In both communities, communal sharing was the economic ideal. However, Benjamin was leveling a society that had become economically stratified, while Alma’s converts removed themselves from the social strata of Lehi-Nephi. Except for whatever food or other material resources they had brought with them, all members of this new community were starting over on the same footing. Thus, they were sharing from economic necessity. Almost immediately, even those who had managed to bring some goods with them would also be required to farm. Their principles were egalitarian, but the land is notoriously chancy and inegalitarian. Alma’s people had no one else to rely on; they had to share or risk starvation. True, Benjamin advocated imparting to the needy, but this practice was not the same as the complete communal ownership of goods that Alma’s community was practicing.
This fact suggests that the communitarianism of the early Christians in Jerusalem may have emerged from a similar necessity. Even though the Jerusalem Christians were surrounded by a larger Judean population, the economic and physical needs of the dispossessed were similarly provided through a gospel-based change from selfishness to selflessness. Although the Gentile Christians did not apparently pool resources in the same way, they did stress the bonds of brotherhood and sent financial aid to the Christian poor in Jerusalem. Such communitarianism brings social as well as economic benefits, foremost among them God-like love and neighborly compassion.