Similar to the early Christians as described in Acts 4:32, 36–37 and Acts 5, these Nephites found that having all things in common was crucial to creating the type of society they were building. There is no information on how the Nephites managed such a system. Did they bring their crops into a central storehouse and redistribute them? That may have been very impractical. Maybe they were willing to share the things over which they had stewardship. Perhaps they viewed themselves as holding things in trust for the benefit of other people. They may have recognized all property as belonging to the Lord—dedicated to him—and therefore usable by the steward for the benefit of others. In ancient Israel, much like among the Navajos and the Hopis, there was no concept of private ownership of land; there was no such thing as the modern legal concept of fee simple absolute. All things belonged to the Lord.
Scholars who have studied Mesoamerican culture have found that the communities reassigned the land every year according to how much the men in the society could productively work the land. John L. Sorenson, a prominent Mesoamericanist, explained that it was common practice to bring in an outside administrator to evaluate the ability of each man to plant and care for the land assigned to him. Thus, all land was productive—no precious land was left unused.
These Nephites had a different set of priorities than they had before Christ visited. They no longer placed so much emphasis on material things and personal status—on who had the most money or who was the king or best soldier.