1/5/98
KUFM / KGPR
T. M. Power
Measuring the Relative Importance of Economic Activities
Montana’s branch of the Economic Flat Earth Society is excitedly scurrying around the state trying to convince people that what they see all around them is not real, that the changes they see transforming their communities are only "apparent." The heresy the Economic Flat Earth Society is trying to combat is the silly idea that Montana’s economy might change, that there might be ongoing economic evolution, that what was true fifty or a hundred years ago might not be perfectly accurate today. The Economic Flat Earth Society knows the economic truth and knows that truth with a capital "T" never changes. That’s what makes kooky scientists who confirm that economic change is taking place so outrageous and dangerous. Those "so called economists" have crazily suggested that about as much economic change and evolution is taking place in late 20th century Montana as took place in the late 19th century or the middle 20th century. Silly them! All those dryland wheat operations in Eastern Montana do not really exist; our agriculture still depends upon open range grazing and huge cattle drives from Texas to Montana and back to Dodge City. Missoula does not exist; there is only the Hellgate trading post collecting furs from the Indians and a few grubby mountain men. The Anaconda Copper Company still dominates our major cities, runs our newspapers, and buys off our legislature. Western Montana is still a collection of quaint mining and timber towns; no amenity-based resettlement of the region ever took place. Economies, according to the Economic Flat Earth Society, do not change or evolve. They sit frozen in time.
This, of course, is an outrageous set of claims that ordinarily would not be openly professed for fear of ridicule. But the pursuit of political clout can lead to bizarre behavior. Timber and mining interests are fighting a rearguard action to try to regain political ground lost over the last decade in a variety of environmental skirmishes. It is difficult to justify imposing environmental degradation on other people when the only argument you have is that it will make you personally richer. A social justification is needed. If you can convince people that their lives and livelihoods depend upon the ongoing environmental degradation, then you can argue that the environmental mess is "for their own good" and unavoidable. That is what is behind the current effort to insist that timber and mining remain the economic base for Western Montana. It is a politically motivated effort at redefining the Montana economy so that certain interest groups can again reign supreme as in the good old days when copper and lumber were kings.
This can get a bit confusing, but if people simply pay attention to what is going on around them, that politically inspired confusion can be seen through. Consider one set of economic facts being mustered by timber and mining interests. When one looks at the relative importance of Montana’s natural resource industries in terms of the dollar value of all of the economic goods and services produced in the state, something known as the Gross State Product, there appears to be little or no change over the last two decades. The natural resources sectors have not shrunk as a source of economic value in the state. Proof positive that there has been no evolution….or is it? Most analyses of the state’s economy are not carried out in these terms. It is usually jobs and income that are the focus because those are the dimensions of the economy that directly impact Montanans. It is not the dollar value of copper shipped out of Butte that was or is of most concern to the residents of Butte but, rather, the number of jobs and the income received by residents. The copper does not circulate within the Butte economy but income does. Butte residents did not have any particular or peculiar affection for copper, but they were interested in the jobs associated with extracting the ore and smelting the metal.
In terms of its contribution to the total income received by Montanans, 25 years ago our natural resource industries were the source of over 20 percent of our total income. Today, those same natural resource sectors are responsible for only a third of this, about 7 percent. In terms of employment, the natural resource sectors today are the source of only about half the share of jobs they provided a quarter of a century ago. Clearly, as anyone with their eyes open already knows, there has been significant economic evolution in Montana.
This, of course, is not to say that our natural resource sectors are unimportant. We should all be able to agree that they continue to be an important source of both jobs and income. But they are no longer "king" and certainly should not be allowed to demand special privilege or to engage in economic blackmail. We as a state are no longer dependent in the way we once were, and that is a good thing. As economic evolution has loosened that dependency, Montanans have begun to think of themselves as something other than beggars who have to take whatever they are offered. They have begun to think of themselves as people who can afford to make choices when it comes to public policy. That is what is so frightening to the natural resource industry folks. It is in defense against this increased citizen independence that industry representatives have founded the various contemporary branches of the Economic Flat Earth Society. Hopefully, this is no more likely to be successful in scaring Montanans out of protecting the landscape they call home than it was in stopping ocean travel.