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Show "eliminate the competitive and individualizing tendencies of free market economics and private property.•i4 3 The special device for such a reordering of society was the Law of Consecration and Stewardship, revealed to Joseph Smith in 1830. 44 This Law was based upon the premise that the earth and all in it belonged to the Lord. Members were asked to deed or "consecrate" their personal property to the Church and in return receive a property allotment or "stewardship." Such a stewardship was called an "inheritance in Zion 11 and its size was to be determined according to each family's needs and abilities. Since an inheritance would not necessarily be equal to an individual's consecration, wealthy Saints would provide the church with a surplus of property which could be distributed to poorer members. The property itself was to be operated by the individual under the general direction of the hierarchy; but because each family remained in control of its own stewardship, a degree of free ent~rprise in production and management continued. Production surpluses were to be passed on to church coffers for the support of the hierarchy and its programs. This system, called . the Order of Enoch, or more graphically, the United Order, was intended to redistribute wealth among the Saints and generally to "act as a leveler, designed to bring about a condition of relative temporal equality among the early converts to the Church, for according to another [church] doctrine 1 it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin ! 1145 Translated into everyday practice, the rhetoric of the United Order ran into the problem of realities. 46 Administrative problems proved insurmountabl~ and the legal status of consecration deeds was openly challenged by apostate members. The programs for redistributing wealth 46 |
