The contrast begins. Where there was peace there are not disputings. Where there was righteousness there is now “pride and boastings.” Mormon does not describe these conditions completely, but he gives us enough information so that we can tell that what is happening is the same cycle all over again. Note that he specifically mentions “great persecutions.” This is an internal problem, and only happens when one group of people sees themselves as both distinct and superior to another group of people. With this single statement we can surmise the return of social hierarchies based on wealth.
This is the very same submission to the Mesoamerican lifestyle that comes with the particular Mesomaerican mode of accumulation of wealth that we have seen over and over again in Nephite history. The problem is not simply the wealth, but that the very definition of wealth carries with it the disease of social segregation, social hierarchies, and this kind of persecution of those who do not have the “wealth.”