This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
In "Making the case for Book of Mormon socialism" (Opinion, Feb. 26), Troy Williams assumed that the scriptures about caring for the poor are a mandate for government programs instead of being a simple directive for individual action.
In the Book of Mormon, the Nephites did not have the governmental apparatus necessary to even begin to operate anything comparable to a modern welfare state. They were a coalition of tribal peoples governed by judges who applied the Mosaic law to individual cases.
Reading these ancient passages as justification for something that contextually did not exist, nor which was explicitly endorsed (bureaucratic redistribution), is a basic error that only obscures otherwise clear directives for personal conduct.
Williams also ignores the basic moral question of how to provide for the poor. Since government redistribution operates by force, it is morally problematic at best. Early Mormon communal experiments were an obligation resulting from a voluntary religious agreement. It is this key distinction that makes socialism and corporatism incompatible with Mormon theology.
Spencer Morgan
Riverton