UNITED EFFORTS
A United Effort:
- is the organization of individual Latter-day Saints into a mutual beneficial society (a gift society)
- is based upon voluntarily giving, sharing, co-operation, free agency, common consent and variety
- is not based upon the Babylonian principles of buying and selling, that everything has a price, the profit-motive, selfishness, the spirit of competition, force and homogenization
- has as its purpose: to advance the cause of, and prepare the way for the establishment of, Zion, and to reduce or eliminate the influences of, and ties to, Babylon, performed via their own free agency and not by way of commandment through the proper priesthood channels
GIFT SOCIETIES
A Gift Society:
- is one in which every member seeks the interest of the members of the Society
- is one in which members donate time, labor (services), ideas, resources and money to other members of the Society
- has the express purpose of providing for the NEEDS of the individual members of the Society by making them all independent from Babylonian suppliers, self-sufficient producers and engaged in actively developing their talents as opposed to slaving away their lives in meaningless mundane tasks working for Babylon, so that a surplus may eventually be generated by every member of the Society
- may operate on the principle of open-ended monetary loans, meaning that they are gifts with the expectation of paying them back, if possible, so that the Society may reuse the funds for further gifting, but without any time limits, contracts or requirements
- may operate on the principle of donations of surplus or may have a preferred minimum donation, as each Society decides
- may have a decentralized treasury in which each member keeps their funds until a group donation is authorized by the Society
TRIBAL RELATIONS
Tribal Relations:
- means that the members of the United Effort Gift Society are related to each other (family relations)
- helps to ensure the honesty of the members, as a dishonest member would be ostracized by their family, a penalty worse than being ostracized by an unrelated group
- may consists of several families, clans or tribes per Gift Society or one Society may be entirely composed of members of one single family/clan/tribe
- does not necessarily exclude single persons who want entrance into the Society, all to be decided by the common consent of the members of the United Effort
STEWARDSHIPS
Stewardships:
- are donations given to individual members according to the need of the individual or the combined needs of the Society members
- may be given according to the talents of the members involved
- may be small or large, as decided by the Society
- may be given out in steps, so that a steward may receive a small stewardship at first, and then, when the stewardship is returned as surplus, the same steward may be considered wise and talented enough to obtain a larger stewardship, and so on and so forth, as decided by the Society
How to Start a United Effort Gift Society In Your Area
If you are interested in starting, or have already started, a Gift Society in your area, post your contact information on the United Effort Gift Society Bulletin Board. People who are interested in learning more about, or joining, your Society can either contact you directly or can leave their contact information on the Bulletin Board thread that you start. You can then contact who you want to invite.
Also, you can get yourself a free Facebook account and add me (LDS Anarchist) as a friend. This will link you to other like-minded individuals who are interesting in forming or joining a Gift Society. You can use my list of Facebook friends to find individuals in your area who are interested in joining or forming a United Effort. Then contact them and invite whoever you want to join your Society.
If you are interested in finding and joining a Society in your area, check the United Effort Gift Society Bulletin Board. As stated above, you can leave your contact info on the thread of a Society in your area if you don’t want to contact them directly. You may also add me as a friend in your Facebook account to help to establish a network of members, or potential members, of United Efforts.
Some Ideas
Here’s a list of ideas that can be used. Obviously the principle of anarchism (free agency) and common consent will rule, so each Society will operate differently, as they wish, but these suggestions may get you started thinking of the possibilities.
- Have a weekly/bi-weekly/monthly meeting at a set place and set time
- Make the meeting short, say 20-30 minutes max
- Have the meeting on private property, so that you can turn away the uninvited
- Send out personal, written invitations to people you want to join
- Have Society members decide who will get invitations before the invitations are sent out for the next meeting (the Society members are a “filter,” selecting people they feel are men and women of integrity)
- Include on the invitation information about the Society so that people know what it’s all about (the invitations become another “filter,” so only people interested in gift societies will attend)
- Require that donations be made in silver or some other non-government currency (this protects the treasury from the effects of inflation)
- Require that everyone bring their silver dues (donations) to each meeting and, if no stewardship is authorized during the meeting, that they take them back to their home afterward
- If someone hasn’t brought the minimum donation in silver to a meeting, allow them to order some at the meeting (obviously I recommend using the Silver Bartering Currency, but any bullion silver will do)
- Have someone keep track of the membership roll, how much silver each member has brought to the meeting, how much silver each member has contributed to any previously authorized stewardship, and how much total silver is available for use in any stewardship authorized at the meeting
- When a steward has obtained a surplus sufficient to pay back the donation received and he or she brings the donation received as a stewardship to a meeting, divvy up the loot (the silver) and return it back to the same people who originally donated it, according to he record kept
- Cast lots to determine who will receive the first stewardship, the second stewardship, etc.
- If multiple families (clans) form a Society, cast lots to see which clan receives the first stewardship and so on and so forth
- Set a minimum and maximum number of Society members for best efficiency; if more people want in, have them form their own Society
- When all the needs of the Society members have been addressed and everyone is producing a surplus, consider using the surplus to bless those not in the Society or have the Society break up and reform into multiple Societies with new members whose needs are not yet met
- If desired, allow families (clans) to send representatives to the meetings along with the combined clannish silver donation, to keep the meeting at a workable number of people
- Have Society members utilize the Establishment of Zion Think Tank forum both to obtain ideas on how to supply the needs of their membership and also to post ideas for use by other Societies
Previous Anarchism/Anarchy article: Establishing the tribes of Israel: the real reason for plural marriage
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Excellent article, a tribal gift economy is a great way to ditch capitalism. We are doing something similar in the Bay Area called the White Cross to provide “gifts” of food and essential items to the homeless.
This reads like the cross between a legal document and a role playing game instruction manual… And so on and so forth. ;P
Wow. A comment.
You know, when I was just a kid, the latest craze was the Dungeons & Dragons role playing games. All the kids at school were into it and I thought it was so cool but never got it as a present, so I saved up my money and road my bicycle to the local comic book shop that sold it and bought myself a D&D starters game. I was so excited as I road home, thinking that finally I would be able to find out what all the fuss was about and participate in some games with my friends. Then, upon entering my house and telling my mother the good news about my recent purchase, she was quick to inform me that she had heard that the leaders of our new church (the LDS church) had counseled against such role playing games, that it was of the devil, etc., etc. I was crushed, but thought that I could still get my money back. But then she told me that I probably shouldn’t take it back so that it could be sold to someone else and have it be a bad influence on them and told me to just throw it away. Back then I was not the anarchist I am today, so I obeyed and chucked the game into the trash, sad about the loss of all the money I had saved up.
Perhaps this post is a manifestation of that repressed memory and my inner desire to still partake of role playing games?
Oh, yeah, and growing up, everyone said I ought to be a lawyer…
The problem to me still exists that whenever a person is given the authority, unless that person is moral, virtuous and full of integrity…it leads to the same problem that government has…corruption by the ones in power. If that is in tribes, clans or government the same problem exists. The threat of getting kicked out of your family for misbehavior only works if everyone in the group is full of that same moral fiber. (except the offender at the time, corruption and all) I hope for each individual man and woman to take it upon themselves to change who they are, so that a society like that can exist. That’s the real problem in this world in my opinion. No on is concerned about character anymore. That’s how we will successfully govern ourselves. Until then, if you can find a group of people that are like that right now? Go for it, I think there would be tremendous benefits. It’s a good outline.
And, from my economy point of view…your mother should have allowed you to take the game back or keep it. After all, the more games sold, the more games produced. The fewer they sell, the fewer games produced. Your mom helped instead of hindering. LoL.
‘Under ancient Irish law the land did not belong to the king or the chief or the landlord, but to the tribe, and the lowest of the free-tribesmen had as much an inalienable right to his share as had the chief himself. In process of time parts of the tribal territory appear to have become alienated to subtribes or families, and the chief, who always… Read More exercised certain administrative duties with respect to the land, appears to have had certain specific portions of the tribal land allotted to himself for his own use, and for the maintenance of his household and relatives. He was in no sense, however, what is now known as a landlord, although the whole tendency of later times was to increase his power at the expense of his tribe and vassals. … Amongst the many bitter injustices inflicted upon Ireland and the Irish by the English conquest none has had more cruel or more far-reaching effects than the abrogation of the Brehon law relating to land-tenure and division of property.
‘ “The head of every tribe”, says the Brehon Law tract the Cain Aigillne, “should be the man of the tribe who is the most experienced, the most notable, the most wealthy, the most learned, the most truly popular, the most powerful to oppose, the most steadfast to sue for profits and to be sued for losses.” As early as the third century, in a well-known piece of Irish literature, Cairbre, afterwards King of Ireland, is depicted as asking his father Cormac Mac Airt the question: “For what qualifications is a king elected over countries and tribes of people?” And Cormac in his answer embodied the views of practically every clan in Ireland down to the beginning of the seventeenth century. “He is chosen”, said the king, “from the goodness of his shape and family, from his experience and wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and bravery in battle, and from the number of his friends.” He was, however, always chosen from the near kindred of the reigning chieftain.’
– 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia
“These laws are of great antiquity and may antedate the coming of the Celts to Ireland. St. Patrick is credited with codifying these laws in the 5th Century. His efforts fill five volumes and are known as the Senchus Mor. Its ordinances are named C’ain Padraic after St. Patrick. These five volumes which have come down to us, however, are only a small portion of the old Irish laws which covered almost every relationship and every fine (finna, family) shade of relationship, social and moral, between man and man.”
I see an emerging pattern here. The Senchus Mor sounds interesting. It’s too bad it is only a part.
Where are you quoting this from?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02753a.htm
http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/brehon_laws.htm
Senchus Mór
http://books.google.com/books?id=9AYKAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover
http://books.google.com/books?id=S6fPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1
http://books.google.com/books?id=sSgNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover
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