Not long after the saints arrived in the Great Basin, "gentile" traders and merchants arrived and started making huge money off the saints. Brigham Young was against trading of any sort, but especially among the members. His thought was that a man should be making something, or producing something, and that work in shops was okay for women, but not for men. What's more, he was against the idea of a man gaining wealth at the expense of the producers.
Because members of the church were strongly discouraged from getting involved in trading, the gentile merchants had the market to themselves and became very rich at the expense of the saints. This became very alarming to many members, who petitioned Pres. Young to allow the members to get involved in trading at a cooperative level. At first he balked, but eventually relented. Here is how the authors of the book describe the evolution of his thought process:
Finally, it is important that Brigham Young believed strongly in social equality. Ideologically opposed to gradation of wealth and status among his people, he sought instinctively for a scheme that would prevent aggrandizement of a few at the expense of the many. His opposition to the first association of Mormon traders proposed to him in 1860 was based partly upon these grounds. He consistently encouraged the widest possible ownership of the new cooperatives, to prevent the establishment of a wealthy privileged class. The cooperative movement was, thus, wholly consistent with his own social philosophy.
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