Feeding the Fortune 500

[_Kishkumen]

I don't know at this time. I believe that the Contract has a "as Requested" additional services clause that allows the Mormon Corporation and EMCOR to add duties as negotiated.

I have also been told that "IF" the Mormon Corporation is pleased with the EMCOR Facilities Services feature of EMCOR, they will also contract Purchasing Services for all departments of the Mormon Corporation.

It ain't about the people it's all about the MONEY

Well, I look forward to learning more about where this goes. I also wonder who owns EMCOR and whether there are any familial ties to GAs. I was curious about the temple because I wonder whether they allow non-LDS people to clean a dedicated sacred temple on a daily basis.

[_Kishkumen]

This is hilarious.

DCP "He's an academic, therefore, he can't be trusted!"

Midgley "He's not an academic, therefore, he can't be trusted!"

Where's good old Kiwi when you need him to cut through the chase that no matter what, the Reverend just plain can't be trusted?

Good eye, Dean Robbers. I did find Dr. Midgley’s curiosity about my academic bona fides to be odd. What kind of academic qualifications does one need to have a personal opinion theses days?

The mention of my academic credentials is mostly about signaling to me and others here that I am likely the person in question. Other than that it serves no useful purpose. Well, I take that back—it also places the smear of liberal, egghead academia on me.

It is somewhat sad that DCP feels the need to run down his own profession in order to signal to others that, unlike most of us scholars of “useless” topics, he gets it. He understands the cold hard facts of life, and the need to make people pull themselves up by their own non-existent bootstraps (because they can not afford boots). So, unlike his peers, he is a serious person.

But then Nibley loved to do the very same thing. So, this is more of the same. It is not original or surprising. What distinguishes Nibley from DCP is that Nibley had nothing but scorn for what he saw as the deadly mockery of Mahan economics. People drive their fellow humans into the dust to turn an extra buck. This is why I still, after all is said and done, hold Nibley in very high regard. I have a healthy regard for DCP and his talents, but that regard is unlikely to rise to admiration I have for Dr. Nibley.

Nibley made no excuses for the mindless, lustful acquisition of wealth and the tyranny of middle management. BYU and the Church itself were not spared his just and accurate criticism. I admire that. I am not saying that Dr. Nibley ever would have agreed with me. No, I would never claim that. Nibley was faithful and obedient to the Church and its leaders. Still, I can agree with and admire very much about Nibley while accepting and acknowledging his likely antipathy for people who do as I do.

That is really not the point.

I don’t think it took academic credentials to do any of these things, and so we need not bandy about the black robes of a false priesthood as we make our arguments and criticisms. I am polite in referring to Dr. Peterson and Dr. Midgley with their appropriate titles, as I imagine they desire. But none of us are academic scholars of Mormonism or economics. We are guys who work in academia who happen to have an interest and personal investment in Mormonism. We comment on that basis.

Ideology is yet another issue. Nibley was a socialist. Dr. P. is a libertarian-conservative. I am a left-leaning believer in well-regulated free markets as Adam Smith seems to have envisioned. What of it? What do these ideological positions have to do with the core of the issue here?

The core is the meaning of the word kingdom in Mormonism. What does kingdom mean, and how should it be realized? Being a socialist, libertarian, or left-leaning centrist may impact the answers, but it cannot fully supply them. Ideology is only one part of the equation. There are doctrinal and covenantal considerations that are even more pressing and salient. We should be talking about those.

The rest is just an amusing but largely irrelevant diversion.

[_Mormonicious]

I don't know at this time. I believe that the Contract has a "as Requested" additional services clause that allows the Mormon Corporation and EMCOR to add duties as negotiated.

I have also been told that "IF" the Mormon Corporation is pleased with the EMCOR Facilities Services feature of EMCOR, they will also contract Purchasing Services for all departments of the Mormon Corporation.

It ain't about the people it's all about the MONEY

Well, I look forward to learning more about where this goes. I also wonder who owns EMCOR and whether there are any familial ties to GAs. I was curious about the temple because I wonder whether they allow non-LDS people to clean a dedicated sacred temple on a daily basis.

Just as with all Mormon Corporation projects, until dedicated the Mormon Houses of Holy Handshakes are not considered "Consecrated" but Sacred, therefore any schlub can work on it. However there are rules and restrictions, such as no Smoking on the Site, NO NAUGHTY WORDS (had to apologized to the entire Site workforce once for using bad words), no Anti-Mormon literature, etc.

Once dedicated though only "Temple" worthy janitors and maintenance personnel are allowed. I'm sure if EMCOR does start doing the Maintenance and Cleaning services, the employee will have to meet the requirements.

[Guest]

I'm sure if EMCOR does start doing the Maintenance and Cleaning services, the employee will have to meet the requirements.

I know that there's an exemption to Title VII that allows a religious institution to discriminate on the basis of religion. So if the Church directly employs janitors, there's no question that it can require the janitors to be members in good standing, temple recommend holders, etc. This exemption does not apply to a for-profit, non-religions organization like EMCOR. But I don't know off the top of my head if it would apply to employees jointly employed by both EMCOR and the Church.

Edit: I briefly looked at it, and I believe that while a staffing agency would not qualify for the exemption in those circumstances, the discrimination would still be permissible as a bona fide occupational qualification. The BFOQ defense applies when the nature of the position absolutely requires discriminating on the basis of some protected classification. The example often listed is the hiring of female models for a women's clothing designer. So I think in a situation where a client like the Church has the legal right to discriminate in the hiring of temple janitors, the exercise of that right makes religion a BFOQ.

[_Mormonicious]

I'm sure if EMCOR does start doing the Maintenance and Cleaning services, the employee will have to meet the requirements.

I know that there's an exception to Title VII that allows a religious institution to discriminate on the basis of religion. So if the Church directly employs janitors, there's no question that it can require the janitors to be members in good standing, temple recommend holders, etc. This exception does not apply to a for-profit, non-religions organization like EMCOR. But I don't know off the top of my head if it would apply to employees jointly employed by both EMCOR and the Church.

However, just like security clearances for Military contractors and suppliers, there are exceptions where the employee must meet entrance requirements to the job site.

[_toon]

However, just like security clearances for Military contractors and suppliers, there are exceptions where the employee must meet entrance requirements to the job site.

I just edited my post -- in other words, you're right. (Even though the ability to obtain a security clearance is not directly a protected classification.)

[_Symmachus]

I suspect that, as usual, Peterson has made a significant point without realizing it.

Looking at the history of Mormonism and its doctrines as actually implemented and taught and practiced (rather than simply proof-texted), acquisition of wealth has simply not been a fixation. It is important to think contextually and historically, for one can pick some quotes and anecdotes from the 19th century or read the Word of Wisdom literally and conclude that beer drinking is fine, and indeed a lot of marginal Mormons (exMormons, etc.) have been known to down a few from time to time. They too are arguably members of the community. But on the question of beer drinking, every Mormon and even every exMormon knows that it just isn't the case that beer drinking is acceptable for Mormons, no matter what D & C says and no matter how loosely this was enforced in previous times.

We should apply the same standard to the question of wealth. Still, even just considering text, I am sure that there have been more speeches about pornography in the 2000s alone than there has ever been about wealth beyond a few platitudes in the entire history of the Church. Mormons have been much more fixated on sex than money, and in general just aren't bothered by wealth. In fact, I don't hesitate in saying that every Mormon who is loyal to the Church as an institution actually feels a tinge of pride even in reading headlines about the Church that more traditional Christians would find a little embarrassing. Tracing a history or a synthesis of Mormon attitudes to wealth might actually be an interesting project, but this assumption that there is some deep strain of skepticism of wealth is one that I just don't share because I don't see any evidence for it. The most you can find beyond some scriptural proof-texting and vague sermonizing are some rantings by Brigham Young, which no one took seriously even in his own time, and, judging from his own practice, neither did he. General Authorities used to write books about the evils of communism and socialism, and Deseret Book probably has a section on investment at some of its stores, but can anyone name a single book published by a mainstream (i.e. not exMormon or polygamous etc.) LDS author against markets and capital? Perhaps Hugh Nibley's ideal in Approaching Zion is one possibility, but even that isn't really a critique of market capitalism per se. One can say that there are a handful of Book of Mormon verses and this or that in the temple ceremony, but that is to reduce Mormonism in an almost orientalist fashion to a mere textual phenomenon. (as an aside: the subordination of people to text is one of the more disturbing parts of Nibley's social critique, just as with most literal-minded fundamentalists). Mormons have been pretty indifferent when they haven't been enthusiastic about wealth, which is why most don't bat an eye about City Creek or care about financial transparency—only people who don't accept the authority of the Church leaders have a problem with it, so it is therefore a kind of shibboleth of the faithful.

It seems to me that exMormons are more bothered than any other group of Mormons, which is fine, but by definition they are marginal, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that it is an argument in an arsenal of criticisms rather than some deep disappointment that Mormons and the Church just aren't living up to their high ideals—because giving money away and doing other than getting rich has never been a Mormon ideal of any height.

Most likely, no single person really knows the financial situation of the church, and most likely this policy of non-transparency got started from some dumb bureaucratic reason. A similar dumb bureaucratic reason keeps it in place. Anyone who believes Russell Nelson was divinely inspired to banish the word "Mormon" is just not going to be offended that the Church is worth $50 billion or whatever, whatever its source. It will just be proof that the LORD has put inspired leadership at the head of His Church. If they are worth -$10 billion, it will be proof the Church is the most humanitarian institution ever because they give all their money away, and it will be a call for action, perhaps to go vacuum the chapel with even greater detail and faithfulness.

It's almost as if a few on this thread have forgotten what it is like among believers or what it was to be one.

It is somewhat sad that DCP feels the need to run down his own profession in order to signal to others that, unlike most of us scholars of “useless” topics, he gets it. He understands the cold hard facts of life, and the need to make people pull themselves up by their own non-existent bootstraps (because they can not afford boots). So, unlike his peers, he is a serious person.

The criticisms may be substantially sound (or they may not be), but if Peterson is as working-class as he has portrayed himself to be (or blue collar, in the the non-Marxist vernacular of said class), then I understand that feeling. From my perspective, it is rather difficult to take seriously the strident moral criticisms leveled by humanities professors at a system that rewards them quite well, comparatively speaking and in terms of what they directly provide for the rest of the economy, particularly those who are tenured and tenure-track. Given the facts of the academic labor market whereby there is virtually an indifferent but ostensibly left-wing aristocracy of professors atop a pyramid of temporary and contract labor, and given the current funding regime by which students are devices for siphoning federally-backed (i.e. taxpayer-backed) moneys from banks with all the burden on the students and no accountability placed on colleges and universities for the quality and benefits of service they claim to provide—well, that just too easily opens a space to wonder why an academic with a beam in her eye is so obsessed with the mote in the Church's.

But I do take the point that you are not speaking as a professor but as a member on the margins of this group formerly known as Mormon. Even exMormons who happen to also be professors have opinions about Mormon things without having to answer for the serious structural deficiencies and inequities in the higher education economy. I believe a person with a PhD like Louis Midgely might recognize this better by appealing to the language of learned men, Latin: non sequitur.

But then Nibley loved to do the very same thing. So, this is more of the same. It is not original or surprising. What distinguishes Nibley from DCP is that Nibley had nothing but scorn for what he saw as the deadly mockery of Mahan economics. People drive their fellow humans into the dust to turn an extra buck. This is why I still, after all is said and done, hold Nibley in very high regard. I have a healthy regard for DCP and his talents, but that regard is unlikely to rise to admiration I have for Dr. Nibley.

Nibley made no excuses for the mindless, lustful acquisition of wealth and the tyranny of middle management. BYU and the Church itself were not spared his just and accurate criticism. I admire that. I am not saying that Dr. Nibley ever would have agreed with me. No, I would never claim that. Nibley was faithful and obedient to the Church and its leaders. Still, I can agree with and admire very much about Nibley while accepting and acknowledging his likely antipathy for people who do as I do.

I understand your admiration for Nibley on this and, if I recall correctly, for you he was a beacon of culture in the otherwise anodyne cultural darkness of Mormonism. It's a pretty boring place compared to most any other religion, conformity is encouraged, and blandness results even in their advertising. I really can appreciate that, but I do think there is a side to Nibley that is missed in the hagiography among educated liberal Mormons and the admiration of his social views among educated exMormons. So I have to hope you can forgive the expression of my view that this is one of the more blatant examples of Nibley's hypocrisy, bordering charlatanism, though I admit almost no one else sees it as such. Perhaps I am handicapped by having only his writings and his son-in-law's biography to judge him from, as I was too young ever to know him and never knew people from his circle beyond a passing acquaintance (I'm sure they didn't know me), so take it for what it's worth:

The guy got paid for 60 years to read and talk about arcane texts written in languages almost no one understands by people who'd been dead for 2,000 years or more. It was market-oriented capitalism that ultimately put the tithing money and whatever other source of wealth the Church has/had in place to fund his hobby quite handsomely (as compared to other hobbies...why are there no professors of stamp-collecting at BYU, for instance?), to pay for his health care, and that of his many kids and his wife, as well as a pension that probably lasted close to 30 years. It was that same system (with some help by the Church) that marketed his books which are still in print and providing royalties to his children. I'm sure he was as wonderful a human being as everyone says, but he really had no sound basis from which to level the vitriolic critiques he made (he gets points for eloquence and wit, though) against other people's chosen professions and what they chose to pursue in life. It is that last part that I think is ignored: Nibley was not a critic of capitalism (he said so explicitly as I remember, when he said the socialism vs. capitalism dichotomy was one of Satan's tricks, and that the real distinction was Babylon and Zion, or the Church of God and the World, and so on). He was a critic of certain parts of the capitalist economy and the value system he attributed to them, and he did not hesitate to name them. He really seemed to believe that there bankers, lawyers, and "managers" out there who were quashing creativity and culture while trampling on the poor in their quest for a quick buck procured while in service to Mahan, an avatar of Satan. As Cain had his mark, theirs was wealth.

As a narrative, that works easily well for populists as it does for elitists offended by the pretensions of their inferiors. But surely it fails as an analysis for how the world actually works; it even fails as an allegory for how the world works. For Nibley this allegory was virtually a dogma he tried to sell.

It is one thing when people who happen to be tenured professors point to the inadequacies of the current economic regime from the left of center, but what struck me most about Nibley's critiques in some of his essays in Approaching Zion was how targeted and specific they were—mentions of "management," bankers, lawyers, and other professions by name—and how little there was in his writings about any system. Maybe because I come from people who don't read books as a pastime, let alone for a living, I was struck especially by how elitist his critiques were. Some of what he said fit nicely into stereotypes recycled by people born into wealth and comfort about people not so highly born, and as well as their motivations: ah, well, all these materialist kids are only interested in making money, turning their backs on the heritage of Dante and Shakespeare, in turn polluting our once beautiful cultural with their crass taste—how dare they! I guess it is fine in Nibley's premodern utopia for there to be workers in the fields and the infrastructure, for there to be LDS clergy, and for there be cultured professors like himself, but the rest are Satan's spawn lusting after money. Elites have no problem with peasants, but they have no tolerance for the pretensions of peasants.

His vision of the kingdom of god, derived from an almost fundamentalist reading of a small set of texts, seemed the antithesis of a particular cluster of professions that seemed to come up again and again. These professions just happened to be populated by a relatively new middle class. I find it not a little curious that the boom of higher education from just after WWII to the late 70s coincided exactly with his career, and a significant shift in curriculum and mission away from the humanities and towards economically driven policies in higher education was in part to accommodate a different cultural expectation about education brought by first generation college students.

His attack (in your words) of "mindless, lustful acquisition of wealth" is about as sound an economic critique as any Roman moralist ever made from their equally comfortable positions. The best they could do was an abstract moralism directed at groups they didn't like (it's all just luxus and those damn greedy merchants and freedman). I can appreciate the critique of certain attitudes about wealth; to me it is just not an interesting use of human potential to keep an endless supply of nuts for the winter, but I also understand that there isn't anything inherently immoral about it, that it indirectly provides a lot of the comforts that make my life possible, and that on a comparative basis there really isn't something all that better on offer beyond tweaks here and there except in the frenzied and sometimes terrifying imaginations of utopians. But Nibley wasn't critiquing attitudes, or at least it doesn't appear that way to someone who only has his words to judge his meaning by and not his personal acquaintance. His directly attacked managers and others as a class of people, and he did so not as just some guy giving his opinion but under the Church's banner at BYU and as the most respected intellectual in the Church in venues sponsored by the Church. I guess it's all for the best, as he once claimed, that no one takes him seriously.

In a cynical mood, it's not hard to see in this a transmogrified resentment against his own father, an incompetent businessman who squandered the family fortune during Nibley's years in graduate school and even cheated his own son out of scholarship money for an investment scheme, thus enabling Hugh Nibley for the only time in his life to experience the connection between money on the one hand and food, housing, and the ability to indulge a personal interest on the other. In such a cynical reading, that resentment appears to have clothed itself in the robes of theology and worn the cap of modesty, though a hollow cap at that: his official biography is just a bit too vocal on how little he supposedly cared about money, but just to reassure devoted readers, the book includes a picture of his modest home in Provo. Similar evidence of their subjects' modesty can be found in any Warren Buffet biography, or any official biography of any major figure in the Soviet Union. As in those cases, the evidence in this case has the same question-begging effect. At the very least, his greatest deviation from Mormon culture was in being obsessed with wealth rather than sex.

[_Kishkumen]

There is a lot to be said in response to such a voluminous post, but for now I will limit myself to a few things. First, I am no less the product of a blue-collar, lower middle class background than Dr. Peterson is. I am not a privileged elite descended from generations of New England patricians, so I am not not feeling at all concerned by the suggestion, implicit or otherwise, that I could not possibly appreciate the facts of life on which Dr. Peterson grounds his moral foundation.

Moreover, I do not see myself as being any less grateful than Dr. Peterson for what I have and what I have worked hard for. I feel a lot less sympathetic, however, to this idea that humanities education has as much value as an extra silk cushion on a 10k Ottoman. “Wow that we are so lucky to while away our days noodling with the equivalent of semi-respectable geek trivia, while real people have real jobs and throw us their table scraps!” You know, stuff that nonsense. Seriously. Yes, I shamelessly believe in the value of what I teach, and I do believe that I do adult work to inculcate habits of good thought in my students. Having said that, I am in no mood to argue about it. If others disagree, they are welcome to their opinions.

And when I read general comments on Mormon feelings about wealth that lack any reference to Christian utopian ideals and teachings in Mormon scripture, the Law of Consecration, the other covenants and teachings of the LDS endowment, the United Order, and more contemporary but voluntary experiments in utopian community building, I can’t help but think that I am being confronted with an incomplete picture founded on an incomplete understanding of Mormonism. Instead, I am to understand that Nibley’s feelings and ideas about wealth were largely the product of an elitist view of wealth and resentment for his financially incompetent father.

I agree that Nibley had no real answers for realizing the utopian ideals of early Mormonism, but, then, neither do these libertarian champions of market economics. Am I to see these men to be on firmer footing because they either put off or ignore entirely everything in Mormonism that invites people to value their fellows over wealth? If they go through the temple regularly, are they not moved by the same principles and covenants? There is, perhaps to the surprise of others, a real conversation to be had here, even if the materials informing it are threadbare and not sufficiently grounded in sound economic theory.

Nibley was born at a time when the Mormon community was feeling the tension of transitioning from its aspirations to be an independent theocratic kingdom to full participation in the United States, political, economic, and otherwise. Nibley did have a kind of fixation on that time and transition. Some of us found his discussion of these things inspirational if not well thought out. But no Mormon teaching on wealth is particularly well thought out. So, when someone comes out to tell me, for the umpteenth time, about Nibley’s limitations as an economic thinker, I find myself unfazed, if the alternative is to accept the idea of a Mormonism as a naturally libertarian-conservative free market economic system. It is neither that nor communist. It was an unfinished system drafted by a man who had very little idea about economics in the first place.

Similar, of course, can be said for teachings on wealth in the New Testament. They inspire some Christians. Others ignore them. Maybe no one has the upper hand on the topic, but people will continue to argue in accordance to their understanding and ideals, as I will too. And I make no apology for it, to anyone here, or to anyone at SeN. The reasons for the LDS Church operating as it does are complicated, but they are also open to contestation. What is wrong with contesting what is assumed to be right and just, if only to get people to think about what they take for granted?

It is one of those things we “useless” humanities types can usefully do.

In closing, I would say thanks to our dear consul for bringing his eloquent and challenging perspective to bear on this discussion. It is good for the few people reading to be reminded why some do not really care what Nibley or the New Testament have to say about the morality of wealth acquisition and use. I am sure that there will be many sympathetic readers who come to agree that it is stupid and not worth arguing about. Others of us will perhaps stubbornly continue to find it of interest until future rhetorical shellackings succeed in breaking us or waking us.

[_Symmachus]

Thank you for your generous response, Reverend. You are as noble as ever.

There is a lot to be said in response to such a voluminous post, but for now I will limit myself to a few things. First, I am no less the product of a blue-collar, lower middle class background than Dr. Peterson is. I am not a privileged elite descended from generations of New England patricians, so I am not not feeling at all concerned by the suggestion, implicit or otherwise, that I could not possibly appreciate the facts of life on which Dr. Peterson grounds his moral foundation.

Moreover, I do not see myself as being any less grateful than Dr. Peterson for what I have and what I have worked hard for. I feel a lot less sympathetic, however, to this idea that humanities education has as much value as an extra silk cushion on a 10k Ottoman. “Wow that we are so lucky to while away our days noodling with the equivalent of semi-respectable geek trivia, while real people have real jobs and throw us their table scraps!” You know, stuff that nonsense. Seriously. Yes, I shamelessly believe in the value of what I teach, and I do believe that I do adult work to inculcate habits of good thought in my students. Having said that, I am in no mood to argue about it. If others disagree, they are welcome to their opinions.

I don't think I'm suggesting you are ungrateful or too privileged in some way to understand Peterson's "Tu-Quoque" counter-criticism, in which your academic status is made to count against you (except for Midgley, who apparently thinks you don't have enough academic status—I'm sure you are not on his level, in every way). I don't know anything about you except what you say here. I do think there is some merit on a general level to a critique of the professoriate critiquing in their capacity as such this vasty tangle we call capitalism when they are totally unable (unwilling?) to clean their own house. Granted that, this is a discussion forum for Mormonism, so it's irrelevant when an individual who happens to belong to the professoriate is also opining about Mormonism.

I will never disagree with you on the value of the humanities, which cannot be reduced to price, and I wish professors actually made a positive defense of it as you do, but in general I don't think the incentives are there. I am increasingly skeptical of its curricular value in higher education if we are going to continue on our insistence that education be measured by its economic value. It's easy to attack that assumption, and I do, but it structures our entire approach to funding education. I don't see a solution, but I do think departments at least should be upfront and transparent to students whose debt-financing is ultimately paying for it (and where it's not debt-financing, then, yes, it is absolutely becoming the domain of an elite), so they can at least determine whether they can live with the price of that education, whatever its ultimate value (i.e. statistics about jobs, graduate school placement, etc., and having to make the other pitch if those numbers aren't reassuring). This does not seem to be a high priority in departments, nor does actually advertising the value of liberal education. It seems to me, in fact, there is a growing effort to devalue it on cultural grounds even by those doing quite well by the standards of the profession. I wonder if they will still feel as self-critical about it all when a recession hits and their institutions (especially the public ones) have to adjust with cuts.

And when I read general comments on Mormon feelings about wealth that lack any reference to Christian utopian ideals and teachings in Mormon scripture, the Law of Consecration, the other covenants and teachings of the LDS endowment, the United Order, and more contemporary but voluntary experiments in utopian community building, I can’t help but think that I am being confronted with an incomplete picture founded on an incomplete understanding of Mormonism.

All of those things you mention are there, no doubt, but they are at most so far, as you say, scraps of the first drafts of an incomplete system. Perhaps President Nelson will get a new revelation some morning that really explores them, but to me I would say rather they are vestiges of something that never even was a system so much as a cluster of ad hoc improvisations. Consecration was born of necessity in Kirtland and Missouri, and the United Order was a fantasy of Brigham Young's. I don't know anything about the endowment, never having done it, but I rather wonder whether anyone takes things all that literally rather than as set formula in a ritual space, which one is not even allowed to discuss. I am not arguing for some inherent capitalism but rather against the idea that there is something inherently anti-wealth in Mormonism. Even consecration, as I understand it, is about giving up wealth to the Church, not donating it to the poor, and it's hard to see how a system could even work if there were not wealth to give up in the first place, as a few with means began to discover in the 1830s.

Instead, I am to understand that Nibley’s feelings and ideas about wealth were largely the product of an elitist view of wealth and resentment for his financially incompetent father.

I throw it out as something to consider when thinking about Nibley's attitude to wealth, not as an ultimate explanation for it. People focus on things that are relevant to their own experience, and I submit that wealth was such a strong preoccupation in his thought because it was so central to his identity, whether he wanted it to be or not. His family's wealth (and his friends') is a very common theme he referenced in speeches and writings. And yes, I'm afraid his attitude to wealth is an elitist one, for only people who haven't had to worry about money can so vigorously tell other people they don't need to worry about money.

I agree that Nibley had no real answers for realizing the utopian ideals of early Mormonism, but, then, neither do these libertarian champions of market economics. Am I to see these men to be on firmer footing because they either put off or ignore entirely everything in Mormonism that invites people to value their fellows over wealth? If they go through the temple regularly, are they not moved by the same principles and covenants? There is, perhaps to the surprise of others, a real conversation to be had here, even if the materials informing it are threadbare and not sufficiently grounded in sound economic theory.

There might be a conversation there, and it's too bad the Church culture is such that people like you simply had no place to have it. I am also skeptical of the fantasies of utopians on the right who think the disappearance of government regulation will usher in a market paradise. Nibley is to me a left-wing version of the right wing nutjobs in the College of Religion at BYU who think everything in the Book of Mormon is about the evils of socialism or the glories of the free market. He was far more intelligent (and so more interesting) than any of them, and therefore he deserves greater scrutiny. I guess if nothing else it was good to have at least one brilliant left-wing nutjob in balance against the many right-wing idiots they used to have (do they still?).

Nibley was born at a time when the Mormon community was feeling the tension of transitioning from its aspirations to be an independent theocratic kingdom to full participation in the United States, political, economic, and otherwise. Nibley did have a kind of fixation on that time and transition. Some of us found his discussion of these things inspirational if not well thought out. But no Mormon teaching on wealth is particularly well thought out. So, when someone comes out to tell me, for the umpteenth time, about Nibley’s limitations as an economic thinker, I find myself unfazed, if the alternative is to accept the idea of a Mormonism as a naturally libertarian-conservative free market economic system. It is neither that nor communist. It was an unfinished system drafted by a man who had very little idea about economics in the first place.

One could look at Mormon teaching and Mormon attitudes as somewhat separable. I think Mormon attitudes, on the whole, do tend toward the libertarian side, as do those of most people in the Intermountain west. To a certain extent, those attitudes have permeated the teachings of the current Church it seems to me, probably because they are so unformed, as you say. For example, I don't think Joseph Smith said anything about boot-strap pulling (which doesn't mean he was against the idea), but teaching economic self-sufficiency (if that's the term) is an actual program the Church has for converts in developing nations. Certainly they used to teach that when I was growing up. When I was at BYU, L. Tom Perry graced my student ward with his presence on one of the five times I ever went, and for the whole hour he just railed against European socialism. I was confused the whole time, but most people said afterwards that they had "felt the spirit" quite strongly during his talk. He must have impressed something on them about socialism's putative evils.

That kind of stuff isn't really to my liking, and it seems it's not to yours either, but I guess I don't see the Mormon attitude as particularly unjust or socially irresponsible, even if I don't share it. Mormon rich people seem to be as generous as you can expect any rich people to be (I assume they all are, but I don't know many), and conspicuous consumption among Mormons with means doesn't seem all that different from anywhere else in the country. I would say Mormons are probably less ostentatious, even, but this all just my impression. But is the Church socially irresponsible with the money?

Daniel Peterson was trying to make the point that the mall actually was socially responsible, in that it provided jobs and a boost to the local economy at the height of a recession, etc. etc. etc. I suppose from the perspective of a libertarian, that's true as far as it goes, and likely a lot of tithe-paying Mormons would see it that way. Perhaps you and Physics Guy would prefer the Church spend its money on more obviously and directly beneficial social causes, but I'm not sure what those should be. That certainly should be a conversation.

One thing I think should be part of the conversation, if we are going to be fair, is that the Church might actually be doing a lot better than it used to, even if it fails to live up to what our imaginations can conjure. For example, Hinckley cut off an important source of income for the Seventies when he ended the practice of having general authorities drawing salaries as members of boards of corporations owned by the Church. But to go to the nineteenth century, where all of the fun quotes and interesting examples lie that provide the fodder for alternative Mormon economic visions, it was really elites pushing all of that stuff. Of course Joseph Smith said consecration was about the poor, but then he built himself a for-profit hotel. Of course Brigham Young extolled the people eating dirt in Orderville in the communal hall they built themselves—he ate pies in mansion built by others. I am not saying he was corrupt (do I need to?), but I do think one should look not only at stated intentions but also results. In the Utah period, the fact the Brigham Young was always lambasting the membership for being too worldly in their desires to have fine clothes (i.e. not with holes) and such is an indication that people were quite dissatisfied with the economic arrangement he was trying to impose, whatever its high ideals might have been. It doesn't mean necessarily, as Nibley takes it to mean, that they were lusting after riches.

Most of theses doctrines were top down policies imposed by the leadership on the membership that were resented because their effects made their lives worse (one could include polygamy along with the united order), and they were only too happy to give them up. That's my view. In the period you reference ("a time when the Mormon community was feeling the tension of transitioning from its aspirations to be an independent theocratic kingdom to full participation in the United States, political, economic, and otherwise"), I really doubt there was all that much tension for ordinary people. They could finally buy what they wanted from what stores they wanted without the LDS leadership imposing penalties on them; they could mine without the Church trying to take it over or shut it down; they could do business with whomever they wanted and outside of the Church's cartel system; they could in short engage in all kinds of economic activity (and much else) that the Church's control over the economy and legal culture had prevented for decades. It no doubt was a difficult time for the leadership, but I'm not so sure it was for ordinary people. I've always thought it a very telling fact that Heber J. Grant's not-so-subtle attempts to influence the prohibition vote fell on deaf ears attached to the heads of Utah voters who made their state the last to repeal prohibition. The vote wasn't even close. It suggests to me that, at least for Mormons who went through that transition and were born in it, the Church didn't command nearly the authority that it had before (obviously) but also that it didn't command the authority it does today, and I think a lot of that is because people had been quite dissatisfied with the old system and were only to happy to join regular society, even if it meant sacrificing some high flowing rhetoric.

I wonder, lastly, how a libertarian like Dr. Peterson would defend the obviously anti-liberal policies of the 19th century Church in Utah. To me, I think it provides a great argument in the libertarians' favor and a straightforward economic morality tale of how good intentions created an economic hellscape and a blackhole for personal liberty. Perhaps Brigham's (and Nibley's) motives had morality on their side, but the mall-builders seem less harmful to me.

[_Kishkumen]

Dear consul, what a delight it is to read these messages filled as they are with meat to chew on. I take back any suggestion that the goods on Mormon socio-economic experiments were or would be lacking. You have provided them as you have in the past, and I feel chastened by the reminder.

What to say? Well, my original point, or at least part of it, was not that Mormons have lived out successfully a distinctly Mormon utopian system, but that the assumption there is some doctrinal basis for favoring capitalism over such a Mormon utopian ideal is not all that well founded on anything doctrinal or revelatory. It seems to derive more from sad experience (such as those you referred to), or narcissism, imposed on scripture than anything else.

You nevertheless make an excellent point regarding the credit due to generous among wealthy Mormons. I have seen some impressive generosity from them, and my criticisms are not really aimed at them. (I am not a hater of the wealthy.) My thoughts have instead been aimed mostly at the Church as this black box into which members are obliged by covenant to throw their money. It seems that this is a sort of test of faith. Who will throw the money in the box most eagerly without asking questions and not grumbling about how it might be used?

Dr. Peterson imagines the uproar of the peanut gallery if it were told about the finances. All kinds of inconvenient exchanges would occur. People would have opinions, and they would be different from those of the leaders. This is presented as unacceptable chaos in the Church of Christ. Who would want that? Well, one might suggest such feelings and communications are healthy and are what is required of vibrant communities. Correlation and “corporatization” have improved the efficiency of the Church but perhaps at the expense of the health of community.

“Corporatization” is a term quite different in meaning from simply being legally “incorporated.” There is, in addition, a culture of enumerating, efficiency, and risk-avoidance that is necessary up to a point and then arguably suffocating after that. My sense is that the “corporatization” of the LDS Church has reached the point at which community suffers so that the institution can be more efficient, financially stronger, evincing greater success in certain metrics, and safer from legal vulnerability. I doubt very much that anyone intended that community suffer in the pursuance of these goals, but I have seen that transition and I did/do not like it.

That is one of the reasons I do not do LDSism any longer. That culture is not for me. Sometimes I get worked up and “theologize” the issue, but at root the problem may be that I have too much of the DNA of weirdos who joined a fringe religious group and too few of the genes of domesticated members who just want a respectable Sunday break from reality.