I read this article this morning about Latter-day Saint socialists in Utah. They claim they want to get back to our "socialist" roots as a Church. By socialism, they mean the United Order. It's amazing how misguided members of the Church can be sometimes. As usual, I must digress to get to my point.
While I was on my mission in France, that nation voted in its first Socialist president, Francois Mitterand. This was during the height of the Cold War when Reagan was president. I remember feeling kind of stunned like, "I'm in a socialist country now." I halfway expected red-flagged tanks to come rolling down the street like Czechoslovakia.
I was astonished that one of my French companions admitted that he had voted for socialists in the past. Again, I was stunned. "How could you do that?" I asked. He replied, "He was the best man." Another fellow missionary was from Africa. He had studied for five years in the Soviet Union. Again, this was during the Reagan Era so I was somewhat incredulous.
In France, being a socialist, I learned, was just being a Democrat. They weren't hardcore Marxists. They were progressives who believed government control was the fair way to do everything. Meanwhile in France, there was economic malaise. People who graduated from college immediately went on unemployment for two years instead of going to work in their field of study. They collected a government check and sat around in cafes drinking lattes. They had free healthcare. Their bloated bureaucracy was so inefficient that I didn't get my "carte de sejour" (the equivalent of a green card) until I had returned home from my mission for a month.
France, having been a Catholic country never benefited from what sociologist Max Weber called the "Protestant Work Ethic." It's people never developed that quasi-compulsive need to be Christian "Boy Scouts." The whole Boy Scout ethos of being "Courteous, kind, cheerful, thrifty, clean, brave, and reverent" teaches the Protestant Ethic. In Catholic nations, it was sufficient to go to mass and confess one's sins and do penance. Life-changing behavior modification was not part of the process.
In Protestant nations like England, Germany, and Switzerland, people developed a kind of drive that impels them to strive for excellence. They believe God and angels were watching and that one was held accountable for every waking moment of life. If we weren't improving ourselves, our knowledge, obedience, education, talents, and displaying self-sacrificing thrift, then we were unworthy of the blood Jesus spilled for us.
Thus it is not surprising that England, Germany, Switzerland, and the Protestant Americas advanced economically and developed democracies because of the Protestant Ethic. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and their colonial holdings in America resisted democratization, led to the development of banana republics, and unstable economies in the Americas. The Protestant states were much less likely to evolve into socialist ones, whereas Catholic ones seemed to gravitate toward socialism. Eventually England succumbed to socialism, but it took much longer.
In America, socialism generally had less to do with Marx that with the Utopians. Decades before the Communist Manifesto, American Christians were experimenting with the biblical notion of having "all things in common." America's vast open areas, unrestrained travel, and economic liberty allowed groups of likeminded people to experiment with different social and economic arrangements. The Shakers were among the first to come from England and set up a communalistic system in the eighteenth century. Other groups emerged separately, often with little interaction between them. The Harmony Society, Amanans, Oneidas, and Hutterites all developed along religous lines, seeking to emulate the New Testament Christians. In the secular realm, Robert Owens' New Harmony and the Icarians stand out as socialistic progressives who preceded Marx. Modern progressives probably owe more to Robert Owen than to Marx and Engels.
The Latter-day Saints also practiced communalism during this period. The United Order differed from all other socialistic experiments in that it didn't require participants to abandon the principles of private property. Whereas the Shakers and the Harmony Society practiced "community of goods" at a fundamental level, Latter-day Saints consecrated personal property to the Church and received it back as a stewardship: personal property. Any surplus property was committed into the hands of bishops to administer to the needs of the poor. This notion of shared surplus was unique. Under the United Order system, the intent was not social leveling. People could become wealthy. The intent was to make a society in which no one was abjectly poor.
Thus the United Order was never truly socialistic. During a period of social incursion by American Gentiles into the Territory of Deseret, who were intent on wresting control of the territory from Latter-day Saints, the Church expanded the United Order system throughout its outposts in the Intermountain West. There were four different models or implementations. Brigham City, Salt Lake City, Saint George, and Orderville were the prototypes. The urban ones were very much industrial in nature. Orderville was more agrarian in character.
The purpose of the Orders was retrenchment of Latter-day Saint values and lifestyle as well as resistance against the influence of the Gentiles who came to Utah with the railroads and mining companies. Latter-day Saints were expected to patronize businesses within their cooperatives and to shun Gentile merchants. Most of the United Orders lasted less than three years, the longest lasted just barely a decade. The lure of manufactured goods from outside of Utah and the chance to get rich in the Gentile economy was too much to resist for most members.
Modern latter-day saints who promote socialism, calling it part of our heritage, are ignorant of our history and of the history of socialism. Those who think modern socialism will do anything but undermine our religion and our values are sorely mistaken. Bernie Sanders is a Marxist, hostile toward all religion. Democrats represent a coalition of Marxists, atheists, abortionists, sexual deviants and duped members of parasitic classes. If they obtain unfettered power, you can kiss our religion goodbye.
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