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Admit it. It is one thing, maybe the first thing, that leaps to your mind when you read, yet again, that Utah is at or near the top of someone's list of the best states for business. Is Utah the easiest state in which to exploit the working class, pollute the environment, socialize the costs and privatize the profits?

If being tops in business environment were so wonderful, we would see more examples of how those benefits would have trickled down to normal people who aren't CEOs, venture capitalists or entrepreneurs.

If what was good for business was good for Utah — the basic platform of Gov. Gary Herbert's re-election campaign — we'd have long since achieved a situation where Utah isn't near the bottom in per-pupil education spending, doesn't have some of the dirtiest air or, in a new and troubling wrinkle, be a state where the leading cause of death among teens isn't suicide.

According to the newest list of Top States for Business — this one put out by the business-oriented cable channel CNBC — it's not so simple.

CNBC rates the 50 states on a list of criteria falling into 10 general areas. Utah is not number one in any of the 10 categories. In only two of the categories do we fall in the top 10. But we earn enough points in several different areas to come in at the top of the overall scoring. Unlike, say, Hawaii and the New England states, tops in Quality of Life and awful in everything else.

Where Utah does the best is coming in third in its overall economy — meaning there's lot of money flying around for businesses to grab. It's 10th in "Business Friendliness." That's basically low levels of regulation and litigation, which tends to support the idea that, in some rankings, what's good for business is bad for everything, and everyone, else.

But at least in the way CNBC massages and weights the numbers, it isn't only Robber Barons whose wants and needs count. The metric that pulls the most weight is how well-educated, efficient, available (and non-unionized) a state's workforce is. On that score, Utah ranks 12th.

Utah's top overall ranking also survives our falling to 13th in Quality of Life (crime, pollution, anti-discrimination, access to health care, recreational opportunities) and being 23rd in Education.

More supportive of the idea that good for business is bad for humans is the fact that Texas comes in second overall, despite being 37th in Quality of Life and 40th in Education. Except that Minnesota rises to No. 4 overall on the strength of being No. 2 in both Quality of Life and Education, making up for scoring 35th in Cost of Doing Business (taxes, utilities, wages, rents).

So, at least by CNBC's math, a state can choose the route it wants to take in becoming best, or at least really good, for business. A state can choose to stress education, quality of life, innovation and infrastructure, things that are more likely to benefit all levels of society, and do well in the good-for-business ratings.

Or we can or shove all that aside for low taxes, loose regulations and poorly funded schools and move a state you don't really want to live in so much any more up a few business-friendly notches.

Would it really be that bad to be fourth, maybe, or sixth on the business list if it meant living in a place where public policy was oriented around spreading the decencies of life around a little more — a place where people generally have meaningful diplomas, clean air, decent homes and a little money to stimulate the economy from the bottom up?

Would it score a few points with the Tim Cook/Mark Zuckerberg/Elon Musk Axis of the Future if, instead of just waiving tax breaks at them, Utah would tackle head-on its foul air, actively renounce its fossil-fuel dependence and root out what was left of the gay-bashing culture that has to be a factor in our high rate of teen suicides?

There's more than one way to move up in the world. We could always choose the one that's good for everybody.

George Pyle, a Tribune editorial writer, ranks states by the quality of their donut shops. gpyle@sltrib.com