my intelligence, then off the tracks to the train.