…I do feel to urge on those brethren who have the means and are in circumstances, to search out the mind and will of God in regard to these matters, and let us try to build up Zion. Zion is the pure in heart. Zion cannot be built up except on the principles of union required by the celestial law. It is high time for us to enter into these things. It is more pleasant and agreeable for the Latter-day Saints to enter into this work and build up Zion, than to build up ourselves and have this great competition which is destroying us.
– Lorenzo Snow, 4/21/1878

Note: I feel the need to explain why this quote is classified here under “Co-ops are a Stepping Stone [to Zion]” when the quote says nothing about Cooperation. There are many quotes by the early LDS leaders where they called upon “those brethren who have the means” to create cooperatives to give their fellow Saints jobs and to provide for the temporal needs of the community.

Note the last sentence: “It is more pleasant and agreeable for the Latter-day Saints to enter into this work [ie. of building co-ops] and build up Zion, than to build up ourselves and have this great competition which is destroying us.” The Brethren saw competitive free enterprise as antithetical to Zion. They frequently spoke of how it’s opposite – Cooperation – was more in line with the Lord’s will for his people in matters of economics. So, this quote assumes the reader/listener understood what work he was speaking of, and that it was the solution to the problem of competition and its destructive influence on the unity of the Saints.