Establishing Zion
Chapter 10 — Organizations and Institutions in Zion
Organizations are not neutral containers for human activity. They shape the people within them — their expectations, their habits, their sense of what is possible and what is required. This is the central insight that runs through Chapter 10, and it transforms the question we should be asking about every organization we belong to or build. The question is not: how efficient is this institution? It is the question James C. Scott poses and the chapter immediately claims as its own: what kind of people does it foster?
Most mission statements focus on what an organization produces, not on what kind of people it produces. A business measures success by revenue and profit. A church program measures success by attendance and activity rates. A school measures success by test scores and graduation rates. These are not illegitimate measures, but they are incomplete ones. An organization that produces excellent widgets while producing fearful, passive, or cynical people is failing by Zion's standards, regardless of what its balance sheet says. An organization that produces self-reliant, accountable, genuinely engaged people — even if its output metrics are modest — is closer to what Zion requires.
D&C 121:39 says that almost all people, when given authority over others, exercise unrighteous dominion. The chapter takes this seriously as a structural prediction rather than an exception. It is not that most leaders are unusually corrupt or power-hungry. It is that the traditions, policies, and expectations embedded in most organizations tend to produce unrighteous dominion even when no one intends it — because those structures were designed to manage compliance rather than to call forth agency. The antidote is not better intentions. It is different structures — ones that expand the range of choices available to members, that distribute authority rather than concentrate it, and that hold leaders accountable to the people they serve rather than the other way around.
Peter Block's distinction between citizens and consumers is one of the chapter's most useful analytical tools. Consumers and clients receive services and evaluate them. Citizens produce the future rather than waiting for it. They take ownership of outcomes rather than assigning responsibility to providers. They engage with the full complexity of the community's challenges rather than expecting someone else to solve them. The question Block's framework raises for every Latter-day Saint is pointed: do you experience yourself as a citizen or a consumer in the organizations most central to your life — your ward, your workplace, your community? And if the answer is consumer, what would it take to shift?
The exit, voice, and loyalty framework offers a complementary lens. When an organization is failing its members, they have three options: leave (exit), speak up (voice), or stay silent and hope for the best (loyalty). The chapter uses the author's own departure from BYU to give weight to this framework — not as a complaint but as an honest reckoning with what the decision required and what it cost. The framework's most important insight is that voice is the hardest option and the most valuable one. Exit is clean but it abandons the field. Loyalty without voice is complicity. Genuine voice — honest, persistent, constructive engagement with what is wrong — is the form of accountability that organizations most need and least reward.
Elder Bednar's "Move your feet" illustration captures the agency dimension precisely. The Lord told a missionary "I'm going to get you where you need to be without violating your agency. But you've got to be moving for that to happen." Organizations in Zion must be structured on the same principle — not waiting for members to be assigned tasks and comply with instructions, but calling them into motion, trusting that the Lord will direct moving feet. Unity applied to organizations means shared purpose, open communication, mutual respect, collaborative teamwork, and the cross-training and mutual support that allow members to serve one another across role boundaries rather than staying siloed in their own lanes.
In Zion, the meaningful distinction between organizations will not be the familiar one between for-profit and not-for-profit. It will be between self-reliant enterprises — ones that cover their costs through the value they create — and those that rely on community support. And earnings in Zion enterprises will be distributed largely to those doing the work rather than extracted by distant shareholders. This is not a utopian fantasy. It is a description of how worker-owned cooperatives, community development financial institutions, and mission-driven enterprises already function in communities around the world. The question is whether covenant people are willing to build and sustain such organizations with the intentionality Zion requires.
Most mission statements focus on what an organization produces, not on what kind of people it produces. Think of an organization you belong to. What kind of people does it foster? Does the answer change how you evaluate whether the organization is succeeding?
D&C 121:39 says that almost all people, when given authority, exercise unrighteous dominion. The chapter argues this is not an exception but a structural prediction. What traditions — policies, practices, expectations — in your organizations tend to produce this outcome even when no one intends it?
The chapter argues that organizations should be structured to expand the range of choices available to members and call forth initiative rather than manage compliance. Where in your experience have you seen organizations that genuinely do this? What made it possible?
Peter Block's definition distinguishes citizens from consumers and clients — citizens produce the future rather than waiting for it. Do you experience yourself as a citizen or a consumer in the organizations most central to your life? What would it take to shift?
The chapter uses the author's departure from BYU to give weight to the exit, voice, and loyalty framework. Have you faced such a dilemma? What questions did you ask — or wish you had asked — in navigating it?
The chapter argues that in Zion the meaningful distinction will not be between for-profit and not-for-profit but between self-reliant enterprises and those that rely on community support, with earnings distributed largely to those doing the work. What would this mean for the businesses you patronize, invest in, or work for today?