The New South Shall Rise Again

Times are tough. Unemployment is rampant and budget deficits stretch out as far as the eye can see. Here in Georgia the real estate market has been especially hard hit. Nevertheless, good times lie ahead.
What may be surprising to some people is that the New South is likely to lead the way out of our current recession. And what is more unexpected is that it will do so by combining the virtues of the Old South with the opportunities of modernity.
The Old South was an agricultural and economically isolated backwater. It was also poorer and less well educated than the North. Part of the reason was that southerners were stiff-necked individualists. They refused to relinquish the time-honored traditions that kept them down.
But times change. No one doubts that antebellum southerners, such as Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest, were courageous and innovative warriors. That they fought for one of the worst causes imaginable is also no longer in question. But now that overt racism has largely been put behind us, their former virtues have come to the fore.
What has emerged is a synergism between parts of the old with the possibilities of the new. It turns out that many of the moral commitments of the Old South are perfectly compatible with the requirements of a complex techno-commercial society. Instead of precluding success, they facilitate it.
Take the stiff-necked individualism that was a southern hallmark. Nowadays it translates into a stubborn sense of responsibility. A great many southerners take pride in living up to their duties. This includes a dedication to fiscal accountability. As a result, most southern states refused to sink into a debt comparable to that of states like New York and California.
As a result, Georgia and its neighbors are better places to do business than the Northeast or Rust Belt. This means they are likely to continue attracting business from areas where it is less secure.
The South is also more family friendly than other parts of the nation. In part, due to its religious heritage, its people continue to defend the traditional nuclear family. They believe it takes two committed parents to raise children to a happy adulthood.
In this, they are ahead of the social curve. Other parts of the nation have yet to realize that stable two-parent families are best at producing self-directed children. These support the emotional security needed to face the uncertainties of a volatile market economy.
To be sure, there have been challenges. Nevertheless, southerners have taken these in stride. They too realize that the modern family is not a male dominated dictatorship. They too understand that it is a partnership in which men and women cooperate to do what is best for everyone concerned.
All in all, southerners have learned from the past. Hungry for success in ways that complacent northerners are not, they are prepared to make adjustments their formerly more successful rivals are not.
The South is noted for its conservatism, but this is not a conservatism that resists change. To the contrary, southerners are much more likely to embrace innovation than northern liberals. They are ready to experiment and adopt practices that work. Tired of being second best, they are determined to do what is needed to win.
And this is why they are likely to be tomorrow’s winners. Many liberals, including Barack Obama, have become backward looking ideologues. This is the reason they favor Keynesian budget deficits and rigid unionism. They assume that what they have always done will continue to work into the indefinite future.
Southerners, however, make no such assumptions. They are therefore more flexible. Combine this with the dedication to morality that is a vital part of their heritage and their future looks bright.
And this comes from a Damn Yankee.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University