The Future UO: A Few Observations on its Characteristics

[_Droopy]

Droopy:

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.

So you admit that the context supports my interpretation but are throwing it out because it conflicts with your political views? Got it.

Perhaps an elementary course in logic might help here? I don't know. In any event, I have not admitted that the context supports your interpretation. What I'm arguing, as I thought I've made explicit, is that the parable you've used here is, to be precise, not relevant to a truly unhampered, free market economic order within a free, open society.

I have never heard the GAs say any such thing. They have said that it is not complete equality in the sense that everyone has the same things. It's your claim that they mean 'equality of claim' that I have never heard substantiated.

Its been posted here and at the MADboards countless times, by myself and others.

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?

Droopy:

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.

And it's proper form is?

I'm not sure (and neither are you, David Bokovoy, or anyone else who has been making the "communitarian" argument here) what the exact form might be. What I am quite certain of, given historical GA teachings and what we have in the D&C, is that it will be both free market and de facto private property oriented, and that it will be a covenant society in which those free market relations will be governed by covenant relationship to the Lord in a more explict manner than at present. Any Temple endowed person who understands the LoC as revealed, is already living that covenant if fully faithful to the gospel. The fully established Zion will simply be making explicit what is already implicit in our gospel covenants.

And I completely disagree with everything you say here.

And you are fully free to ride your gospel Lipizzan Stallion here as long as you feel you need to.

So your talk about "equality of opportunity" meant something else?

Such as?

Again you come up against the word "equality" in the D&C showing you to be wrong.

And, again, a number of GAs have clarified the appropriate meaning of this term, as found in the scriptures, since well before you were born. I and others have sourced this over and over again from official church published materials.

Droopy:

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.

No, there are no classes at all.

Clever Nehor, really. True, there will probably be no "classes" as we understand that term. There will, however,certainly be, (and must be, if the concept of and respect towards the free agency and personal, eternal progression of each, unique individual are still to be maintained and respected), various levels or degrees of temporal condition within Zion, without, however, the vast disparities, or poles, of wealth we see now. You are free, of course, to produce a scriptural source for you claim of a classless society.

There aren't many talks on the Law of Consecration or the United Order out there.

There have been several major clarifications during the 20th century, all of which have found there way into a substantial portion of official church publications, including the D&C Student Manual and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. The student manual contains a large section on precisely this subject. You can also find most of the salient GA teaching at LDS.org.

[_Droopy]

Droopy:

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?

Nehor's non-answer:

By people willingly and happily creating it.

No need to even bother responding to this.

In a similar vein:

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

And another non-answer:

We will. Part of Zion will be all making sure that all have their basic needs met.

Again, the vague, gaseous generalities speak for themselves.

Thanks for admitting you can't argue against me. I, like most of your opponents, know that when you start talking about "serious discussion" that you have nothing else to say and nothing to rebut with.

Now you're talking like Scratch and Kevin. When you decide to actually engage me in a serious, informed, critical discussion of the economic and social issues you have raised regarding a Zionic social structure, please let me know, and we can enter into that debate.

Okay then, what is the fatal flaw in my "Vague, fragmented, obfuscatory ink squirting"?

The fact that you, like David, clearly have not the slightest idea regarding the economic principles you blithely bandy about with vague, starry eyed abandon as you beat your breasts in righteous indignation when others support the concepts of economic free agency you so vehemently oppose from your self righteous socio-political Rameumptum.

I wasn't insulting your intelligence. You insulted mine by calling it "blather".

Which is precisely what your airy, evasive non-answers to serious, detailed arguments, propositions, and thesis statements are.

[Guest]

Droopy:

Too bad, is it not, that not a single modern authorized servant of the Lord in our day can be found to support you and David et al's particular gospel hobby?

To be a gospel hobby I would have to spend an inordinate amount of my study time fixated on it.

Well, that may be you're definition of "gospel hobby," but I think its only a partial definition. Whether it is a necessary or sufficient condition, I'm not sure. Suffice it to say, that if this is one requirement, an even more salient one would be simply a determined, iconoclastic interpretation of scriptural verses substantially out of harmony with historic GA consensus teachings on the subject, stubbornly held to in the face of that very historic, consistent GA teaching.

You see socialism and communism everywhere and comment on it endlessly while endlessly talking about how God approves of free markets and capitalism. I'd say 80% of your posts on a board designed to discuss religion involve politics.

That may be because the intersection of the gospel and politics/economics is one of my key intellectual foci, and because, over the last couple of years or so, its been perhaps 97% of all the posts David as presented at the MADboards, and one taken up by the tiny "LDS Left" on that board in his support.

I hardly ever started that long and disastrous tradition.

I discuss this when you bring it up (which you do every time, I have not once) and not even every time you bring it up.

I've only historically brought it up as a response to others bringing it up. Otherwise, I would, most of the time be responding to blacks and the priesthood threads or Gay marriage stuff, or things of a similar hue. The UO-is-a-vindication-of-socialism argument was initiated solely by others in the apologetics community, not by me.

Who has the gospel hobby?

Who indeed?

I ask you to support your "equality of opportunity" reading of D&C with relevant teachings of the modern Brethren. Official Church sources please.

And I will, when I have the time during my move here to do a little research. Otherwise, the doctrine of free agency and the purpose of our mortal probation requires such, for the gospel to work as a system of agency based decision making regarding the range of alternatives open to us in mortality and personal responsibility/accountability in relation to them. "Equality of opportunity" is simply, as I am using it, another term for "free agency" and individual stewardship within a gospel and general social context within a free, personal responsibility based, open economic society as created by our divinely inspired constitution.

I'm quite sure of my philosophical core.

Thank you for this honesty. Neither am I sure of your philosophical core, which is why I commented upon it. I, however, am quite sure of mine (thought it is, and always has been, a work in progress).

It just isn't obsessed with property rights and markets.

Nor am I "obsessed" with such. Extreme, provocative language such as this does not promote civil, critical discourse.

It's concerned more with charity, faith, justice, mercy, God, etc. My views on property rights and markets stem from those.

So do mine. Interesting eh?

A moderate, in other words, is someone who really isn't comfortable taking an informed, passionate stand on anything...except his moderation.

I take a passionate stand against you on what we are discussing.

The problem is, I don't perceive that you have the slightest idea what I'm really discussing, or what my position is. You have a longstanding pop cultural, cartoonish concept of "capitalism" and free market economics that I've not seen you make a serious attempt to ameliorate in some years of discussion. I've seen no serious attempt on your part to educate yourself regarding these related subjects.

I take a passionate stand for the gospel.

As do I.

[_Droopy]

Have a great time riding your gospel hobby horse off into the sunset, but I'm not sure how you can do that and hold fast to the iron rod at the same time.

I don't think you know what gospel hobbies are or you wouldn't so quickly accuse me of having one.

You are the one who steers every discussion onto your "Capitalism is of God" monomania.

Nope. Stern and doctrinaire claims regarding the vindication of Marx, socialism, communism, and collectivist, leftist utopian social ideas by Joseph Smith and the UO began years ago with the FAIR community and my responses, and others responses to them, have been completely defensive.

Had it not been for the aggressive preoccupation among a tiny sub-group of intellectuals within the apologetics community on this subject, I doubt that I, bc, Selek, Will, LeSellers, or anyone else in that same community would ever have felt the necessity to strongly oppose and clarify our positions (and the historical Church's) on these issues.

Otherwise, it would just be Prop 8 24/7, and Glen Beck bashing.

[_The Nehor]

Droopy:

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.

So you admit that the context supports my interpretation but are throwing it out because it conflicts with your political views? Got it.

Perhaps an elementary course in logic might help here? I don't know. In any event, I have not admitted that the context supports your interpretation. What I'm arguing, as I thought I've made explicit, is that the parable you've used here is, to be precise, not relevant to a truly unhampered, free market economic order within a free, open society.

I completely agree because the parable is not talking about an "unhampered, free market economic order". That is my point actually.

I have never heard the GAs say any such thing. They have said that it is not complete equality in the sense that everyone has the same things. It's your claim that they mean 'equality of claim' that I have never heard substantiated.

Its been posted here and at the MADboards countless times, by myself and others.

No, all you've shown with those quotes is it will not be a flat and complete equality of possessions. This is something I have never disagreed with.

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?

Droopy:

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.

And it's proper form is?

I'm not sure (and neither are you, David Bokovoy, or anyone else who has been making the "communitarian" argument here) what the exact form might be. What I am quite certain of, given historical GA teachings and what we have in the D&C, is that it will be both free market and de facto private property oriented, and that it will be a covenant society in which those free market relations will be governed by covenant relationship to the Lord in a more explict manner than at present. Any Temple endowed person who understands the LoC as revealed, is already living that covenant if fully faithful to the gospel. The fully established Zion will simply be making explicit what is already implicit in our gospel covenants.

Wrong.

And I completely disagree with everything you say here.

And you are fully free to ride your gospel Lipizzan Stallion here as long as you feel you need to.

Wheeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So your talk about "equality of opportunity" meant something else?

Such as?

I have no idea. You said it.

Again you come up against the word "equality" in the D&C showing you to be wrong.

And, again, a number of GAs have clarified the appropriate meaning of this term, as found in the scriptures, since well before you were born. I and others have sourced this over and over again from official church published materials.

The sources you provide just tell us stuff we both agree on. It does not say what you want it to say.

Droopy:

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.

No, there are no classes at all.

Clever Nehor, really. True, there will probably be no "classes" as we understand that term. There will, however,certainly be, (and must be, if the concept of and respect towards the free agency and personal, eternal progression of each, unique individual are still to be maintained and respected), various levels or degrees of temporal condition within Zion, without, however, the vast disparities, or poles, of wealth we see now. You are free, of course, to produce a scriptural source for you claim of a classless society.

Nope. I present 4 Nephi as evidence. Consecration failed when ranks and classes appeared.

There aren't many talks on the Law of Consecration or the United Order out there.

There have been several major clarifications during the 20th century, all of which have found there way into a substantial portion of official church publications, including the D&C Student Manual and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. The student manual contains a large section on precisely this subject. You can also find most of the salient GA teaching at LDS.org.

Read those, don't see your ideas there.

[_The Nehor]

Droopy:

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?

Nehor's non-answer:

By people willingly and happily creating it.

No need to even bother responding to this.

Of course not. That would require you to argue that people in Zion work for their bread alone and leave joy out of the equation. :)

In a similar vein:

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

And another non-answer:

We will. Part of Zion will be all making sure that all have their basic needs met.

Again, the vague, gaseous generalities speak for themselves.

If you want specifics I can give them but then you'll demand GA backing and there isn't any for the specifics. Just pure revelation to me.

Woo-hoo!!!!

Thanks for admitting you can't argue against me. I, like most of your opponents, know that when you start talking about "serious discussion" that you have nothing else to say and nothing to rebut with.

Now you're talking like Scratch and Kevin. When you decide to actually engage me in a serious, informed, critical discussion of the economic and social issues you have raised regarding a Zionic social structure, please let me know, and we can enter into that debate.

You won't debate. You just keep saying that only a free market can create Zion ad nauseum.

Okay then, what is the fatal flaw in my "Vague, fragmented, obfuscatory ink squirting"?

The fact that you, like David, clearly have not the slightest idea regarding the economic principles you blithely bandy about with vague, starry eyed abandon as you beat your breasts in righteous indignation when others support the concepts of economic free agency you so vehemently oppose from your self righteous socio-political Rameumptum.

I know a lot about economics. In fact, I'm guessing I have more backing in economic principles then you do. Did you study economics at the University level?

Also, I oppose economic agency? What?

I wasn't insulting your intelligence. You insulted mine by calling it "blather".

Which is precisely what your airy, evasive non-answers to serious, detailed arguments, propositions, and thesis statements are.

By that I assume you mean your endless vapid droning on about how free markets are supported by God himself?

See, I can play that game too.

[_The Nehor]

To be a gospel hobby I would have to spend an inordinate amount of my study time fixated on it.

Well, that may be you're definition of "gospel hobby," but I think its only a partial definition. Whether it is a necessary or sufficient condition, I'm not sure. Suffice it to say, that if this is one requirement, an even more salient one would be simply a determined, iconoclastic interpretation of scriptural verses substantially out of harmony with historic GA consensus teachings on the subject, stubbornly held to in the face of that very historic, consistent GA teaching.

That's not what a gospel hobby is.

“We frequently look about us and see people who incline to extremes, who are fanatical. We may be sure that this class of people do not understand the gospel. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, that it is very unwise to take a fragment of truth and treat it as if it were the whole thing”

-Joseph F. Smith

See, it's something that is true blown out of all proportion.

You see socialism and communism everywhere and comment on it endlessly while endlessly talking about how God approves of free markets and capitalism. I'd say 80% of your posts on a board designed to discuss religion involve politics.

That may be because the intersection of the gospel and politics/economics is one of my key intellectual foci, and because, over the last couple of years or so, its been perhaps 97% of all the posts David as presented at the MADboards, and one taken up by the tiny "LDS Left" on that board in his support.

See, it's your gospel hobby.

I hardly ever started that long and disastrous tradition.

Then you have perpetuated it.

I discuss this when you bring it up (which you do every time, I have not once) and not even every time you bring it up.

I've only historically brought it up as a response to others bringing it up. Otherwise, I would, most of the time be responding to blacks and the priesthood threads or Gay marriage stuff, or things of a similar hue. The UO-is-a-vindication-of-socialism argument was initiated solely by others in the apologetics community, not by me.

And yet you keep bringing it up....endlessly.

Who has the gospel hobby?

Who indeed?

I'll give you a hint: You.

I ask you to support your "equality of opportunity" reading of D&C with relevant teachings of the modern Brethren. Official Church sources please.

And I will, when I have the time during my move here to do a little research. Otherwise, the doctrine of free agency and the purpose of our mortal probation requires such, for the gospel to work as a system of agency based decision making regarding the range of alternatives open to us in mortality and personal responsibility/accountability in relation to them. "Equality of opportunity" is simply, as I am using it, another term for "free agency" and individual stewardship within a gospel and general social context within a free, personal responsibility based, open economic society as created by our divinely inspired constitution.

Wrong.

I'm quite sure of my philosophical core.

Thank you for this honesty. Neither am I sure of your philosophical core, which is why I commented upon it. I, however, am quite sure of mine (thought it is, and always has been, a work in progress).

Good luck with it in any case.

It just isn't obsessed with property rights and markets.

Nor am I "obsessed" with such. Extreme, provocative language such as this does not promote civil, critical discourse.

I disagree on the first part.

It's concerned more with charity, faith, justice, mercy, God, etc. My views on property rights and markets stem from those.

So do mine. Interesting eh?

Not really, no.

A moderate, in other words, is someone who really isn't comfortable taking an informed, passionate stand on anything...except his moderation.

I take a passionate stand against you on what we are discussing.

The problem is, I don't perceive that you have the slightest idea what I'm really discussing, or what my position is. You have a longstanding pop cultural, cartoonish concept of "capitalism" and free market economics that I've not seen you make a serious attempt to ameliorate in some years of discussion. I've seen no serious attempt on your part to educate yourself regarding these related subjects.

I am educated on these subjects. I say almost nothing about "capitalism" here because we are discussing Consecration and the UO which I don't think have much to do with "capitalism". So how you can characterize ideas I haven't shared is cartoonish is baffling to me.

I take a passionate stand for the gospel.

As do I.

Agreement. Hooray!

[_The Nehor]

I don't think you know what gospel hobbies are or you wouldn't so quickly accuse me of having one.

You are the one who steers every discussion onto your "Capitalism is of God" monomania.

Nope. Stern and doctrinaire claims regarding the vindication of Marx, socialism, communism, and collectivist, leftist utopian social ideas by Joseph Smith and the UO began years ago with the FAIR community and my responses, and others responses to them, have been completely defensive.

I'm vindicating Marx. You might call my conception of Zion a "collectivist, leftist utopian social idea" but I wouldn't. The Left would hate it if I shared it with them.

Had it not been for the aggressive preoccupation among a tiny sub-group of intellectuals within the apologetics community on this subject, I doubt that I, bc, Selek, Will, LeSellers, or anyone else in that same community would ever have felt the necessity to strongly oppose and clarify our positions (and the historical Church's) on these issues.

Endlessly.....including when your opponents are not there.

Otherwise, it would just be Prop 8 24/7, and Glen Beck bashing.

I can get behind Glenn Beck bashing. Let's do some of that.

[_Droopy]

First, you say this:

No, all you've shown with those quotes is it will not be a flat and complete equality of possessions. This is something I have never disagreed with.

Yet, prior to this, you made the claim, regarding economic conditions within Zion that:

...there are no classes at all.

Could you please clarify which of these two claims you wish to be associated with, as it does not appear that you can have it both ways.

Secondly, you claim:

I present 4 Nephi as evidence. Consecration failed when ranks and classes appeared.

But perhaps you should go back and take a closer look at this verse, because what it actually says is that

And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world.

And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them.

And they began to be divided into classes; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ.

This does not indicate that there were no degrees of temporal condition among them, or that, in a strictly conceptual sense, various levels or "classifications" did not exist relative to economic condition. Indeed, this close resembles 3 Nephi 6:12 in which "the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches."

In both verses, the problem is not "capitalism," free markets, private property, or the making of profit. The problem, in both cases, is the rise of pride and an awareness of rank and class. In verse ten of 3 Nephi 6, we read:

But it came to pass in the twenty and ninth year there began to be some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions.

Following this, "the people began to be distinguished by ranks..."

It is not, in other words (and the gospel as a whole does not indicate) the presence of wealth, riches, prosperity, and of a free market economic order, that created the problems for the Nephites. Nor was it the presence of a variety of economic strata among them based on individual characteristics (minus, again, the vast disparities of wealth seen in a non-Zion society). It was pride and unrighteous attitudes toward their wealth that produced an awareness of rank, class, and status; it is when the Nephites became aware of rank and class and became concerned with them - when they became meaningful and began to affect their perceptions of and relations with each other, that the trouble began and spread.

The condition of poverty can be just as conducive to the generation of wickedness, greed, and moral degeneration as the temptations attendant to wealth, and the poor can be just as avaricious and greedy as certain of the rich.

In other words, this verse may well be telling us, not that consecration failed when ranks and classes appeared, but that ranks and classes appeared (the society became aware of and began to place importance in them) because consecration failed due to the rise of unrighteous attitudes and perspectives. Consecration failed, not because various degrees of economic condition existed among the Nephites, but because rank and classification became important and began to define people within that culture.

It is awareness of rank and class as indicating social and ontological worth, that creates the dissolution of the LoC.

[_Droopy]

Of course not. That would require you to argue that people in Zion work for their bread alone and leave joy out of the equation. :)

Another cryptic, vague non-answer.

If you want specifics I can give them but then you'll demand GA backing and there isn't any for the specifics. Just pure revelation to me.

You can give them to me, but there is no present teachings by the Lord's authorized servants on those details. Interesting.

If you're receiving revelation the GAs are not, perhaps the problem here isn't just one of intellectual disagreement.

You won't debate. You just keep saying that only a free market can create Zion ad nauseum.

I've never made any such claim. All I've ever said, over some years now, is that the economic aspect of Zion cannot function, especially if poverty is to be abolished therein, under any other than free market economic conditions within the context of de facto private property (our stewardships will function, for all intents, as private property, even though it has explicitly been renounced as such by the covenant relationship) usage.