The South was still perfectly willing to vote for an evangelical of either party in the 70's (such as Carter). It did not go fully over to the GOP until the Reagan Revolution and its own trend towards industrial growth and capitalism throughout the decade. It has subsequently been the fastest growing economy ever since.
Oh hell, racial politics has vastly more to do with the GOP consolidating it's base in the south then economics ever did. In the critical period of the Civil Rights movement from the 50's through the 70's states in the deep south actually lost population despite the increase in Universities and Military Establishments that attracted northern transplants. So economics and population growth do not explain Republican consolidation in the south. It started originally with Herbert Hoover in the 1928 election where Herbert, a Republican, rode to the white house in thanks to southern votes he earned partially on a platform of prohibition and anti-catholicism. Southern support for Democrats consistently eroded in the deep south during the late 40's and 50's when Truman desegregated the Military. The 1964 nomination of Barry Goldwater which began the trend of a far more conservative Republican party and it's haemoraging of moderate and liberal members which shifted the center of the Republican party to the south and the west. The real catalyist though was the 1964 Civil Rights Act that out and out alienated southern conservative whites with the Democrats. It was Nixon strategist Kevin Philips (Who also coined the term "Southern Strategy") who advised Nixon to exploit these sentiments. It was then that you started to hear those beloved odes or code words to racism and opposition to civil rights in the south of "Law and Order" and "States Rights" and "forced busing"
The greatest cause of the south's switching to Republicans was the Democrats turned their back on segregation. At the time of the 1964 Civil Rights act a higher proportion of Republicans supported the act then did Democrats, but in 1964, Republicans were dominated by eastern establishment moderates. Nixon was the first Republican presidential candidate to exploit this crack in the "Solid South" in order to reach voters who previously the Republicans had been unable to tap. Nixon's brilliance during this campaign was that he was able to take a strongly conservative rhetoric in the south while parlaying the perception as a moderate to the rest of the nation into a landslide victory.
The contribution that Reagan made was that by 1979 segregation was so discredited that the national back lash of using that as a strategy was no longer tenable. What Reagan did, which politically was brilliant though morally bankrupt, was he wrapped the old segregationist code phrases into the language of Federalism. That the authority for decisions about education and civil rights and others should be returned to the States and local communities with the tax funds to support them. Considering the south's heinous and undefensible history on both issues not very palatable on a national level, until Reagan wraped it in the language of Federalism.
In short Republicans sold their sole to the devil knowing they could use such a relentless appeal to southern white racist who could never forgive a Democrat party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks. The time will come when this will bite the Republicans in the ass (and that may be now.).
Reagan's real contribution to the Republican consolidation of the south was only economic on the surface. Scratch the surface of his abstract economic federalism and you still see policies that are aimed at hurting blacks coached in the terms of tax cuts, the free market and school vouchers.
Reagan's contribution to the consolidation of Republicans in the south was that he made the language of racism and segregation in the south an abstraction that has ran the course of the hostile and not so abstract "Niger, niger, niger, of the 1950's to the code language of "Forced Busing, "Law and Order" and "States Rights" in the 70's to the abstractions of "Tax Cuts, Free Market and School Vouchers" of the present or, to use your language "Capitalism and Industrial Growth".
Well the truth is, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck....it's a duck!
