I've often maintained that prejudice and Bible beaters are holding back much of Virginia's economy. It's one thing to offer businesses a positive tax/financial setting to do business (Virginia rates high in these terms), but that alone doesn't close the deal in terms of attracting new, progressive businesses. Most of Virginia's growth remains in Northern Virginia where the liberal influence of the District of Columbia is just across the Potomac. The regions of Virginia that most need new investment and businesses are the very regions that are the most inhospitable to anyone who isn't a white evangelical Christian. And then the local leaders wonder why their economic development efforts are getting no where - e.g., Martinsville, Virginia and Southwest Virginia in general. Now a new report has tied a region's level of prejudice with under performance in the economic realm. CNBC has coverage on the report which ought to be required reading for Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonald and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli who seem to go out of their way to make prejudice synonymous with Virginia in the minds of many. Here are highlights:*
The report found that there was a strong correlation between social inclusion, competitiveness and economic development, and argued that "prejudice, in whatever form – including racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance – irrationally destroys the value of human capital."
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While prejudice is something that rarely features in investment decisions, the destruction of human capital through social prejudice in the 21st Century is at least as significant as that the destruction of physical capital wrought by the Luddites, the anti-technology groups who sabotaged machinery during the industrial revolution, Donovan wrote.
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The relationship between prejudice and development is two-way, the UBS report said. Societies that are poorer are more likely to exhibit prejudice. "A more advanced society is less likely to be prejudiced and a less prejudiced society is likely to be more advanced," Donovan said. Extreme examples, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the expulsion of South Asians from Uganda in the 1970s serve to highlight the negative effects of extreme prejudice, Donovan said.
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"This century is when we need to be a lot cleverer about how we achieve our growth. Human ingenuity is going to be the main driver of economic productivity in the 21st Century. We need to enhance productivity through human capital," he explained.
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"Hypothetically, what would happen if the secret of energy efficiency, or to greater food productivity is locked up in the mind of somebody who is denied the ability to develop because of their race or their religious beliefs or their sexual orientation? That's the sort challenge that we now face," Donovan said. As a micro-level effect of prejudice of this type, Donovan cited the example of Alan Turing . . . He committed suicide in 1954, "effectively denying the world of his intellect, his undoubted experience and potential achievements, and doing considerable damage to the development computing in the 1950s," according to Donovan.
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"We believe that this is a very critical issue, it's one that markets absolutely need to pay attention to and as far as investing is concerned, any society, or indeed any company, that exhibits prejudicial behavior is essentially sending out a major sell signal, as far as we're concerned," he said.
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Yep, Virginia under the Christofascist controlled Republican Party of Virginia is sending out a major signal to stay away if you're a progressive business owner. Virginia is also encouraging innovators and entrepreneurs to leave the state for more progressive regions. It's precisely why Hampton Roads is experiencing a brain drain of college educated young people who refuse to return to the Commonwealth after college. Is anyone taking notes in Richmond? Or are they too busy listening to Victoria Cobb and the hate merchants at The Family Foundation?
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