Some Comments on the Possibilities for Mormon Socialism, or Communalism, at the Present Time

[Cross-posted to By Common Consent]

1) First things first: obviously, there isn't any real world possibility for the (re-)emergence of Mormon socialism, or communalism, at the present time.

2) That doesn't mean there aren't any Mormons anywhere who advocate for one or another version of socialism, or live in some kind of commune, or both; there certainly are, especially outside the United States. Still, given that (broadly speaking) Mormon culture is pretty authoritarian, and given that (again, broadly speaking) the clear majority of Mormon leaders who wield that authority--certainly the American-born ones, at least--are more or less obviously politically conservative, economically libertarian, and/or just plain tend to vote Republican, for lots of geographic, demographic, and theological reasons, the prospect of a large number of Mormons, particularly in the U.S., organizing around specifically Mormon articulations of socialist or communalist economic alternatives is pretty unlikely.

3) This is unfortunate, since as many of those close to the grass-roots where experiments with and arguments about socialism and communalism are most vigorously taking place can affirm, the Mormon history with both of those ideological constructs--which of course were never used under those names, but it's hard to imagine just what "united orders" and calls for "stewardship" and "consecration" involved if not what those constructs imply--is filled with instructive parallels to how those ideas are developing today.

4) I won't pretend to be neutral in this matter; I'm deeply committed to doing what little I can to get liberals and progressives and anyone else even just vaguely counter-cultural to become cognizant of the fact that employing terms like "socialism" or "communalism" in describing efforts to extend equality and strengthen community no longer automatically implies something revolutionary or anti-religious. It never did, necessarily (there were numerous radical Christians and democrats and anarchists who were taking up Marxist ideas but shelving their materialist and revolutionary conclusions while Marx himself was still alive), but things are especially different today.

5) Whether you want to attribute it to Bernie Sanders or COVID-19 or any number of other generational or technological variables, the truth is that the past decade has witnessed more and more activists, scholars, teachers, politicians, and most of all just ordinary folks like you and I, dealing with an often dysfunctional government and an increasingly unequal economic system, embracing local, collective, mutualist solutions. Call it the sharing economy, call it the new communalism, call it decentralized socialism--whatever its name, the number of community gardens, ride-sharing networks, mutual aid societies, neighborhood associations, church-based co-ops, employee-owned start-ups, and all forms of internet-enabled crowd-sourcing that we've seen multiply over the 2010s, both in the United States and around the world, are underline the same development: anti-capitalism has taken, at least in the eyes of many, what might be called a consecrational turn.

6) That's a broad claim, to be sure. Still, when the Democratic Socialists of America hosted a recent conference on "Building the Religious Left," with a huge range of panelists from diverse religious traditions, many of whom focused on state-level organizing regarding the usual (and necessary!) left approaches--immigration reform, the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, cancelling student debt, etc.--I don't think it escaped anyone's attention that the conversations so often ended up revolving around what local congregations and faith communities were doing, in terms of providing welfare and sanctuary and building sustainable alternatives for people locally in need. And the fact that Mormon perspectives were so often entwined with these conversations (nearly half of the participants in one "Protestant" break-out group had a Mormon or Community of Christ background), with the conversation often turning to Doctrine and Covenants 42 and the law of consecration, which just happened to be the assigned Sunday School reading for the day? That may be just a grand coincidence...or perhaps it isn't.

7) The Mormon experience with consecration isn't unique, of course; as I explained in my contribution to the conference, the idea of building a better world "horizontally"--by gathering together around principles of mutual support and shared resources, enabling all who come together to partake commonly and equally in a spirit of love, as opposed to attempting to shape society more broadly through top-down actions--has been a constant throughout Christian history, going all the way back to the earliest Jesus communities described in the Book of Acts. But the Mormon experience provides particular inspiration nonetheless (see my discussion with a present day commune in Wyoming here). It is unfortunate that the rich Mormon legacy of socialist experimentation, of egalitarian communities and of consecration to the local, collective good, is so little appreciated among its own descendants, at a time which challenges to the capitalist order are both intellectually and practically more amenable to decentralized communal and cooperative efforts than has been the case in more than a century.

8) Little appreciated, perhaps, but not little noticed, if only people can learn to recognize what is right before their eyes. So much of the Intermountain West was developed, irrigated, and constructed through communalist pratices; every time a Salt Lake City Mormon (or anyone else) walks into the ZCMI Center Mall, they're moving through a space originally defined by Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution--a company which the Mormon church built with the explicit purpose of enriching the saints collectively, rather than rewarding investors with profit. That purpose has been abandoned (the church sold off ZCMI in 1999), but its built legacy remains.. and that means its communalistic, even socialistic, aspirations remain embodied for all to see and learn from. For folks like me, that's a hopeful thing.