So how do you envision Zion coming about? Does it have less freedom because there is more equality? Just curious.
Zion comes about:
1. As a secession from the common mainstream culture when that culture becomes "ripe in iniquity"; when the culture passes its moral and spiritual carrying capacity. At that point, the Saints (and other good people) retreat to a society insulated from the mainstream culture and prepare for the Second Coming of Christ (that is the primary purpose in this dispensation, at least)
2. As all of the earth's wealth really belongs to the Lord, and in a Zion covenant community, this principle moves from the implicit (tithing and fast offerings) to the explicit, in which the excess profit from productive economic activity, beyond the needs and wants of they who have produced it (as the D&C makes clear in several places) becomes a part of a fund held in the Bishop's storehouse for the use of the building of the Kingdom of God, a part of that being for the use of the poor. This will produce,
through the free will and freely given support of those who labor in Zion, a collapsing of economic classes from the very rich to the indigent poor, such that the two poles will be brought much closer together.
One key here is that that this system will not be socialist, in any normative sense, although one might certainly term it "communitarian" and contrast it to modern secular society on that basis. The economic system will still be capitalist, if by that one means a system of the free and unhindered production of goods and services for the purpose of creating further capital (i.e. wealth) both in material goods and a medium of exchange. I don't think the income of companies, industries, or productive enterprises creating goods and services for the community will be taxed. I think individual income will be voluntarily given as a tithe by those who earn a profit from their productive activities, and the ecclesiastical government will then consult with those who create the jobs, wealth, goods and services that allow Zion to continue materially on the quantity (not its allocation) of capital resources necessary for reinvestment in such productive activities.
This would make perfect sense because corporations are not actually taxed. Only individuals are taxed, not entities. Zion could still be capitalist (and hence productive and prosperous, having a relatively high standard of living for its people) while also being communitarian and pouring much more of its wealth into both the temporal and spiritual preparation for the Second Coming.
Small business would exist under similar condition, being essentially capitalist, but both owners and workers supporting the the Gospel in a much fuller way, while capital needed to the business itself to continue would be allowed to flow into it in essentially a capitalist manner.
I don't think I would have what I had growing up as a child in an affluent upper middle class home. I do think people in Zion will live
well, however, and have access to material goods and comfort beyond the basics of shelter, clothing, and rice and beans.
If Zion is to be socialistic, in any traditional secualar sense, then it is to be poor, period. It would seem that this particular discipline may have been a part of the United Order during the building of the Salt Lake valley under Brigham Young, especially given that their own scriptures tell them that a part of the reason the Lord allowed them to be driven into the west was because of covetousness and greed.
I personally don't think a modern 21st century United Order would be identical to a mid-nineteenth century United Order under conditions of naked survival, nor would it need to be.
There is no indication in the scriptures that it will be classless, (as this would have to entail serious impositions on our agency), but only that the divisions between them will be far less extreme than at present.