ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to apply the Asiatic mode of production concept, at least with some modifications, to one social formation. It examines the development of Mormonism through the following five stages: a quasi-communal stage, an incipient Asiatic stage, a mature Asiatic stage, a declining Asiatic stage, and a corporate church stage. The chapter demonstrates that 19th century Mormonism constituted a social formation which articulated several modes of production. During the 1870s and 1880s Mormonism increasingly faced two interrelated contradictions—--one internal and the other external. The internal contradiction involved two dimensions: 20the coincidence of community structures and an emerging class structure and the coincidence of theocratic position and private ownership. The external contradiction faced by 19th century Mormonism was its coexistence with a more powerful social formation in the same geographical territory. During its incipient Asiatic stage, the Mormon state was not based on a large-scale hydraulic system.
