According to John Sorenson, the overall structure of the [Nephite/Lamanite] economy is laid out most clearly in a passage in Helaman 6:
They did raise grain in abundance, both in the [land] north and in the [land] south; and they did flourish exceedingly. . . . And they did multiply and wax exceedingly strong in the land. And they did raise many flocks and herds, yea, many fatlings. Behold their women did toil and spin, and make all manner of cloth, of fine-twined linen and cloth of every kind, to clothe their nakedness" (Helaman 6:12-13)
It has been supposed by some readers of the Book of Mormon that the Lamanite economy differed markedly from that of the Nephites, but that is largely due to not reading the text with sufficient care. The Nephites display a prejudiced stereotyping of their enemies, claiming that they subsisted by hunting, in contrast to the Nephites' agrarian ways. The difference would have been only a matter of degree, however. As Sorenson has argued elsewhere (Sorenson, "When Lehi's Party Arrived, Did They Find Others in the Land?" pp. 1-4, 26-8) the large numbers of Lamanites reported, including the existence of Lamanite cities, as against the Nephites' smaller population, can only be accounted for by a Lamanite economic system that was also basically agrarian. As shown by the lengthy quotation from Helaman 6 above, Lamanite economic activities were essentially like those of the Nephites. [John L. Sorenson, "The Political Economy of the Nephites," Nephite Culture and Society, pp. 210-211]