TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/072991/0729103.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 9.6 KB | 192 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 22

THE WEST

Mixing Business And Faith


Most states are struggling with economic hard times, but Utah
-- and the Mormons -- are riding high

By SALLY B. DONNELLY/SALT LAKE CITY


    If religion, as Karl Marx once wrote, is "the opium of
the people," in Utah it is the amphetamine. Thanks largely to
the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints -- the Mormons -- Utah has become the envy of its
neighbors. Other states are bogged down in recession, but Utah's
economy is racing. Other states around the country are raising
taxes and cutting services to balance their budgets, but Utah
is enjoying a third straight budget surplus. Other states are
having trouble attracting job-creating businesses, but in Utah
they are flocking in from all over. What Utah proves is that
church and government can work together to usher in good times.

    That the rest of the country has cause to be jealous of
Utah is an oddity. Established by the Mormons as a religious
refuge in 1847, Utah applied for statehood six times before it
was accepted into the Union. The locals even went so far as to
name a county (Millard) and a town (Fillmore) after the 13th
President in an unsuccessful attempt to get him on the side of
Utah statehood. Not until 1896, when the Mormons formally
abandoned polygamy, did Utah finally make it.

    Even after that, most Americans tended to regard the state
as a remote and mysterious place notable only for the Great
Salt Lake, striking desert landscapes and the multiple
marriages of some of its inhabitants. But while outsiders
snickered, Utah was working a quiet revolution. It now boasts
the nation's youngest, best-educated and most productive work
force. It has launched an aggressive economic development
program to create new jobs at a rate of 30,000 a year. About 80%
of these positions were started by local entrepreneurs. But Utah
has also lured such companies as Delta Air Lines, Fidelity
Investments and Sears' Discover Card.

    The Mormons deserve much of the credit for Utah's economic
vibrancy. Two-thirds of the population of 1.7 million belongs
to the church, which has helped to shape the boom in both direct
and indirect ways. In business terms, the church is an $8
billion-a-year conglomerate that employs about 10,000 people.
Bankrolled in large measure by tithes from its members, the
church has vast holdings in real estate, financial services,
broadcasting, publishing and insurance. The church's strict
morality (it forbids premarital sex, gambling and the use of
tobacco, alcohol and drugs) reinforces the hardworking nature
of Utah's people. A Wall Street bond trader puts it succinctly:
"All they do there is breed, pray and make money."

    The Mormons' proselytizing tradition has made Utah
attractive to companies in the U.S. and abroad. Each year the
church sends out thousands of young men (and some women) to live
abroad and preach the Mormon word -- in the local language. As
a result, Utah has a disproportionately high number of people
who are fluent in foreign languages, a prime selling point in
the global marketplace. Compeq, a Taiwan-based computer-board
maker, decided to open its first overseas plant in Utah in part
because its managers knew Utah has hundreds of Mormon
missionaries familiar with their country's culture and language.
For similar reasons, American Express chose West Valley City as
the location for the telephone service of its traveler's-check
operation, which handles customer inquiries from around the
world.

    Still, the current boom owes at least as much to shrewd
timing as to divine providence. The state slumped into a deep
recession in the early 1980s when the mining and steel
industries collapsed. With remarkable foresight, government and
business leaders began a restructuring of the economic base that
is now paying off. In place of declining heavy industries,
home-grown computer firms like WordPerfect and Novell stepped
in. "That earlier downturn helped us root out our problems,"
says Kelly Matthews, chief economist at First Security Bank. "We
haven't exactly earned our current good fortune, but in a sense
we've already paid our dues."

    The corporate recruits are drawn not only by a low-cost
(average monthly wage: $1,585, vs. the average wage nationally
of $1,850), well-trained work force that is 8% unionized, but
also by the hospitality offered by an unusually cooperative
state administration. When Al Egbert, general manager of the
McDonnell Douglas operation in Salt Lake City, recently got word
that an oversize truckload would arrive on a Friday evening, he
called the necessary state officials at home, and a highway
escort was arranged. The delivery finally came at 9 p.m. "Utah
is a unique place, where you can actually get things done," says
Egbert. "The cultural norm is to work together and make a
profit."

    However, not everyone thinks Utah is heaven on earth. Some
residents are uneasy about what they regard as putting the
profit motive above all else. "There are core aspects of Utah's
development -- the `human infrastructure' side of things -- like
education costs, health care and wage rates -- that are not
being adequately addressed," says Bill Walsh, head of Utah
Issues, an advocacy group for low-income people. Despite the
stress on education, Utah is last in the nation in per capita
spending on schooling.

    For women in particular, life in Utah can be hard. Though
no longer legal, polygamy persists in rural areas. There are
more females than males in the work force, but they earn only
54 cents for every $1 a man earns, vs. the national ratio of 72
cents. A woman who wants an abortion may not be able to get one
in Utah much longer. Last January the state legislature -- which
is 90% white, male and Mormon -- passed a law that would make
virtually all abortions punishable by imprisonment. It has not
been implemented because it is held up in the courts.

    Racial minorities too can find life in Utah uncomfortable.
The state's population is 93% white, and minorities lack the
critical mass to make their concerns heard. Although the
unemployment rate is only 5% (compared with 7% nationally), many
Utahans work in low-paying service-industry jobs that make
supporting a family difficult. Just over 10% of the people live
in poverty, and although their circumstances are not nearly as
desperate as those of the poor in other parts of the country,
many fall in the cracks of the Mormon and state welfare systems.
To critics, the failure to correct these flaws is all the more
frustrating because Utah has the wealth to address them. "Utah
is not that different from the rest of the country in terms of
the social and economic problems it faces," says Professor Nancy
Amidei of the School of Social Work at the University of Utah.
"But the smaller scale makes it potentially more manageable."

    These problems have not deterred a huge surge of visitors
and new residents. Tourism now brings in $2 billion annually,
and new arrivals from other states and foreign countries have
begun to dilute the pervasive -- and sometimes smothering --
Mormon atmosphere. For some, the changes flowing from Utah's
opening itself to the outside world cannot happen soon enough.

    Though Utah politics tends to be fairly dull and uniformly
conservative, issues are bubbling to the surface that are
causing residents to take a hard look ahead. "The leadership is
at a crossroads," says Deedee Corradini, a businesswoman who is
favored to become the city's first woman mayor this fall. "We
have to make the transformation from reactive politics to
involved, activist politics."

    Environmental concerns are of increasing importance to a
state that has only so much land to itself, since the Federal
Government controls 60% of Utah. Some of that is devoted to U.S.
military facilities that house almost half the country's
stockpile of chemical weapons. "We deal with heartland issues
that set individual rights against government wishes," explains
Steve Erickson, a spokesman for Downwinders, a citizens' group.

    The new Utah is most evident in Salt Lake County (pop.
728,000). Since 1975, so many people have moved in that Mormons,
once 75% of the population, now account for only half. Eighteen
months ago, the city relaxed its prohibition on alcohol, and
bars and restaurants are thriving. The local gay community has
become large enough and vocal enough to have mounted a colorful
antidiscrimination protest at the Salt Lake County fairgrounds
in June. Some of America's best ski areas are 20 minutes away
from high-rise office buildings. A $500 million downtown
redevelopment project has revived the city's arts community.
Even intellectual life got a charge last month when the
University of Utah named Arthur Smith as the first non-Mormon
president in its 141-year history. "Salt Lake City is what
people think Denver should be," says mayoral candidate
Corradini.

    Even more startling transformations may occur if Utah
keeps attracting people from around the world. And the church
is starting to feel the pressure flowing from its success. By
the year 2000, more than half the Mormons' worldwide membership
of 8 million will be from Third World countries -- and many
could move to Utah. Accommodating such diversity could be
wrenching for a faith that did not allow blacks to hold any
church office or join the priesthood until 1978 and still bars
women from the clergy. After a century and a half of isolation,
Utah is no longer a place that Mormons can keep to themselves.