“For” (v. 11) communicates causality. In Mesoamerica these “many merchants” are inextricably related to the trade networks that generated wealth. In a world where most of life’s necessities are raised on individual farms or hand-manufactured in individual homes, the trade networks supply both raw materials and luxuries, or the items connoting wealth. Wealth accumulates through these traders, but they also become sources of the worldly ideas from the lands from which the elite goods are acquired.
Mormon continues his social description by noting “many lawyers, and many officers.” (See commentary accompanying Alma 10:3 for information on lawyers.) This information is part of Mormon’s depiction of a society heading toward destruction. He has no quarrel with merchants, lawyers, or officers per se. Rather, he is recording the rise of specialized functions in social positions that bring with them authority and hierarchy. The problem is social classes and segregation. These positions of wealth and influence reveal a society that assumes some members are more valuable and important than others. Mormon obviously disapproves of those who are “distinguished by ranks”—not because he disapproves of education or wealth but because of the class distinctions that come with the “ranks.”