3 Ne. 26:19; D&C 42:30-32; 51:3; 82:17-19; Acts 4:33-35; Studies in Scripture, ed. by Jackson, 8:223; Improvement Era, Aug. 1936, 39:488
[In regard to the United Order, D&C 42] “… there were two cardinal principles: (1) consecration and (2) stewardship … one consecrated all his possessions to the Church… . Having thus voluntarily divested himself of title to all his property, the consecrator received from the Church a stewardship by a like conveyance. This stewardship could be more or less than his original consecration, the object being to make ‘every man equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs’ (D&C 51:3). This procedure preserved in every man the right to private ownership and management of his property. At his own option he could alienate it or keep and operate it and pass it on to his heirs … He consecrated to the Church the surplus he produced above the needs and wants of his family. This surplus went into a storehouse from which stewardships were given to others and from which the needs of the poor were supplied.” (Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, Apr. 1966, pp. 96-98)
“The fundamental principle of this system was the private ownership of property. Each man owned his portion, or inheritance, or stewardship, with an absolute title, which he could alienate, or hypothecate, or otherwise treat as his own. The Church did not own all of the property, and the life under the United Order was not a communal life, as the Prophet Joseph, himself, said. (History of the Church, 3:28). The United Order is an individualistic system, not a communal system… . The Church never was, and under existing commandments never will be, a communal society… . The United Order was not communal or communistic.” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., quoted by Ezra Taft Benson, Charge to Religious Educators, 1982, pp. 48-54)