Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Economics Research Institute Study Paper

Volume

5

Publisher

Utah State University Department of Economics

Publication Date

2005

Rights

Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact the Institutional Repository Librarian at digitalcommons@usu.edu.

First Page

1

Last Page

53

Abstract

When Mormon settlers arrived in the Great Basin in 1847, the region was Mexican territory notable mainly for its isolation- 1,000 miles to the nearest markets- and its inhospitable environment. Under the direction of Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons developed a regional economic system that coined and printed its own money, engaged in "foreign trade" with the "States," dealt with balance-of-payments problems, assimilated large numbers of immigrants, and began the process of economic development. Group economic self-sufficiency was stressed, and uncontrolled market capitalism was rejected in favor of cooperative and communitarian economic institutions and centralized theocratic direction and control. The economic isolation of Utah ended with the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Between 1869 and statehood (1896), pressures toward assimilation clashed repeatedly with Mormon economic policies of cooperation, planning, and group self-sufficiency. It is the thesis of this study that the resistance of Mormon leaders to assimilation led to the development of an unusual dual-parallel economy in which the "traditional" Mormon sector more closely resembled the overall U.S. economy than did the "modem" non-Mormon mining and trading sector. It is argued that the policies of the Mormon church, though designed to prevent or retard economic assimilation, may have speeded the transition of Utah's economy to modem capitalist development. These policies provided an orderly transition from a subsistence economy based on irrigated agriculture to a diversified, modem economy experiencing rapid economic growth. This transition allowed Utah to avoid the long period of unstable, narrow-based economic colonialism experienced by other Western states in the nineteenth century.

Download

Share

COinS