Having received a number of expressions of interest and support in both public (via comments on the previous post) and private (via email) ways, it seems that the time has come to press forward.
In recent days, I have been contemplating and drafting a follow-up post to the initial one made here over a week ago. I spent a fair amount of time considering what principles a United Order (henceforth "UO") community might embody so that it could stay consistent with the divinely-inspired edicts to stand in solidarity with the poor and be equal in temporal things. I thought that adhering to principles, as opposed to practices, would be a powerful way for a UO community to adapt to changing challenges and external circumstances. If human history teaches at least one thing, it seems to be that we have a never-ending ability to develop new forms of oppression and unequal power relations. I had hoped that having a digital-communal consensus on UO principles might help such a community be sensitive to the ways in which contemporary society (both internal and external to the community) discovered and exploited such developments.
As I drafted several ideas to address these principles, however, I began to be concerned that the discussion on this blog might become more theoretical and rhetorical than I had hoped. Being trained in academic methods, I have to say that I have no problem with theoretical discussions; in fact, I quite enjoy them and view them as necessary. But my original purpose in initiating this blog was to begin to build a consensus about the practices by which a contemporary UO community would best be served. Ultimately, as stated before, I want this blog to function as a democratic, deliberative forum for the actual establishment of such a community. The messages I received from those of you that have responded have seemed to express a similar desire (though I do not wish to put words into anyone's mouth).
With this in mind, perhaps you will allow me to launch into the daunting task of suggesting a few practices that I believe would be conducive to constructing an Order community among 21st century Latter-day Saints.
One of the most fundamental practices to emerge from 19th century efforts to live (or at least prepare for) the Law of Consecration and the Order, was that of cooperativism. Between the time of the Prophet Joseph's death and the first decades of Mormon settlement in the western United States, Mexico, and Canada, the industrial revolution had genuinely “picked up steam” (pun intended) across the North American continent. One of the most inspirational, yet thoroughly sensible responses to the industrial revolution and the emerging divisions between the working classes and the propertied classes that followed was the idea of cooperation. Put simply, the classical cooperative movement advocated democratic control of the means of production and/or the democratic control of the distribution chains of consumption. Thus, as factories, workshops, mills, and other capital-intensive institutions developed on a scale never seen before in human history, cooperativists sought to extend the principles of democracy and individual choice to these new workplaces in the form of worker-owned (or “producer”) cooperatives. Likewise, where new patterns of mass consumption developed, often without any ability to verify the safety, quality, or sustainability of production, it was suggested that consumers should also be allowed democratic control over these new products and services and their delivery; “consumer cooperatives” were the movement's answer to this need.
19th century Latter-day Saints enshrined the spirit, if not always the exact conventions, of the cooperative movement into their socioeconomic development in the Intermountain West. Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow, Eliza R. Snow, Orson Pratt, and others were particularly vigorous in their support of cooperation. The drive for local self-sufficiency, today championed by whole set of concerned advocates, was in large part an effort to resist the influence of speculators and other plundering “gentiles”. These individuals and businesses (who were not always non-Mormons) were happy to “service” the captive market that the Saints had become in their desert wilderness, albeit at hugely inflated prices and unfavorable terms. However, at the first sign of financial trouble (usually caused by market collapses in the eastern U.S.) they would pack-up shop, take all of their profits (and thus the ability for investments) with them, and leave the Saints with only the debts and unmet needs. Cooperation was to be one of the means of insulating the Saints against such rampant speculation that added no value to society and perpetuated boom-and-bust cycles.
Although there was a seemingly wide variation of cooperative experimentation, the concept that was supposed to reign supreme was that of broad community ownership. By making community orders for products only attainable in the East, for example, the Saints were supposed to be able to cut out the usurious middleman. Local cooperative stores, as well as the central Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake, were probably the highest expression of the cooperative movement at the time. With transportation and merchandising through a single, broadly-owned store, the Saints were able to cut costs on most of the items that were otherwise completely unattainable within the 'Mormon commonwealth'. Thus, the cooperative stores, and the wholesaling ZCMI, were forms of consumer cooperatives. Profits from the stores were dispersed as dividends to the owners (who were supposed to include as many local families as possible) and partially reinvested for future growth and success.
Some examples of producers cooperatives also existed in, for example, the agricultural sector and some industrial enterprises. The practice of broad community ownership meant that, in the end, many of the individuals working in these sectors actually did own the capital (buildings, tools, etc.) used in their workplaces. However, the practice of workplace democracy, where all workers have one vote in managerial decision-making (by virtue of their labor in and ownership over the firm), had not completely spread throughout all of the local producers cooperatives (for a variety of historical reasons).
Cooperativism was ultimately meant to be a stepping-stone towards a United Order lifestyle. When Order communities eventually began to be organized, most of them tended to incorporate and retain the successful cooperatives into the business affairs of the Order.
Although many of the cooperatives came to a somewhat untimely abandonment in the Mormon commonwealth, cooperatives remain not only viable in the modern world, but perhaps the most 'successful' forms of contemporary industrial and agricultural organization. They are 'successful,' not only in financial terms (though they are certainly this), but because of the empowering and democratic means by which they produce products and services. The perpetual division of interest between labor and management is eliminated because either (1) labor is management (primarily in smaller, horizontally-structured firms) or (2) because management is hired (or, if necessary, fired) by and for labor. If a more consolidated management is necessary or desired, the workers set salaries for managers and often elect boards from among their membership to oversee and direct the work of the managers. Decision-making, however, ultimately rests with the worker-owners.
Although much future discussion remains to be had on this blog regarding living examples of vibrant, sustainable, equitable worker cooperatives around the world, consider briefly one of the most outstanding examples of cooperation: the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain. Founded in 1956 on the teachings of a local Catholic priest and his interpretation of Catholic Social Teaching (which often bears a striking resemblance to what could be called “Mormon Social Teaching”), the Mondragon cooperatives and the areas served by them enjoy, when averaged across the whole society, the highest standard of living in Europe. This is because the benefits of industrial advancement are not made on the back of abhorrent inequality and exploitation. The first cooperatives made small appliances. As the number and scope of the cooperatives grew, however, the principle of cooperation was applied to many aspects of social life. The Caja Laboral Popular (CLP), a cooperative bank, was founded early on to fund investment in capital expansion or new cooperatives. The CLP now holds the capital deposits of the worker-owners as well as their personal savings and the financial resources of all of the affiliated cooperatives. There are departments within the CLP that advise and assist managers and entrepreneurs within the Mondragon complex with market research, expansion, the formation of new cooperatives, and any other tasks relating to financial services. There is also cooperative insurance for the worker-owners and the cooperative firms; since the government refused to include these worker-owners in the national social safety nets (because they antagonistically classified them as “self-employed”), social security, health insurance, and pension plans are all provided cooperatively. There are schools for the cooperators' children, daycare for workers, and many other services.
Perhaps most impressively, there is essentially ZERO UNEMPLOYMENT within the Mondragon system. When difficult economic times arise, the workers often vote to institute furloughs (where they take turns working less for diminished pay) or make other non-terminal arrangements; these types of temperate and solidarist responses are usually able to help the cooperative weather recessions and depressions and reemerge stronger when conditions improve. In times where the Spanish, European, or global economies have slashed jobs and cut social benefits, Mondragon has rarely fired a single person (among the hundreds of thousands of people who have worked within the cooperatives) because of suboptimal market conditions. That, in and of itself, seems to warrant the attention of every government and society on Earth. While a few of the cooperatives have gone out of business over the five and a half decades, the worker-owners know when such closures are approaching (after all, they own the firms and hire managers who are accountable to them) and they are retrained and become part-owners in another existing or newly-established cooperative within the system. I know of no system that can match this record.
To be sure, not every aspect of life within the Mondragon system is ideal. As the government opened the Spanish economy to free-trade agreements with Europe and other countries worldwide, the cooperatives have begun to employ a small percentage of their workforce as typical wage-laborers and have also bought-out foreign firms that are not (yet) cooperatively owned and managed. Nevertheless, Mondragon's indisputable record of being one of the most successful business institutions in Spain without exploiting (or even firing) workers, is genuinely novel and has few parallels in the modern world. (The Italian province of Emilia-Romagna likewise has a dense network of worker cooperatives that is arguably even more successful than the Mondragon system, yet its less hierarchical structure makes it somewhat more difficult to observe and point to as an easily identifiable model of success.)
Even before these contemporary cooperative success stories, cooperatives of the 19th century (including the growing credit union movement) were enjoying immense success; thus it should not be surprising that the colonizing Saints were attracted to the cooperative movement. (Indeed, many of the converts from the United Kingdom, Germany, and other European countries had first hand experience with cooperatives as worker-owners and managers.) In fact, because aspects of the restored gospel and aspects of cooperativism seem so well-suited to one another, I was convinced of the desirability of cooperation within a UO community before I even knew of the Church's history with the movement. To my great pleasure, I quickly discovered that many of the early Church leaders and many LDS writers since have emphasized the compatibility and complementarity of a gospel-centered economy and cooperativism (see, for example, Leonard Arrington's Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints; Arrington, Fox, and May's Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation Among the Mormons; Lucas and Woodworth's Working Toward Zion: Principles of the United Order for the Modern World). Cooperation in the industrial era allows for both the rapid and positive advancements of technological change and cost-effective production without the exploitation and grinding, perpetual poverty associated with the class division.
Thus, before I conclude with the following quotes about cooperation within the Mormon commonwealth, let me submit for discussion here that cooperativism must almost certainly play a large role in any UO community. In it, we find the principles of democracy, individual choice, hard work, the rights to the fruit of hard work, and the ability to include rather than exclude our formerly non-propertied (i.e. poor) brothers and sisters. While there are a number of other practices that I would submit are also essential for Order living in the modern world (I will raise some of these in the coming days and weeks as I hope many of you will as well), I believe that cooperative endeavor is a great place to start.
In 1875, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles released a message to the Church regarding wealth, its effects, and its distribution. A small portion of it reads as follows (to see more of it, click here):
YEARS AGO IT WAS PERCEIVED that we Latter-day Saints were open to the same dangers [of unequal and oppressive distributions of wealth and the proliferation of associated vices] as those which beset the rest of the world. A condition of affairs existed among us which was favorable to the growth of riches in the hands of a few at the expense of many. A wealthy class was being rapidly formed in our midst whose interests in the course of time, were likely to be diverse from those of the rest of the community. The growth of such a class was dangerous to our union; and, of all people, we stand most in need of union and to have our interests identical. Then it was that the Saints were counseled to enter into co-operation. In the absence of the necessary faith to enter upon a more perfect order revealed by the Lord unto the Church, this was felt to be the best means of drawing us together and making us one.
A UNION OF INTERESTS was sought to be attained. At the time co-operation was entered upon the Latter-day Saints were acting in utter disregard of the principles of self-preservation. They were encouraging the growth of evils in their own midst which they condemned as the worst features of the systems from which they had been gathered. Large profits were being consecrated in comparatively few hands, instead of being generally distributed among the people. As a consequence, the community was being rapidly divided into classes, and the hateful and unhappy distinctions which the possession and lack of wealth give rise to, were becoming painfully apparent. When the proposition to organize Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution was broached, it was hoped that the community at large would become stockholders; for if a few individuals only were to own its stock, the advantages to the community would be limited. The people, therefore, were urged to take shares, and large numbers responded to the appeal. As we have shown, the business proved to be as successful as its most sanguine friends anticipated. But the distribution of profits among the community was not the only benefit conferred by the organization of co-operation among us.
CO-OPERATION has submitted in silence to a great many attacks. Its friends have been content to let it endure the ordeal. But it is now time to speak. The Latter-day Saints should understand that it is our duty to sustain co-operation and to do all in our power to make it a success. The local co-operative stores should have the cordial support of the Latter-day Saints. Does not all our history impress upon us the great truth that in union is strength? Without it, what power would the Latter-day Saints have? But it is not our doctrines alone that we should be united, but in practice and especially in our business affairs.
Your Brethren:
Brigham Young, Daniel H. Wells, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, Lorenzo Snow, Franklin D. Richards, Brigham Young Jr., George A. Smith, John Taylor, Orson Hyde, Charles C. Rich, Erastus Snow, George Q. Cannon, Albert Carrington
Years later, after the Second World War, President Ezra Taft Benson supported these same cooperative endeavors (himself having founded a farmers' cooperative council in Idaho and later serving as the Executive Secretary of the National Council of Farmers Cooperatives in Washington D.C.):
Should not the counsel given by President Brigham Young in the early days of the settlement of these valleys be heeded today? The principles of cooperation and working together were used to develop the resources of these valleys and permit people to survive. We need to adopt these same principles, which have been tried and tested by the experience of the last hundred years, to preserve and conserve these resources and to raise our economic standards.
While I do not desire to cite these statements as the definitive word on all economic interactions for all time (as I believe they are clearly contextual and qualified), my observations of contemporary society indicate to me that they have enduring relevance. The dangers related to economic inequality and the promotion of cooperativism as a tool to fend off such dangers seem as important as ever. In other words, I don't want appeals to (General) authorities to substitute for reasoned and participatory discussion, since exceptions and caveats are always the norm (and I believe that authorities have varying opinions on many of the details); but where historical circumstances may mirror contemporary ones in meaningful ways, I believe that such sentiments can help to guide and inform this democratic process.
Thoughts on cooperativism?...
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