Morality as the enemy of equality: Law, economy, and
moral responsibility in the early Mormon church
Thomas Stone*
State University of New York, Department of Anthropology, Postdam, NY 13676, USA
Received 16 September 1999; accepted 1 December 1999
Abstract
The Law of Consecration and Stewardship, revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1831,
sought to establish obligations of mutual moral responsibility that would simultaneously serve to
promote economic equality among members of the early Mormon church. The failure of the law,
leading to its demise in 1834, is considered with reference to some current conceptions of the
bases of human moral responsibility and their implications regarding moral stratification. This
analysis suggests that by seeking to create a system of moral responsibility in the interests of
economic equality, the law would necessarily have impaired the expression of a disposition to
act morally on the part of individual Mormons. This inhibition of the capacity for personal
moral action as much, if not more than, an uncharitable human nature may have undermined
the law. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Law; Moral responsibility; Economic equality; Moral stratification; Mormon church
1. Introduction
In 1831, the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., announced the divinely revealed Law of Conse-
cration and Stewardship, which held members of the nascent Mormon church morally
responsible for each others’ material well-being. But in spite of its divine source and the
Saints’ dependence on the material support of their fellows, the law proved to be an
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-315-265-7019; fax: +1-315-267-3176.
E-mail address: stonest@northnet.org (T. Stone).
Journal of Socio-Economics 29 (2000) 57–71
1053-5357/00/$ – see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
PII: S1053-5357(00)00053-6