D&C 89: “6 And, behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make.”
This guideline prevents being ripped off and gives assurance that the product is not tainted, watered down or otherwise inferior, and would be sufficient if alcohol was not also addictive.

Zech. 9: 15, 17…corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.
Drunkenness leads to unbecoming conduct, takes away our free agency and damages our health.

The Boston Tea Party occurred not long before the word of wisdom was revealed. It was a protest against the inflated price of tea which was highly taxed at the time. The high price of tea and coffee also lead unscrupulous merchants to “cut” the products with sawdust and other contaminants to increase their profits at the risk to the health of their customers, just as drug-dealers do today.

The saints often didn’t have surpluses of money and resources, so buying unnecessary drinks at exorbitant prices meant that this money so spent could no longer be spent on more important things.
Perhaps the difference in price between tea and a fairly priced beverage could be put to better use, e.g. fast offering, education, family, etc.

Tobacco is clearly and obviously bad for one’s health in any quantity. Alcohol is bad in excess as is tea and coffee. Other persons who suffer indirectly as a result of the actions of one consuming alcohol can be described as the victims of “passive drinking” (as we also refer to “passive smoking”). This could include victims of beating, road accidents, rape, impoverished families, foetal alcohol syndrome and much more. They are all suffering the effects of “passive drinking”.

Tea and coffee are grown in third world countries as a cash crop by and at the instigation of large corporations for profit, to the detriment of the locals who go hungry because all the good land has been taken for the non-nutritive crops. Supporting this is not living the law of consecration.

Those of us who have covenanted regarding the law of consecration should meditate on the meaning of consecration (in a world where only a few are required to live it). This is a principal that goes beyond a simple thou shalt do x or thou shall not do y.
When using money, we should ask ourselves;
Am I getting value for money?
Is this thing a needed thing or righteous want?
Are there other alternatives to (buying) this thing.
Do I have other higher priorities?
Have I planned goals and priorities for my spending (a budget)?

You must put a lot of work into blogging this much!…

I didn’t say that the inevitable conclusion of the GPL wouldn’t take time. But that time is coming sooner than one might expect. ;P

The LGPL exists to help make an easy transition to an all-GPL environment for those client libraries where you want to make this kind of link-level exemption for proprietary vendors.

And if you own all copyrights to the GPL’d code, you can give yourself, and to sell others, an exemption to the GPL; thus this one license possesses a “best of both worlds” proprietary model which the BSD/MIT licenses lack. (BSD/MIT certainly have their benefits within certain domains.)

Many programmers and most system administrators make their living through the creation of GPL’d and BSD’d software, and my coworkers and I on the Eclipse Voice Tools Project are among them.

Aside from that, many of my contributions to other free software products have been incidental to my work at employers.

If I have yet to earn a penny from my contributions to Inkscape or the Horde Groupware Project, then I have still benefited through the betterment of these products and the improvement of my skills and abilities.

I am currently working on the GUI front-end portion of a telephony client/server application (switch/PBX vendor-abstracted soft phone and media channel button panel) in C# using the .NET System.Windows.Forms APIs.

I feel your pain if you have to make your living using such horrid standard libraries (and I thought Java Swing was bad). If only I could use Gtk# to implement the interface, I would happy (and it would be legal in our proprietary product thanks to the LGPL).

There is only one problem with your theory. Us programmers that have to make a living that use Micro$haft products like C#/.net, etc., can’t sell anything that integrates GPL software libraries because our product by integrating it, automatically becomes GPL as well. And you can’t have that when you are writing a commercial product for a company. So everybody that needs to make a living off software loses out by GPL. So there. You can’t have consecration in a capitalist world without unintended consequences.

The modern world and the modern web could not have been enabled without this revolution in thinking, development, and economics. This practice costs the software industry an estimated $60 billion a year in unrealized software sales revenue, but it generates billions and billions more for said industry by enabling the rapid evolution of common platforms with the benefit of increased quality, and massive and diverse contributions from all self-interested parties.

As a free software and open source programmer, and as my life’s work is dedicated to the real application of those principles which I so earnestly believe (the law of consecration), I can tell you that the economics of consecration really do work in a modern society, and they work TODAY.

You can thank the true spirit of consecration among the hacker community next time you click the “Submit” button.

It is a logical inevitability: the GPL will rule all! (Even Novell realizes this.)

I believe this is inevitable. LEAP/E2020 have been predicting and giving the play-by-play for years now what they term as the “Global Systemic Crisis” on the international scene and the “Very Great US Depression” on the home front, both happening simultaneously, Sept. 2008 marking a new “tipping point.” The re-appearance of full-blown consecration (not just “elements”) will be one of the three house-cleaning measures that the church will undergo prior to the Second Coming, in my estimation.

I was teaching Seminary (with the course of study being the D&C) back in 1990 when the Church eliminated ward budget assessment and started apportioning money to wards based on sacrament attendance. One of the immediate consequences of this was the halting of most YM/YW ‘super activities’ that were typically funded via special ward budget assessments — which meant that they typically only happened in ‘wealthier’ wards. It was interesting to see how many of my students were upset about this change (often reflecting what they heard from their parents at home). When I pointed out that this was a step towards the law of consecration, some grasped that but the rest remained resentful.

A few years back, when Sandra and I were living in DC, a member of our branch/ward who was working in (IIRC) the US Treasury Department — with a focus on international development — gave a fascinating talk about us being modern day pioneers. He said that our calling and sacrifice was not to cross the plains and build a new society; our calling and sacrifice was to find how to lift the standard of living of the Saints abroad, particularly in third world countries. This was after the Church had announced the Perpetual Education Fund, and he suggested that we may well see additional programs that seek to achieve that goal. ..bruce..

You’re right. I just have one question. Do you think profit-driven corporations (corporate enterprise, if you will) will be around in the Millennium? By that I mean a system where shareholders are wealthy owners of capital that are only concerned with profit. Profit motivations aren’t perfect, for example, they focus on the short-run of a coporation, not the long-run. You can change many of the errors in corporatism by allowing labor to own the capital; companies such as Proctor & Gamble do this. That way, profit, but livelihood, as wall as stability and fairness are other outputs of the enterprise besides profit.

Capitalism by definition is the acquisition of capital. I believe that people can pull up their bootstraps and own capital, but the cuvature for owning it is very large. Capitalists who already own capital or have inherited it have the advantage of leveraging to make more capital. Renters of capital (most of us) do NOT have the luxury. It takes years of blood, sweat, and determiniation to own from scratch a mere half million. And then only a few have the natural capacity to do so at the initial stages. There is a much smaller learning curve to make capital when you already own that capital. Thus, the other half million is easier to make, and so on and so on. I would like to see a society where people of their own free will distribute the capital because they don’t need it, plain and simple, and they want to help others grow their own capital. You still want to increase capital, you just feel that there should be a fair distribution, as the early days of ZCMI showcased.

While we’re on the value of work and a “united order” society, another problem (I see it as a problem, but not all would agree) with any economy based on “need” is that the work that is most valued is “need-based.” So, innovation is essentially squelched or limited. New technologies, which are always expensive to develop would not be pursued vigorously in a needs-based economy. Perhaps some will see this as Utopian anyway, but it seems pretty back-woods to me. Jobs that would emerge in a needs-based economy are things like farming, carpentry, medicine, and prostitution (I’m only half kidding on that last one). There would be no development of non-needs-based technology: no personal computers, no space program, no cell phones, no art.

Often it is conflated with the free market- which you avoid here.

Often it is conflated with the current profit driven corporations of today, which you do not avoid here.

Combined these confusions lead to one of two concepts- the first is that socialism is consistent with the gospel because current profit driven corporations are not, the second is that the gospel is consistent with profit driven corporations because it respects the free market. Both of these are in error.

In a general sense capitalism is simply about the accumulation of capital to increase productive. The current favored method of corporation formation is just one of many possible methods. For example, while the distribution in a Zion society of consumer goods might be driven by people’s needs, the distribution of productive goods would be driven by the ability to produce. Obviously you would want productive capital to be given to the person who can make the most use out of it.

That’s the typical response I get from many Latter-day Saints. Turth be told, it DID work at some degree, but people like to pooh-pooh it as impossible because we are too addicted to capital. We change people’s hearts and minds, it can work. It work for the Amana colony that is still practicing, as well as severel technologically-based Kibbutzes in Israel, among many Amish, as well as fundamentalist Mormons. Throwing Brigham Young under the bus because he had a big house and fancy things is bit ignorant of consecration, frankly. I don’t mean to be terse, but I get this reponse over and over again–that it’s hopeless. It isn’t.

(4) “Did the United Order fail because of human weakness or did it fail because it fosters human weakness?” First of all, there were several united orders. All of the early ones failed, the 1870′s ones were shut down by Federal compromise.

“Care for the Poor – (sticking point) Why are they poor? This is a critical question that needs exploration. Are they poor because their contribution to society is less than what they need to receive from society? If so, is it due to lack of motivation, lack of skills or intelligence or a physical or mental disability? Or a combination of these factors?”

You know, consecration also factors in storehouses, where surpluses were kept. The bishop was the judge in things both temporally and spiritually. On a micro level that’s the only way you can judge where a need is justified by a true deficiency, not just laziness.

“Work – (sticking point) Some work is more valuable than other work to the society, and some work is less valuable. There has to be some valuation of the output of the work.”

With work, the free market values its imput. The market awards us according to our fruits. Consecration operates more as a law of ipitmal normative consumption. You can earn all the money in the world, but you would value equality and charity, so you consecrate your surplus.

“Well, I have to disagree there. Sharing money between family members seems a sure way to weaken family ties in my experience.”

Is it the money, or is it the sins of our fathers that we value it as ours. Many societies live in perfect harmony sharing resources (Japanese, Mexicans, Polynesians). What you point out is an American problem, a human problem, but one that is culture and ought to be overcome in our quest to be more Christlike.

” “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need””

Um, wasn’t that Karl Marx?

I don’t know.

But I like the main point.

And there are no easy answers to your hypotheticals, of course. In a non-monetary way probably every ward faces these problems all the time. The five completely needy, unlikely-to-ever-not-be-needy families who could suck all the lifeblood of every other member and still be in pretty much the same situation. Not taking a really expensive family vacation, however, might be a good place to start when we think of using our resources to bless others. Paying off your brothers’ irresponsible credit card debt might not be the most important way to use those resources instead, however.

I am pretty sure we’re all failing to live up to the ideal of a consecrated life in our own ways, I certainly am. But I do think that our understanding of the gospel really does have implications for how we need to think about our economic systems and even more so how we individually manage our resources, however big or small. In particular, I think there are many things we should be willing to give up as individuals for the betterment of the communities we are a part of. This doesn’t always mean giving away our money, it might mean spending our money in ways that promote good jobs in our community or sustainable practices. It also might mean earning less money ourselves because we work fewer hours so we have time to spend building our community (starting with our family and working out).

First of all, my bad for quoting Ayn Rand–it’s impossible to quote Rand and not sound like a total jerk. She clearly didn’t take into account in her objectivist viewpoint the very real issue that some are born without the ability to care for themselves (a stark example). But, coming from an economic viewpoint, the inequity of ability is still problematic in a shared resource structure. It’s like group projects in college. One ends up doing more work than the rest because the others may be 1) lazy, 2) stupid, or 3) less motivated to get a good grade.

Here’s another hypothetical example. Should you take an expensive family vacation, or should you use that money to pay off your brother’s credit card debt because he and his family racked it up by living beyond their means? You’ll certainly be blessed by the Lord for being charitable. Should you still do it if he’s just going to turn around and rack up more credit card debt? Are you really doing him a favor or just fostering moral weakness by bailing him out?

With the economy as it is, I have been giving this a lot of thought this week. The United Order is said to have failed because people weren’t “ready” to live it. Did the United Order fail because of human weakness or did it fail because it fosters human weakness? I can’t quite come to terms with it, to be honest, and here are a few sticking points for me.

“The theology of Mormon economics is based upon concepts of consecration, stewardship, care for the poor, equality, and work and self reliance and they also respect the idea of the free market.”

Several of these concepts inherently conflict with each other or at least in reality don’t play out this way:

Consecration – time, talents, etc. are the Lord’s, so we owe Him whatever we have.

Stewardship – we are responsible for the care of what the Lord has entrusted to us. Do we all define “care” the same way? Are our standards equal?

Care for the Poor – (sticking point) Why are they poor? This is a critical question that needs exploration. Are they poor because their contribution to society is less than what they need to receive from society? If so, is it due to lack of motivation, lack of skills or intelligence or a physical or mental disability? Or a combination of these factors?

Equality – (sticking point) this conflicts with “care for the poor”; if they are in the United Order, they are no longer ‘poor’ or unable to care for themselves (theoretically) because of the surplus they receive to live on. If “the poor” are outside the United Order, then OK I guess. To paraphrase Ayn Rand: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” only works if all have similar abilities or agree that needs are more important than abilities. Otherwise, it is an enslavement of people with ability by the people whose needs outweigh their ability.

Work – (sticking point) Some work is more valuable than other work to the society, and some work is less valuable. There has to be some valuation of the output of the work.

Self-reliance – Taking personal accountability to ensure your own and your dependents’ needs are met, provided all in the United Order agree as to what “needs” are and that those of greater ability are content to live with only their barest needs being met.

“Formulate your own family-based consecration-based economic order. . . This not only implements consecration principles, but also strengthens family ties.” Well, I have to disagree there. Sharing money between family members seems a sure way to weaken family ties in my experience. Many families are split apart over money (inheritence, loan, living under one roof), for all the reasons I listed above.

Your essay wants to make me read “Working Towards Zion”…its o0n my shelf but I just have not had time.

I loved your suggestions and your thorough scholarship. Thank you again. I think the internet is a great place to implements charitiable elements of co-operativism and I am going to get in touch with you for some advice.