Dc 49:20 on one man possessing more than another and a practical alternative

[Kevin Christensen]

D&C 49:20 bluntly states that "it is not given that one man should possess that which above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin," which is not a slogan that gets much discussion in most executive board rooms, since any alternative, we are sometimes told, inevitably leads to socialism as embodied in the current Venezulan economic crisis, or worse.

There is this, however:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-price-gravity-payments-cut-salary_n_60760cebe4b001befb6d8b9f

Of much worth noticing, along with Fox News blasting him for his decision, I notice the very Capraesque moment of decision for him:

Quote

What helped inspire our $70k min wage?

An employee was secretly working a 2nd job at McDonald's. It was clear I was an awful CEO who was failing his employees. I gave her a raise to quit that job. No one should have to work two jobs to make ends meet.

He also cut his own salary from over a million to 70K.  

Quote

6 years ago today I raised my company's min wage to $70k. Fox News called me a socialist whose employees would be on bread lines.

Since then our revenue tripled, we're a Harvard Business School case study & our employees had a 10x boom in homes bought.

Always invest in people.

Of his own personal life changes from the millionaire lifestyle, he says:

Quote

I made a lot of personal changes. But I still had savings and made a fair salary. I don't miss anything about the millionaire lifestyle. Money buys happiness when it gets you out of poverty but not when it gets you from well-off to very well-off.

Criticism of this man's choices by Fox News reminds me of the arguments thrown at Gary Cooper's sympathetic character in Frank Capra's depression era 1936 film, Mr Deeds Goes to Town:

Quote

In these times with the country incapacitated with economic ailments and endangered with an undercurrent of social unrest, the promulgation of such a weird, fantastic and impractical plan, as contemplated by the defendant, is capable of fomenting a disturbance from which the country may not soon recover. It is our duty to stop it! Our government is fully aware of its difficulty. It can pull itself out of this economic rut, without the insistence of Mr. Deeds or any other crackpot! His attempted action must therefore be attributed to a diseased mind, afflicted with hallucinations of grandeur and obsessed with an insane desire to become a public benefactor.

To which kind of argument Mr. Deeds replies:

Quote

 [to the Court] It's like I'm out in a big boat, and I see one fellow in a rowboat who's tired of rowing and wants a free ride, and another fellow who's drowning. Who would you expect me to rescue? Mr. Cedar - who's just tired of rowing and wants a free ride? Or those men out there who are drowning? Any ten year old child will give you the answer to that.

Another eloquent answer was in Nibley's classic, What is Zion? A Distant View.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited April 14, 2021 by Kevin Christensen
typo

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

D&C 49:20 bluntly states that "it is not given that one man should possess that which above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin," which is not a slogan that gets much discussion in most executive board rooms, ............

There is this, however:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-price-gravity-payments-cut-salary_n_60760cebe4b001befb6d8b9f

Of much worth noticing, along with Fox News blasting him for his decision, I notice the very Capraesque moment of decision for him:

He also cut his own salary from over a million to 70K...............................

The Dan Price story is interesting not only for it's salutary effect on his business, but also for the hate it engendered.  When the LDS Church does the right thing, we see the same sort of knee-jerk hatred and vilification.

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Another eloquent answer was in Nibley's classic, What is Zion? A Distant View..............

I have heard that the volume of Nibley's Collected Works (vol 9) which contains that essay is the volume which is most popular, Approaching Zion (FARMS/Deseret, 1989).  I recall thinking at the time I heard that rumor, Why do Mormons like that volume so much?  Could it be that equity and justice in an LDS community brings harmony and happiness?  Do LDS folk yearn for Zion in that sense?  What is it about the City of Enoch which makes it so enticing?

The non-LDS scholar Kenneth Rexroth claimed that the 19th century LDS Church had created a practical communal society, a low-pressure, small-scale utopian socialist movement which actually worked (Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century [1974]).  A number of LDS scholars reached the same conclusion:  Ephraim E. Ericksen, Psychological and Ethical Aspects of Mormon Group Life (1922/ 1975); Arthur Maass & Raymond L. Anderson,  . . . and the Desert Shall Rejoice: Conflict, Growth and Justice in Arid Environments (MIT, 1978); Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation Among the Mormons (1976/1992); Dean May, “One Heart and Mind: Communal Life and Values Among the Mormons,” in Donald E. Pitzer, ed., America’s Communal Utopias (1997).

Is that what we hanker for?  The notions of egalitarianism and distributive justice which meant so much to Adam Smith have been callously ignored in modern discussion.  Yet we can find it in the Israeli kibbutz, the Basque Mondragon, the Hutterite Brethren, or the Mormon United Order.  What would it mean to put the Law of Consecration & Stewardship (Order of Enoch) into full effect here and now?

[CV75]

Could this be capitalism at its best? How can the model be expanded with investors (and corporations) that voluntarily limit their gains to a living wage annually? What would a surplus look like and how would it be managed?

The United Order has a "community" storehouse and everyone can earn (i.e. spend) as much as they require.

Edited April 14, 2021 by CV75

[Metis_LDS]

Wow what a great topic.  I have read some about the United Order but am not an expert. I would like to understand something.  Was the United Order an attempt to bring forth Zion like Enoch.  In my mind I have an idea what an earthly Zion on the ward level would be like,  Zion would take care of United Order issues because in Zion there are no poor among them.  I feel strongly that having no poor scripture goes way beyond what we think of as the welfare program.  

[rodheadlee]

Yes it would be nice if board members and CEOS took less money so at least a workers could afford to buy a new $70,000 pickup truck. By no means have construction worker wages kept up with the cost of a vehicle to get to work or a home to live in.

[Metis_LDS]

The only real idea I have seen for society as a whole is Universal basic income.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income    I read that a poor city in California was trialling it with some selective test subjects.  There would be a savings you would not have to administer as much welfare.  I know socialism is viewed as evil in the USA but Universal basic income would make for a more stable society.  The beauty I see is you tax it back for those working.  If you lose your job you are already getting the basic income no need to beg or wait for some money at least.  

Edited April 15, 2021 by Metis_LDS
grammar

[The Nehor]

16 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

Yes it would be nice if board members and CEOS took less money so at least a workers could afford to buy a new $70,000 pickup truck. By no means have construction worker wages kept up with the cost of a vehicle to get to work or a home to live in.

True, why should they be denied another ivory back scratcher so their employees can have things they want? Strawmen are fun.

[OGHoosier]

I'm not going to discuss the relative merits or demerits of a Universal Basic Income because I think that strays too far towards politics for Nemesis' liking. 

For me, I've lived a happy middle class lifestyle. I've only ever envied the wealthy in one respect...their houses. I am a lover of beautiful architecture. Whether it is Roman cathedrals or stately halls of government, business, or private residence, I've found that I'm very passionate about the construction and preservation of beautiful buildings. One of my favorite places to visit in the US is Newport, Rhode Island. I exult in touring the Gilded Age mansions there and I refuse to be ashamed of that delight, even though the current zeitgeist seems to mandate that nobody can enjoy the fruits of the myriad social evils (as we presently define them) in which the robber barons engaged. I'm with the Aristotelians and the Scruton-esque aestheticists in believing that beauty has its own intrinsic value and a society that does not appreciate it is declining. Some concentration of wealth is required to create beautiful things, as opposed to merely minimalist and functional ones, and I think such things are necessary. Whether that wealth needs to be concentrated in the hands of individuals or rather organizations with stewardships is another question. 

With regard to the scriptures, I will merely note that the Lord did not object to the Nephites building a temple of fine craftsmanship and precious materials. He commanded the earlier Israelites to do so. Nor did He object, but was rather pleased by, the Saints sacrificing to build edifices of beauty in Kirtland and Nauvoo. I reject the assertion that resources spent on such things are wasted and I unequivocally reject the concept of the simple, unadorned society as the ideal. 

[AtlanticMike]

On 4/14/2021 at 3:44 PM, rodheadlee said:

Yes it would be nice if board members and CEOS took less money so at least a workers could afford to buy a new $70,000 pickup truck. By no means have construction worker wages kept up with the cost of a vehicle to get to work or a home to live in.

Years ago I was working on a huge 13,000sqft house of a bigwig CEO and we were standing in his front yard joking around about how much his house cost and he said, you know I only make about $100,000 a year. I looked at him, then looked at his house, then looked at him, then his house, then him 😂😂. Obviously, I said there's no way you can afford this house living off of 100grand. Apparently the company is a 501c3 and his base salary is the 100grand. But in total his compensation package was well over 2.5 million the year before.  I should've went to college🤣.

[InCognitus]

In the mid 2000's (not long before the "Great Recession"), I was sitting in a Gospel Doctrine class where we were discussing tithes and offerings.  A former stake president and soon to be patriarch was in that class, and he made a comment that I will never forget:  He testified of the blessings that come from giving a generous fast offering.  Tithing is a fixed 10%.  But what we give in fast offerings is an amount we can choose, and if we give generously it can make a big difference in the lives of those who are in need. 

I'm thankful that I was in that class at that time and heard that simple comment.  I think I needed to hear it, especially at that time, and it has changed my life ever since.  

This is one of many ways that we can do what we'd all like all the CEOs to do.  It's something in our control.

Edited April 16, 2021 by InCognitus

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Douglas Avans said:

Robert, I can't say precisely  what it would mean to put the Order of Enoch in its fullness in the present, but we could get some perspective from David Ellerman given our heritage and the  proclivities we as a people exhibit  toward the Scottish Enlightenment.  I think enterprise models are an important part of the discussion.  At present Anglo-Saxon capitalism can be said to be cross-wired, resulting in conflicting claims with respect to labour, capital and credit.   

Yeh, but what would the people at the Wharton School say? 

[MiserereNobis]

19 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

I'm not going to discuss the relative merits or demerits of a Universal Basic Income because I think that strays too far towards politics for Nemesis' liking. 

For me, I've lived a happy middle class lifestyle. I've only ever envied the wealthy in one respect...their houses. I am a lover of beautiful architecture. Whether it is Roman cathedrals or stately halls of government, business, or private residence, I've found that I'm very passionate about the construction and preservation of beautiful buildings. One of my favorite places to visit in the US is Newport, Rhode Island. I exult in touring the Gilded Age mansions there and I refuse to be ashamed of that delight, even though the current zeitgeist seems to mandate that nobody can enjoy the fruits of the myriad social evils (as we presently define them) in which the robber barons engaged. I'm with the Aristotelians and the Scruton-esque aestheticists in believing that beauty has its own intrinsic value and a society that does not appreciate it is declining. Some concentration of wealth is required to create beautiful things, as opposed to merely minimalist and functional ones, and I think such things are necessary. Whether that wealth needs to be concentrated in the hands of individuals or rather organizations with stewardships is another question. 

With regard to the scriptures, I will merely note that the Lord did not object to the Nephites building a temple of fine craftsmanship and precious materials. He commanded the earlier Israelites to do so. Nor did He object, but was rather pleased by, the Saints sacrificing to build edifices of beauty in Kirtland and Nauvoo. I reject the assertion that resources spent on such things are wasted and I unequivocally reject the concept of the simple, unadorned society as the ideal. 

I agree. I will fully defend the cost of building beautiful cathedrals and chapels.

[MiserereNobis]

The traditional Catholic economic model is distributism, which rejects both socialism and capitalism.

Check out the wiki entry on it here: distributism 

Edited April 16, 2021 by MiserereNobis

[Metis_LDS]

One problem is that we have no preset interval where things get reset.  The Hebrews had Jubilee every 50 years.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)#:~:text=The Jubilee (Hebrew%3A יובל ‎ yōḇel%3B Yiddish%3A yoyvl),management of land in the Land of Israel.

[OGHoosier]

8 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I agree. I will fully defend the cost of building beautiful cathedrals and chapels.

Not gonna lie, it was actually going to Rome that helped me recognize this. I've grown up as an American low-churcher, fully buying into the whole "4-bare-walls-and-a-sermon" shtick which we have in our cookie-cutter meetinghouses. I fully bought into the narrative that the Catholic church had done wrong in spending so much money on churches. Ironically enough I didn't have the same response to Gilded Age robber baron mansions, with which I saw nothing wrong as a teenager. I guess that goes to show how much I had bought into that star-spangled American paradigm of Protestant-flavored capitalist humanism. By now things have entirely changed though. I wasn't prepared for the astonishing beauty of Italian churches and by the end of it I was compelled to admit that I didn't think it was a bad thing that such buildings and works of art were made. I couldn't. I had to acknowledge that they were good things. That led to a reformation in my nascent understanding of aesthetics and my convictions regarding the relationship of the society and the individual. 

[The Nehor]

I say we just all take a sabbatical to figure it all out.

[mgy401]

Mathematically, it is always a simple thing to take a little from the many in order to give a lot to the few.  This is the trade-off Price makes when he chooses to pay high salaries to hundreds in lieu of taking his firm public and paying small dividends to thousands or millions of shareholders (including firefighters, teachers, and anyone who has a 401(k)).  That is Price’s prerogative.  It doesn’t mean that all firms—especially publicly-traded ones—can or should act as Gravity Payments has done; and I know *I* wouldn’t loan money to a company that was paying $70K a year to a phone jockey fresh out of high school.  But so long as his firm can access the capital it needs through other means—what I think is irrelevant; and more power to ‘em if they can make the numbers come out right.

As it pertains to D&C 49:20, though, one should probably note that

a) $70K is not Gravity’s universal salary; it is Gravity’s minimum salary.  There is still inequality—just inequality with a higher baseline.  (Which is an accurate descriptor, too, of the US in 2021 versus the US in 1831.  To borrow Capra’s imagery as cited in the OP—“drowning” is something of a relative term.)

b)  Gravity is not Price’s sole source of income.  At minimum, he receives (or was receiving) rental income from his multiple homes.  Did he share that with his employees?

Edited April 18, 2021 by mgy401

[Alexandria]

You can ever spend yourself into prosperity. 

[Alexandria]

*Cant 

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, mgy401 said:

Mathematically, it is always a simple thing to take a little from the many in order to give a lot to the few.  This is the trade-off Price makes when he chooses to pay high salaries to hundreds in lieu of taking his firm public and paying small dividends to thousands or millions of shareholders (including firefighters, teachers, and anyone who has a 401(k)).  That is Price’s prerogative.  It doesn’t mean that all firms—especially publicly-traded ones—can or should act as Gravity Payments has done; and I know *I* wouldn’t loan money to a company that was paying $70K a year to a phone jockey fresh out of high school.  But so long as his firm can access the capital it needs through other means—what I think is irrelevant; and more power to ‘em if they can make the numbers come out right.

As it pertains to D&C 49:20, though, one should probably note that

a) $70K is not Gravity’s universal salary; it is Gravity’s minimum salary.  There is still inequality—just inequality with a higher baseline.  (Which is an accurate descriptor, too, of the US in 2021 versus the US in 1831.  To borrow Capra’s imagery as cited in the OP—“drowning” is something of a relative term.)

b)  Gravity is not Price’s sole source of income.  At minimum, he receives (or was receiving) rental income from his multiple homes.  Did he share that with his employees?

I am curious as to what percentage of publicly traded companies you think firefighters and teachers own. Surely you should focus on the people that own a much greater share. A suspicious person would suspect you chose those professions to paint the stock market as being for “the little guy”.

[mgy401]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I am curious as to what percentage of publicly traded companies you think firefighters and teachers own. Surely you should focus on the people that own a much greater share. A suspicious person would suspect you chose those professions to paint the stock market as being for “the little guy”.

I have no idea what percentage of all stocks on the market are held by billionaires versus millionaires versus thousandaires.  But the fact is that pretty much anyone with a pension or retirement fund, owes the health of that fund primarily to the market for stock in publicly-traded companies.  Numerically, the number of lower and middle-class investors far exceeds the number of fat cats in the market.  And though some of us may find it ideologically inconvenient—that number does include public retirement funds for teachers and firefighters and police officers and government workers, as well as privately-managed individual retirement accounts and mutual funds and even simple index funds.

I have no delusions that the stock market is primarily “for the little guy”.  I do recognize, however, that the stock market is the single best tool that an individual of any economic class can use to achieve post-retirement economic independence and that the people who consider themselves too virtuous to take advantage of it are largely going to wind up begging for for bailouts from the people who didn’t.  A rising tide tends to float all boats; and I’m not prepared to wreck my own skiff just so that I can laugh at all the yachts that also ran aground.

A McDonald’s that quits paying dividends to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Ensign Peak Investors so that it can support a $70K minimum wage; isn’t paying dividends to me or my grandma, either. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by mgy401

[The Nehor]

50 minutes ago, mgy401 said:

I have no idea what percentage of all stocks on the market are held by billionaires versus millionaires versus thousandaires.  But the fact is that pretty much anyone with a pension or retirement fund, owes the health of that fund primarily to the market for stock in publicly-traded companies.  Numerically, the number of lower and middle-class investors far exceeds the number of fat cats in the market.  And though some of us may find it ideologically inconvenient—that number does include public retirement funds for teachers and firefighters and police officers and government workers, as well as privately-managed individual retirement accounts and mutual funds and even simple index funds.

I have no delusions that the stock market is primarily “for the little guy”.  I do recognize, however, that the stock market is the single best tool that an individual of any economic class can use to achieve post-retirement economic independence and that the people who consider themselves too virtuous to take advantage of it are largely going to wind up begging for for bailouts from the people who didn’t.  A rising tide tends to float all boats; and I’m not prepared to wreck my own skiff just so that I can laugh at all the yachts that also ran aground.

A McDonald’s that quits paying dividends to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Ensign Peak Investors so that it can support a $70K minimum wage; isn’t paying dividends to me or my grandma, either. 

The rising tide analogy has never worked. It ignores that gravity makes it rise at all areas equally for all.

I am not too virtuous to take advantage. I have a pretty big portfolio.

The top 1% own about 38% of stock. The top 10% own about 84%. About half of Americans own something.

I would also be okay if 70k was a minimum wage even if it hurt my stock portfolio. Who deserves wealth more? People work for it or people trying to make passive income? The “idle shall not eat the bread of the laborer” command doesn’t come with an exemption about trust funds and stock portfolios.

[let’s roll]

12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The rising tide analogy has never worked. It ignores that gravity makes it rise at all areas equally for all.

I am not too virtuous to take advantage. I have a pretty big portfolio.

The top 1% own about 38% of stock. The top 10% own about 84%. About half of Americans own something.

I would also be okay if 70k was a minimum wage even if it hurt my stock portfolio. Who deserves wealth more? People work for it or people trying to make passive income? The “idle shall not eat the bread of the laborer” command doesn’t come with an exemption about trust funds and stock portfolios.

Pension funds control about $45 trillion in assets.  Are they in your top 1%?  Passive income is what allows teachers and firefighters to retire with a pension.

 

[The Nehor]

35 minutes ago, let’s roll said:

Pension funds control about $45 trillion in assets.  Are they in your top 1%?  Passive income is what allows teachers and firefighters to retire with a pension.

They are not in my 1%. They aren’t in that percentage at all. Not sure what that “whataboutism” is supposed to prove.

[mgy401]

10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The rising tide analogy has never worked. It ignores that gravity makes it rise at all areas equally for all.

I am not too virtuous to take advantage. I have a pretty big portfolio.

The top 1% own about 38% of stock. The top 10% own about 84%. About half of Americans own something.

I would also be okay if 70k was a minimum wage even if it hurt my stock portfolio. Who deserves wealth more? People work for it or people trying to make passive income? The “idle shall not eat the bread of the laborer” command doesn’t come with an exemption about trust funds and stock portfolios.

Nothing you write here really undercuts any of my points:  the stock market does form the basis for the retirement savings for millions of middle- and lower-class Americans; Gravity is still perpetrating “income inequality”; and Mr. Price still apparently has additional income he has elected not to share with his employees.

Instead, you seem to be moving on to the suggestion that passive investment income is, per LDS theology, inherently immoral.

That leads to some interesting questions.  Is it truly “idle” to lend one’s own resources to others to facilitate their own revenue-producing projects?  Are mortgage brokers and loan officers (in addition to stock brokers and fund managers) in an immoral profession?

And does the statement mandate some sort of nexus between our income source and the work we actually do?  Can otherwise-immoral passive streams of income be justified if I am engaged in “work” like—say—missionary service, or managing a church welfare farm, or building houses for Habitat for Humanity; but not getting paid for that work?

It’s intriguing to try to imagine a paradigm where people can retire and be truly self-sufficient, without dirtying their hands through involvement in the stock market.  The only route I can visualize is workers saving 50% or more of their paycheck per year.  Any other route—having their former company continue to pay a stipend out of current corporate revenues, seeking assistance from younger family members, or becoming a public charge—seems to constitute redistribution from active workers to retirees and falls foul of our apparent definition of “idlers eating the bread of the laborer”.

Edited April 19, 2021 by mgy401