The Anti-poverty Effect of Mormonism

I spent some time looking through old books about Mormons in the Lit & Phil library of Newcastle upon Tyne (England)

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/old-books-about-mormons-more-anti.html

And I was struck by the evidence that there was essentially no poverty (as Victorians understood it) among Mormons in the early years once the state had been established.

A particularly interesting (anti-Mormon) book was by R Kauffman and RW Kauffman ormons in the light of economic conditions (1912) – which was a (terrible!) book about the supposed capitalistic exploitation of rank and file Mormons by their leadership – but which nonetheless had to admit that, somehow, there was no actual poverty among these ‘exploited’ masses…

(BTW – I used to read (and comment at, and feature in) Tyler Cowen’s blog in the mid-2000s when I was a libertarian non-Christian.)

@Bruce
Very interesting.

The Church’s Self Reliance program (https://www.lds.org/topics/pef-self-reliance/principles?lang=eng) is inspired. The world is very large and its poverty immense. Nevertheless, this program is a realistic way forward, maybe the only realistic way forward.

More praise for the Church’s welfare and self-reliance programs, in which I or those close to me have participated, on both sides. They are inspired.

Mormonism appears to correlate highly to a number of factors that also correlate to higher IQ. That is, the most devote Mormons are also from a grouping out of society that already has a predilection for low poverty, low crime, higher intelligence, hard working, willing to help and work with others, etc. The main thing that stands out to me outside these compared to broad society these days is the lack of immoral behavior while broader society deteriorates morally (you, of course, really do believe and follow Christian teachings and life).

I’m not sure how God works these things out, but I mean that it appears the sort of people who are Mormons are from the same “right-side of the bellcurve” or upper-end of the social/ethnic segment of society who wouldn’t live in poverty among broader society anyway. I imagine this is even stronger in the early church, where conversion involved real, immediate hardships involved in persecution and moving across the country – and it continues to show even today among the high-achieving members of very long/old Mormon families.

(I really like the self-reliance teachings, and am especially impressed by the financial advice, home storage, etc. – just the above is something I’ve been wondering about).

@Andrew – The interesting thing is that Mormons were originally recruited mostly from the artisan class – i.e. not above, but perhaps slightly below, average intelligence, although clearly from people with unusually diligent personalities.

Nowadays most studies show US Mormons as having above average intelligence.

My best guess is that this was mostly due to the different fertility pattern among US Mormons than among other groups of above average intelligence – the evidence is that throughout the past generations the more intelligent Mormons (as measured by proxies such as education and income) had more children than the less intelligent Mormons – whereas the opposite situation holds for the majority of the US population.

(i.e. among Mormons there is a positive correlation between intelligence and fertility, while the correlation is negative in the majority US population).

So, over the years, the level of Mormon intelligence (and, even more so, educational attainment) has risen relative to the population average, and especially relative to the average for the educational elites.

So the proportion of Mormons among the US educational elite (roughly the top ten percent of the population) has increased over the past century – and would be expected – IF this trend continued – to become very substantial over the next few decades.

*However*, it may be that this trend will be stopped then reversed by increasing levels of (already established) negative discrimination – if ruling elite jobs become more-fully restricted to those who embrace the ever-extending sexual revolution.

e.g. If the criteria for forcing the resignation of Brendan Eich from his position of CEO of Mozilla were consistently applied to all positions of managerial responsibility, this would exclude *all* active Mormons from *all* political, managerial, academic, legal, educational jobs – i.e. from all jobs with any significant discretionary power.

Such a change would probably be welcomed (on ‘ethical’ grounds) by a large majority of the current US elites.

Bruce,
The 19th century mormon converts came from a time and place where the classes did not have much difference in intelligence. The travels and persecution surely selected for certain abilities and personalities.
Since that time, polygamy, marriage within the faith, and more recent fertility patterns have all contributed to raising the Mormon intelligence in the US.
It is doubtful that the Mormon elites will be excluded from most ruling elite jobs. It will more likely be industry specific and sporadically enforced. Even so, Mormon entertainers can still thrive at present. It is likely that there are enough socially conservative elites still in the US, that this will not happen.

@el oso – My understanding – supported by reaction time measurements from the late 1800s – is that there have always been significant average intelligence differences between social classes – although I believe the average was higher then, and also that high intra-uterine and child mortality rates (differentially affecting those with lower intelligence) would indeed have tended to reduce the size of the differences between adults.

So I agree with you about probable size differences, but would still regard the differences as substantial.

I have no idea what will actually happen to the Mormon elites – but if the current ‘regime’ of New Leftism continues it is possible that Mormons will be treated as badly as so many other successful ‘middle class’ minorities (as documented in multiple times and places by Thomas Sowell – most persecuted minorities have been more successful than the average population).

The thing is – atheist Leftism is something new under the sun, and it shows no powers of self-correction. I also believe the modern Leftism of the elites to be deomincally inspired and led.

So unless there is a collapse and restoration of religion to terminate the trends, I would expect that Leftism would become very extreme indeed in its destructiveness.

We are already well-established in a starkly insane world of public discourse, and the fact that this is not generally recognized is very ominous.