Living the Law of Consecration fully

[Vort]

@LineUponLine, I like your desire, and I like your attitude of "Why not now?" Don't lose that.

We are building Zion, which will greet our Lord at his coming. To do that, we must become a Zion people. Zion people don't worry inordinately about how much money they have. Their standard is, "Sufficient for our needs." If a Zion person ever happens to get rich, he does so with the understanding that he will use his money to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and otherwise administer relief to the poor.

But how is this to be done? Is there some implicit "vow of poverty" in this mindset? As soon as we get a dollar in surplus, we need to go give it to the nearest street person? Absolutely not.

Suppose a Saint striving to be a Zion person finds himself, by dint of his own perseverence, hard work, dedication, and luck (as if there is any such thing), with an abundance of money. Suppose he then establishes a charity and endows his charity with a bunch of money, a la Bill Gates. Is that not clothing the naked and feeding the hungry?

Suppose this Saint instead establishes a business that eventually employs thousands, giving people a chance to earn money by the sweat of their face, just as the Lord commanded Adam. Does he not (referencing Ayn Rand philosophy here) provide a way for his brothers and sisters to ennoble themselves and pursue their own path to Zion? And as his business helps them create wealth, they get to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, so instead of having one rich guy, we have tens of thousands of moderately rich people who give to the poor. Don't you think that would be much more efficient?

When Zion is truly and fully established, I do not know what it will look like. Doubtless it will look different from many or all of our current ideas, most of which are modeled after Brigham Young-era attempts at establishing various united orders. But whatever it looks like, I don't think it will be all that alien to us. If we could see it in a vision of the future, I expect many of us would say, "Of course! How obvious! Why didn't I see it before?"

Bottom line: Do not worry about establishing economic Zion. The Lord will do that in his own good time, and it's a fool's errand to try to do it before that time. But we should indeed practice consecration, giving all our time and talents to God for the establishment of Zion through his kingdom, aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Be content that we will one day dwell in Zion, to go no more out, if not in this life then in the next.

[The Folk Prophet]

12 hours ago, LineUponLine said:

Earlier you were just telling me that my statement was inaccurate

Primarily because you're trying to say, it seems, that Zion is a community effort rather than an individual one. But I think that is inaccurate.

[The Folk Prophet]

11 hours ago, LineUponLine said:

but it won't be for any sort of personal income.

Well now it seems to me that A) you're defining "income" to mean only "money"...but income is much more than just money, and we most certainly will be working for personal income -- meaning personal growth and benefit -- which is the same reason for which we work to acquire money in mortality. And B) how do you know there won't be some sort of trade system that involves some sort of currency while we work towards omnipotence?

[Guest Mores]

It seems that one qualification of a zion society is one where we have no poor among us.

It also seems to me that we are so very close to it within the Church.

[Traveler]

I have a question - in a free society are all the citizens equal or should they be seen or treated unequally?  This may seem a simple question - but seldom (if ever) have actual humans been treated equal under any law enacted by man.  In the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell; I believe the best we can expect is expressed in his notion that all are equal - but some are more equal than others.  Usually (if not always) those seeking equality by force end up being the very ones that are the most equal of all. 

I make my living working in industrial automation, robotics and artificial intelligence.   One of the most difficult elements to integrate into automated facilities are (believe it or not)  humans.  But are not humans the great integration problem of any enterprise?  I thought I would give an example of perhaps the greatest automation success in human history.  To understand we must go back in history to the end of WWII.  Japan had been both defeated and devastated by the war.  The USA adopted what is called the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Japan.  Some American academics were employed to introduce Western manufacturing and economic structures to Japan.  One was W. Edwards Deming - an electrical engineer (mathematician and physicist) who was perhaps the most influential in developing the current Japanese industrial complex. 

Deming established a industrial concept call "Kaizen".  This is a Japanese word meaning "improvement" or "change for the better" (sounds a lot like our definition of repentance).  It is a method or exercize of bringing the manufacturing elements together and looking at all aspects going on in a complex manufacturing facility and ranking all of them as to importance and need in accomplishing the manufacturing tasks, efficiently.  Many of the most successful manufacturing companies in the USA have since adopted the concept of "Lean Manufacturing" established through Kaizen methodology. 

At the heart of lean manufacturing and kaizen methodology are the same principles I find in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as established in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Two of the principles are 1. maximizing individual capabilities and contributions.  And 2. Governing with councils consisting of representatives of all critical elements utilized in the manufacturing.  I would note at this point that management is just critical one element.  In the concept of Kaizen no one element is considered more important and needed than any other element -  almost always the most difficult element to convince is management.  

In essence the kaizen method is a means of ending poverty or poor in a society.  Interestingly the mentality is to discover the most effective utilization of each cog in the industrial wheel concept.  There are two parts - One is that each individual is responsible for not just completing their task but accomplishing it to maximize what is going on around them so that all efforts are accomplished together.  

I have only given a quick summary of lean manufacturing and kaizen method.  I have also introduced, in past threads the concept of the "Hive Mind" as it relates to artificial intelligence or for that matter all intelligence.  Both of these concepts balance the ideas being debated by @The Folk Prophetand @LineUponLineas to the importance of individual contribution and being a member of a social order acting as one.  The sad thing - as I see it - our modern society is too focused on individuality and lack almost all understanding of how to behave as a member of a social structure.  We do not seem to even understand "sustainable"  marriages (since half or more fail) - which is the simplests of all sustainable human social orders.

 

The Traveler

Edited May 26, 2019 by Traveler