I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving holiday and that you have a lot to be thankful for. One of the things I am thankful for is that for the first time in more than 80 years, West Virginia has an opportunity for meaningful change. Voters are finally tired of West Virginia being at or near the bottom of all those lists.

In the Charleston Daily Mail last month, Mark Sadd, a former business editor for that paper, wrote “You’re tired of these bleating rankings, aren’t you? The average family in West Virginia is tired of them too. So much so that, in response, the average family has moved to North Carolina. That’s because having a job is the greatest aid for the average family ever devised in the history of mankind. And North Carolina is where the jobs happen to be.”

Recently, I referred to the TheStreet.com’s list of “the most socialist states in America” that came out in August. The ranking was based on the state’s spending as a percent of GDP. The state spending the least, proportionally, therefore deemed “least socialist” was Texas coming in at 6.99% of GDP. TheStreet.com dubbed West Virginia “the most socialist state in America”, coming in a 34.1%, beating out number 2 by a wide margin - more than 10 percentage points. Based on their analysis, proportionally, West Virginia spends almost five times what Texas does. Are we better off for it?

In a recent television interview, 18 year old Delegate-elect Saira Blair from the 59th district in Berkeley County referred to the landmark book, edited by former West Virginia University economics professor Russell Sobel called “Unleashing Capitalism: Why Prosperity Stops at the West Virginia Border and How to Fix It”, published in 2007. It’s as relevant today as it was when it came out. Perhaps she could share her reading list with her colleagues that comprise the incoming wave of Republicans in the legislature. In fact, she should be bipartisan about it and share it with Democrats too. Sobel’s book provides a great framework for turning our state around.

In Chapter 2, West Virginia is described as “the least free market economy in America”. Similar to the recent analysis of the TheStreet.com, Sobel’s book reveals that, “In West Virginia, 52 percent of all spending in the state is controlled by the government sector; leaving only the remaining 48 percent for the private sector” - state, local and federal spending combined - compared to Delaware where the government controls 20% of all state spending. The book cites that as one of the factors contributing to economic freedom and therefore a higher standard of living in that state.

Speaking of economic freedom, The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia publishes a list every couple of years called Freedom in the 50 States. Their 2013 edition echoes Sobel’s findings. In “Overall Freedom” West Virginia ranks 42 dropping 4 places. In “Regulatory Freedom”, West Virginia ranks a near-bottom 49 (down 3 spots), for “Economic Freedom” we are 45 (down 1) and our “Liability System” is ranked 50th (no change).

One of the points stressed in Sobel’s book is that being “business friendly” doesn’t mean giving special favors, stating “Occasionally we attract something like the Toyota facility in Buffalo, West Virginia, but this only happened because of an intense political negotiation in which Toyota’s property taxes were lowered significantly, and some regulations were eased, in exchange for the firm locating in our state…” In other words, because of these taxes and regulations, only those firms with economic and/or political clout are able to negotiate a better business climate. Certain types of lobbyists thrive in that environment.

As it was explained to me by a long time legislator, what happened with Toyota is that the state owns the facility and leases it to the company in order to circumvent the taxes on business machinery, property and inventory and certain regulations. Not at all a free market. In fact state ownership of the means of production is one of the more common definitions of socialism. One would think that if the state were to simply do away with the regulations and taxes that had to be circumvented for Toyota, perhaps more businesses would locate here and create jobs.

Mark Sadd’s comments regarding North Carolina, cited above, lead me to believe that he may have read Sobel’s book. In it, there is a tale-of-two-cities comparison between Charlotte, North Carolina and Charleston, West Virginia: “In 1920 both cities had approximately the same average incomes, educational levels, and populations…both cities were in states with significant rural populations, and both relied heavily on industries which have dwindled (for Charlotte this was textiles and tobacco). Over the subsequent eight decades, however, Charlotte has grown into a crowning jewel of the South”. For the record, since 1960 the population of Charleston has declined by 40%.

Says Sobel, “Virtually all of Charlotte’s new jobs and businesses were in industries that could have located anywhere”. However, they didn’t locate in West Virginia. As a result, as Sadd duly notes, young West Virginians finish their educations and all too often feel the need to relocate to where the jobs are - in other states.

In her television interview, Saira Blair said her goal is to help change all that. She also plans to study economics. Russell Sobel’s book is a great place to start. Political change has been unleashed in West Virginia. Hopefully Blair and her newly elected colleagues can build upon that to unleash an economic renaissance in our state. The ball is in their court.