Ethnicity, nations, and states in postmodernity

Amy Chua makes, I believe, a realistic and sober contribution to an area of debate that has generated way too much heat to offer any room for proper discussion. The issue of `ethnicity' has, since the seminal work of Peter Winch in the 1950s and Clifford Geertz in the 70s, had to take a back seat in anthropological and development studies discourse. Everybody has a `rationality' that is `authentically theirs', and scholars and researchers did well not to question this. For many, therefore, September 11 2001 has been largely inexplicable. Chua's conceptualizing America as the Global Equivalent of the national economically-dominant ethnic minority therefore has the dual effect of placing the ethnicity debate back in the public eye, and also of offering a fresh line of analysis for those who, like me, find the doctrinaire anti-realism of the contemporary Humanities to be a suffocating dead-end. At this stage, before having read Chua's book for itself, I would add that there is one further conceptual oversight that contributes to the chronic instability of so many regions in the developing world: the concept of the autonomous nation-state. One might note, as Chua does, that the South African state after 1994's elections, has worked hard to extend services, education, and justice to its previous economically-subaltern majority. The same occurred in Zimbabwe, beginning in 1980, but the outcome has been far from liberating for all concerned (except perhaps a small group of party apparatchiks who get to order the `war veterans' around). Chua's analysis might be better focussed, therefore, if she took further cognizance of the fact that the various countries of the world are not politically and historically all `nation-states' that conform to some abstract model. South Africa is simply not a product of the post-WW II independence era. It is, rather, politically and historically more like canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We differ from these because we had a different approach, as colonizers, to our black indigenous majority; but we are nevertheless countries based on a pre-1914 model of the `national power' based on the British imperial experience, and not an entity based on the expression of a native population. The original ANC was based on precisely the need for indigenous representation in such a national power. The Union government of 1910 was, in effect, the overseer of an an independent state with its own military, diplomatic corps, and administrative systems. The ANC (as it was to become) simply called for a leel of direct representation in these. Indeed, they even proposed a system of property qualified franchise. Fashions changed after Wilson's 14 Principles hit the world at Versailles, even more when their successor, the Atlantic Charter, was revealed two decades later. But the fundamental structure of the South african state remained that of a pre-WW I power, and successive governments (however paternalistically this may be interpreted as being) developed the country as South Africans for South Africans. That Kaplan could call us a `bloodletting state' may have been applicable once the late apartheid state bought into the fashionable language of victimology, but what the ANC inherited on 5 May 1994 was the very economic, administrative and infrastructural apparatus within which its predecessors had sought representation 82 years earlier. Of course the benefits of the post-1910 development were skewed, and remain so. Chua is right that we require generations to mitigate the antagonisms and hetreds that come with the inequalities of the underdeveloped world (by and large). But although I think her analysis would benefit from a closer look at the concept of the nation-state in relation to the Great Powers and other smaller national powers, her wok is essential reading to those who would vote for development without genocide.

Posted by: Arnold Shepperson | 4/15/03

Too neat by far.

Ms. Chua raises some good points but she ignores some reality as well. She points out the Slovenes and the Croats as market dominant minorities but ignores the more heinous atrocities committed by the Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo. At best the Bosniacs and Kosovars were on par with the Serbs in regards to living standards, and in reality were actually much poorer. It makes the argument very tidy to include the Slovenes, who won their independence in a relatively bloodless matter of days, and leave out the 300,000 Bosnian dead and the ethnic cleansing of over 1 million Kosovar Albanians. Jealousy and envy of wealth and power certainly have something to do with ethnic conflicts around the world but just as important is the sheer myopia of the human mind. It is that blindness which allows the Serbs to believe that they are an Orthodox martyr to the Protestant West and Islamic East, it allows Arabs and Muslims to believe that the US has hegemony in mind when we look at mosques and the French to believe that the English language is the root of all evil. This theory is too neat, too rational to make sense of the haze that is humanity.

Posted by: Bez | 4/15/03

Are Americans a Market Dominant Minority?

Prof. Chua starts by describing America's position in a global economy as analogous to a market dominant ethnic minorty -- but by the end of this essay she seems to forget that it is only an analogy. Americans do not make up a measurable ethnic minority in Arab capital cities; we are not present in large walled enclaves or running neighborhood shops. We are not hated in the same way as a Chinese tycoon in Manila or an Indian shopkeeper in Harlem. We are far away, shadowy, nebulous. We are a new world swirling around, and now into, traditional countries, changing them forever, whether they want it or not. Pushing foreign aid into this climate of fear will improve nothing. At worst, it could mix dependence as yet another ingredient in this hatred soup. Yes, free markets and democracies are not ends in themselves, and the US and EU should stop pushing them as such. Instead they are means -- and absolutely essential means -- to reaching the goal of an open and tolerant society based on fundamental respect for all humans. How can a society controlled by an ethnic minority (large or small) claim to have reached this goal? My beef with Prof. Chua's arguement is that it is too limited, not that it is wrong. She needs to define those goals of civilization that are more fundamental than markets and democracies. Only then will she be able to successfully criticize US and EU attempts at developing market liberalization, and only then will she be able to suggest an alternative.

Posted by: yandoodan | 4/16/03

Greed

Perhaps this issue of needing to give "contributions" which Ms. Chua so lightly touched on at the end of her essay deserves more importance than she awarded it. Is not yet another wrench in the works this thing called greed. It's not a "must" do this or "have to" give that that is lacking in these situations, rather it's the lack of a genuine desire to better those that you co-exist with. I found it confusing that Chua, despite the motive of revenge, failed to include simple GREED alongside the "three most powerful forces operating in the world today: markets, democracy, and ethnic hatred." Granted, it is often the perception of greed that can trigger sentiments, but as shown by her snickers bar of gold...it is often real. One paragraph dedicated to this matter seems rather an understatement. To read of the wonderous candy bar makes me wonder...where is the sweet now, and is this essay a true discourse or a pitiful/cathartic attempt to reconcile with the classes of which she, and most readers of this page, are clearly not part?

Posted by: Damo | 4/16/03

Omission

Professor Chua's essay seems thorough but there is a certain eeriness to the whole piece. The very detailed description of her aunts murder, for me at least, seems quite bazaar within this whole piece. Had she described the murder in general, specifically as an outcome of political and economic disenfranchisement, it would seem to fit well within the context. Also there is her description of her aunt's actions and personal indifference towards her servants (i.e., her employees sleeping on the ground in self described, by Ms. Chua, unsanitary and otherwise unfit for human inhabitance conditions) ending with her quoting her aunt's remark "they have it good." As if that because they are not Chinese they are more or less barbarians and deserve little or no attention. From this description, it is not too difficult to imagine how such thinking and apparent actions can result in distrust and possible hatred by her "employees." However, that in no way excuses such a cowardly and vicious act and I am very sorry that her aunt had to be a casualty of the poison of poverty and ignorance that is portrayed in this piece as the dominant condition of the Pilipino people. I was also somewhat dismayed by Professor Chua's many remarks, economic name dropping, about the prosperity of her family on whatever continent they happen to reside. It appears that Ms. Chua has too long been a resident of affluence and taken on, apparently, a lack of self consciousness as to what her remarks betray. Such erudition and scholarly efforts as Professor Chua's must also, at the end of the day, be based on a vision that she actively supports and truly empathizes with. I cannot help but feel this excerpt and her book is merely a milestone in Professor Chua's academic function of publishing books and papers on how the world should be, while maintaining a life so extraordinarily far removed; a sanitary, white gowned and rubber gloved existence. But certainly I would agree, that she need not have to wallow in the hideous conditions of much of the world in order to write books about such conditions and their possible economic and political roots. However, I get the sense of a very detached and strangely removed persona writing the words that appear in this piece. Finally, perhaps a more enlightened view by the Chinese Ms. Chua describes in some detail, and are perhaps representative of other peoples of wealth everywhere, will someday prevail and perhaps Professor Chua can write a book that becomes the catalyst for such views.

Posted by: Ken Sepeda | 4/19/03

Missing elements

Amy Chua makes a thoughtful and detailed analysis of the connection between economics, politics and ethnic violence, made all the more powerful by her description of the tragedy in her family. But I'm dismayed that she neglects to address the fundamental role the environment plays in our increasingly chaotic and violent world. Ecological destruction and the resulting instability are direct results of the kind of free-market capitalism the North is foisting upon the South, facilitated by the WTO and global financial institutions. This fact cannot be left out of the analysis. First, the industrial model of efficiently extracting, mass producing, and distributing goods globally, made more efficient with improved technology and powerful trade agreements, is fundamentally flawed. The system depends on limitless growth and infinite supply on a finite planet, and it is now clear we are surpassing those limits. Our planet's resource base is being exhausted at precisely the time when further strain is being put on it as the South is pursuing the same destructive path the North took in "developing". They are following this outdated model because the existing financial, social and political infrastructure is all that is available, and also the media, Hollywood, and multinational corporations are aggressively marketing the myths of Western affluence on inexperienced third world governments and their citizens. Much ethnic violence arises, as Chua says, of simultaneous forces of concentrated capital and introducing poorly-understood concepts of democracy under opportunistic leaders who exploit the frustration of impoverished majorities. But it must be stressed that much of the instability stems from destruction of the ecosystem on which all of us, rich or poor, depend. The first to experience it, however, are indigenous peoples or the otherwise ethnically, politically, or ecomically marginalized. For example, many so-called ethnic conflicts have their basis in water scarcity, as can be seen in the volatile Middle East, northern Africa, and other water-stressed regions. Such conflicts are sure to grow worse as water scarcity intensifies, and they will happen around nations and groups sharing common water resources and divide themselves among the ethnic lines. Unfortunately, those in power would prefer to misrepresent these as ethnic, not resource-based conflicts, thereby diverting needed political energy from finding sustainable, equitable solutions to sharing resources. Moreover, the most vulnerable to environmental destruction are traditional subsistence societies who have harvested their local natural resources sustainably for millenia. The resource base is their capital; but current cash-based global market does not recognize this idea of cashless "prosperity", despite being a dominant economy that has sustained much of human societies throughout history. Yet the unimaginative assumption of Thomas Friedman and other "free" market proponents, however, is that there are only two choices, one of which has miserably failed. The reality is that this single global economy forces subsistence farmers to go hungry growing cash crops for export to pay off foreign debts, or drives them off their land because their water supply has dried up or has been diverted into industrial farming or industry. Factory trawlers have mined their fish, loggers have cleared their forests, and so they migrate into swelling urban slums in search of work, generally as unskilled manual labourers; fueling the burgeoning sweatshop phenomenon. Global markets treat ecosystems and human labour as capital; those who have it can easily acquire more; those who don't have little hope in staying above water. Even worse, the market response to a shrinking resource base and growing competition is making things worse--water is being withdrawn from shrinking underground aquifers faster, fishers are working harder to chase less fish, loggers compete harder for the remaining trees. Perhaps in absolute terms perhaps per capita income has gone up, but the costs not factored in--economic, cultural, social, and environmental--have overwhelmingly erased any financial gains many times over. These create perfect conditions for social unrest, and the resulting violence further degrades the environment, adding to the misery and creating vicious cycles. Chua is also basing her arguments on the questionable assumption that free markets could benefit the poor in the long run. Perhaps some limited elements of global trade are here to stay but if we expect to survive, we need a radically, profound grassroots revolution in our concept of what an economy is. We need to (re)introduce a variety of decentralized, community-based initiatives, including local currency and barter systems. Many successful examples, old and new, are flourishing around the world. It is difficult for corruption, exploitation and injustice to survive in a local economy with the environment and communities at its center. And while perhaps things will never remain the same for everyone in the South; (they cannot be expected to preserve their culture and way of life forever in changing, increasingly complex societies) neither should we in the North assume they want to develop as we have done. Meanwhile, the North has much to learn from them, including innovative, wise use of resources that has sustained their ecosystems and economies for millenia. Chua's use of the term the "anti-globalization movement" is outdated--many environmental and pro-democracy activists welcome global communication and exchange allowed by improved communication and mobility--it’s the negative effects of corporate globalized trade that defines the movement. She says it is dangerous for the movement to promote democracy as the "panacea" to the problem of ethnic violence. But her definition is incomplete. Universal suffrage is but one measure of a democratic society. Voting once every four years does not define democracy; what does is accountable leaders, a well-informed electorate, transparency, and community participation over local issues. If only one of these elements is introduced while being undermined at the same time by corporate globalization, then the combination is combustible, as Chua points out. But then she should find another term for what is being exported wholesale by the North to the South, because it isn't "democracy". In fact, countries of the North are experiencing a crisis of the state, of governments' ability to govern. With powerful trade agreements under the WTO such as Gatt and Gats trumping national laws, local municipalities worldwide are seeing essential services like education and water and health care deregulated, and natural resources being sold off to foreign multinationals with neither the knowledge or consent of those most affected. And neither is democracy a new idea to all inhabitants of the developing world. Many have been practicing it for as long as they have had societies. This connects to Ghandi's term "swadeshi"--local control over resources and politics. There is a distinction between what kind of "democracy" that America under George Bush is advocating abroad (while dismantling it wholesale in his own nation), and the kind of democracies that many in the antiglobalization movement are trying to nurture and build. The former is indeed dangerous, but the latter is absolutely necessary if we are to put an end to the bloodshed and misery that is threatening our species.

Posted by: Amanda Suutari | 4/19/03

Excellent

A very good article, which draws attention to an under-reported aspect of globalization and development. The market-dominant minority is exactly the type of phenomenon which gets little place in grand political theories but which looms overwhelmingly large in actual, practical politics. One might add that perhaps some thought should be given to the phenomenon of scapegoating: market-dominant minorities are often the lightning-rods of popular discontent. Unfortunately, in giving vent to their anger the majority may easily fall into the all-too-common trap of blaming others for their misfortunes, rather than taking a cold, clear-eyed view of what needs to be done to modernise and develop successfully. A clear articulation of the need to modernise (which means to change) seems to be the hallmark of those states which have develped successfully over the last 50 years. The venting of anger on those who are conspiring to hold the people down - be they international capitalists, Amricans, Jews or the local prosperous minority - along with the belief that poverty is the handiwork of others, is surely a significant impediment to realising change. The application of this mentality in Zimbabwe, say, to pick an example more or less at random, is obviously not merely damaging to its victims but to the nation as a whole.

Posted by: drongo | 4/19/03

The Problem with the World...

The Problem with the World… Aunt Leona was murdered out of “revenge” for what? And poor Nilo Abique, over 6-foot-tall, with no brains to match, was actually a victim of wider circumstances and larger forces at work. This is the kind of extrapolation Amy Chua has drawn, from a personal grieve into a global ailment. The plural of anecdotes is not data but there has been enough of this kind of sophism. Chua is offering a material, globalist explanation for a personal, human condition – a sort of solipsism. She has fallen into the bad habits of nearly every Western journalist ever since they began paying serious attention to outside events for a home audience. They visit the capital city, found everywhere Chinese shopkeepers instead of natives, spoke to a few English-educated Chinese tycoons and the senior Chinese managers running the large corporations and then conclude that an ethnic minority “control”, “dominate”, the economy thereby breeding resentment among the natives. It is a point popularized ever since and, in rehashed form, Chua states: “In the numerous countries around the world that have pervasive poverty and a market-dominant minority, democracy and markets—at least in the raw, unrestrained forms in which they are currently being promoted—can proceed only in deep tension with each other.” To see if the assertion makes sense, let’s first clear the deck on meanings and definitions. Chua re-asserts the popular notion that ethnic minorities in, for example, Southeast Asia “dominate”, “control” the private economies in these lands. What is it that dominate? What is to dominate? Quantify dominate, quantify control? Where does state economy or government-owned economy ends and private economy begins? What is private economy? To take Chua’s example, “Chinese Indonesians, only three percent of the population, controlled roughly 70 percent of Indonesia’s private economy….” The same statement has appeared in numerous Press articles (BBC, for one), except variously it is written as economy, not private. No economist has yet to quantify, with any certainty, the constituents of a private economy, much less Chinese ownership thereof. An Indonesian government employee spends, say, 70 percent of his monthly wage paying for groceries, rice, shoes and so on in Chinese-only shops; there is private consumption for sure, and two incomes are derived, one from the government, one private to the Chinese. Where does the private economy begin? How much does the Chinese own in this three-part (government, employee’s household, shops) economy? 70 percent? Who controls what? There is no way of telling, and it is pointless to argue. But, here is evidence demonstrating the fallacy. Take exports. World Bank’s figures show oil and gas in 2002 was roughly US$15 billion, or about 26 percent, of the US$57 billion in total merchandise exports (for services, add another US$5 billion). Now, Petromina, the Indonesian oil company, not ethnic Chinese, “control” (along with other private, the US and Western companies) the oil and gas. And, this is only two commodities in a “private” economy that Chua says is 70 percent Chinese. Is oil and gas not a private economy? Adding to the 26 percent, there is also timber, rubber, tin, palm oil, cloves, nutmegs, coconut, and so on. Is agriculture and mining not private? The biggest producers of rubber and palm oil are in Kalimantan and Sumatra, and they are Malaysian owned. Even if all of manufacturing is in Chinese hands (including Amy Chua’s family), it only accounts for roughly 40 percent of GDP. Again, to see if Chua is right, take another economic indicator: Indonesia’s national incomes, which in 2002, according to WHO, totalled US$150 billion. This translates into US$690 for every man, woman and child. How much of this is private? How much of this belongs to the Chinese? Again there is no way of knowing, although we could guess it through the in consumption patterns (whatever earned, if not saved, is consumed). Government consumption, the Economist Intelligence Unit says, is 7 percent of GDP. If the Chinese accounts for 70 percent of the so-called “private economy” then, working through the consumption pattern, the share of 6 million Chinese in national income would be US$97 billion. This, in 2002, would average about US$16,100 for every Chinese man, woman, child compared to US$200 for every native, that is, less than US$1 a day for anyone who is not Chinese. In ratio terms, the Chinese earning power to the native is 80:1. The absolute numbers seems plausible given that the Chinese Indonesian income approximates that in Taiwan, roughly two-thirds the level in Hong Kong or Singapore. There is one inherent problem: to say the Chinese control 70 percent of the private economy is also to say they are also the top earners nationally. To borrow Chua words, “spectacularly” rich, and embarrassingly so for her family. But this is the trouble with converting anecdotes into hard economic data. Indonesia’s top ten percent earners commands about 30 percent of the national income; and this group includes the sons and daughters of the ruling regime, the military generals, the colonels, their wives, and other rich Indonesians business class. Stated another way, the Indonesian income disparity is relatively low, in technical Gini coefficient jargon, it is 0.3. This level of income inequality is close to Germany’s and France’s; in the US, Hong Kong, Malaysia or Mexico, the inequality is worse off than in Indonesia. In other words, the ratio of the top earners in these four countries to the bottom pile translates to more than 30:1. Yet whose throats are being slid? This is not to say there are no rich Chinese in Indonesia or the Philippines, but clearly there is something seriously wrong to careless throw around numbers and assertions that the Chinese “control”, “dominate”, the economy – and that being the cause of the resentment. Hack journalism is no substitute for scholarly work. Chua implicitly suggests a case for tempering, on the ground, laissez-faire capitalism with restrained democracy (whatever that is). Then she cites Malaysia’s New Economic Policy as a model, even if a less-than-perfect one. Does the argument wash? Indeed, the NEP was a political programme with an economic agenda, designed to materially benefit the Malays. But, first to correct some errors. All Malays are “bumiputras” (or, so they call themselves), but not all “bumiputras” are Malays because there are bumiputras, roughly a tenth of the population, who are not Muslims by which a Malay is defined, constitutionally. To gauge the importance of this distinction, consider what happened this year. The Malay-control government of Malaysia banned the Christian Ibans, a bumiputra ethnic group in Malaysia Borneo, from possessing their own language Bible (although, constitutionally, everyone is free to practise their religion). The NEP is not an affirmative action programme (some Western journalist deploy the term “reverse” affirmative action, whatever that is) as it is understood in the US or as is the term employed in the US. The NEP is a discriminatory, apartheid programme, and it is systematic, state-induced, unquestionable, and enforceable in some circumstances on the pain of a jail term. The use of the NEP is not merely confined to a distribution of ethnic quotas, ranging from employment, education, housing allocation and the charging of interest rates. The quota is applicable only to the private sector. The governments sector, almost wholly staffed by Malays (Chinese, not welcome), does not apply. And so too it is with in the awards of contracts, with a few visible and notable exceptions. Land use, approval thereof, the listing of a company, the issuance of bank loans, are all subject to, first and foremost, ethnic qualifications. Some schools are exclusively for Malays; others not permitted. Some land is exclusively Malay, not tradable to others. Then there is the question of Chinese and their “dominance”. When the NEP was instituted in 1971, the Chinese held assets through the only national stock exchange. Their share of the total market value was no more than 30 percent (like everything in Malaysia, you need to state your ethnicity when applying to buy a stock). Thirty-years later, it was still under 30 percent, slightly higher than the ethnic share of the national population. And the question of land: there were three broadly defining categories – state-owned (meaning Malay), Malay Reserve (where the law makes illegal any sale to a non-Malay) and private (by individuals and by foreign companies). Mid-way through the NEP, Government-funded companies bought equity control of holdings of the plantations (Guthrie, Harrisons & Crosfield, Sime Darby), majority owned by foreigners mostly from Britain and the Netherlands. Collectively as a group, they own the largest stock of real estate, nationally. Agricultural land went back to the Malays, the spoils went for housing for the Chinese and Indian minorities in the peninsula. In all appearances, then, the NEP seems to target the ethnic minority, but who has the “dominant control” of any economy, private or otherwise. In other words, the premise of redistributing asset share away from an ethnic minority was wrong because there was comparatively not much to take from the Chinese. Instead the government got the British and the Western companies, but the entire Chinese community was made to look like usurers and exploiters, an impression that has stayed ever since, Chua no exception. Yes, the Chinese own the shops and shares here and there in the stock market companies, they were many high ranking managers. Later on, they too began listing their own companies. So they are visible and they also give more Press interviews than otherwise. But on what basis do they have control of the economy? Where is the correlation between this market-dominant minority (one assumes there are dominant) and economic control? Where is the correlation between market-dominant minority, mass poverty and deep tensions? These questions are necessary because Chua does not state the causes of the tension to begin with, only the effects. In Indonesia, it is a fact they kill Chinese simply because they are Chinese, and you do not need to be a tycoon or the niece of one to have your throat sliced. In Malaysia, 30 years after the NEP, with Malays and the government owning more than half the publicly traded assets in the stock market, middle-class Malays openly state their intention to burn down a Chinese-owned community hall. And that because a meeting was held there to decide how to keep the Chinese-language schools, and to avoid any attempt to nationalize them. It had nothing to do with any so-called market dominance. In 1991, hundreds of Malays and Indians living in an underclass neighbourhood fought each other, and death and maiming came mostly to the second. This was over a dented car that got in the way between an Indian funeral and a Malay wedding. No prizes for guessing who owned the car. The point in these examples is this. In spite of democracy (in whatever form) and not because of it, in spite of redistribution (or at least a semblance of it) and not because of the lack thereof, racism continues. And the tension continues to this day, the killing continues, and the sedition and subversion laws, taking Malaysia as example, acts merely as the paper-sheath cover of the dagger. Simply wait for another dented car. Mugabe knew how to exploit democracy for political supremacy but not by fermenting on the inadequacies of a laissez-faire capitalism. Rather he did so by instituting xenophobia, and that has been against the Whites so far. For that purpose, land grabbing from the White Man was convenient on the moral, and therefore inflammatory, argument that the land was not theirs to begin with. In other words, foreign asset ownership in Zimbabwe was attack when ethnic tensions explode, but this cannot mean that the tension would not exist if Whites own no property. Chua should read about the thousands of blacks displaced by Mugabe’s thugs. They also owned land, but none of their plight appeared in the US or British newspapers. The ideas of economic control and dominance via asset ownership are not matters of semantics, and Chua should establish clearly the correlation between these factors and ethnic tension. To dig into this point again, consider the three most important revenue-generating assets in Malaysia. In 1971, with the NEP, these were rubber, tin, palm oil, in that order. The foreign companies mostly owned all three; the Chinese benefited from their trade because commodities are good for trading. But this is not the same as dominance or control, because the biggest trading mercantile exchanges are in London and in Chicago, not in Kuala Lumpur. Change the nature of the assets, you change the management of wealth derived thereof and therefore the effect and direction of the income flows. Today, the top three foreign currency resource are petroleum, manufacturing plants, palm oil. The Malays and its government owned the first and the last, and have in their pockets the second. In other words, they control because they own the companies, grant the licences, write and determine the supplier contracts. Mugabe and Mahathir were of the same philosophical stripe. The key difference was their tactics. Mahathir used state funds to sequester foreign-owned land, whereas Mugabe used thugs. The first wore a legitimate colour, the second makes it racist, but both produced the same result and served the same philosophical premise: we don’t like your face, so piss off (although Mahathir would quite likely invite them through the back door because the country needs the dollars). Regardless, mere ownership was useless because money do not flower on trees. And Mugabe, desperate for more currency, offered to sell Mahathir the country’s national electricity company. Mahathir has been sitting on the proposal because he understood that asset ownership does not generate income, only the use of it does. And even then ownership, hence control, has to be political and not just financial. Singapore was astute in the employment of its own natural resource, the location of its land. The military in Indonesia was bad at it, even with the oil. The Philippines too, under Marcos. But take any of these countries, minorities have no control of the national resource, much less the markets or the economy. Some Chinese are rich but this is not the same as dominance and control. Malaysia, much later in the NEP, transferred not only assets, but also the employment of them. Say it, some countries just have bad rulers, and some populations are much less governable. Abique had gotten away and his accomplices released because, on top of being inept, the Filipino police force was prejudiced. Less politely, racist. The argument that a regulated economy under a restrained democracy eases ethnic tension rather than exacerbates is not only, and plainly wrong, it repeats the excuses, the failures, and the oppression emanating out of many Third World governments. How, in the first place, will Chua’s remedy turn the Filipino police more reliable and more credible? Then take the Malaysian model. In the 1960s, Malaysia had a per capita income, second to Japan in Asia. Look at it today: poorer than South Korea and Taiwan, and one eighth of Singapore’s, a piece of swamp 30 years ago. The most illustrious consequence of the NEP was a tiny core of visibly rich Malays. A middle-class Malay would have emerged anyway without the NEP, and to say it arose because of the programme is to confuse cause and effect. Malaysia’s government and its agencies directly employ about 10 percent of the Malay population, and they do not do badly. The poor Malay farmer and fishermen kept their pants, the mass of the minority Chinese population were turned out from their shops and their tin mining shovels into salaried office and factory workers. The Indians from the government-owned rubber plantations, paid less than the Filipino housekeeper, became street peddlers. Then, after all that, the underlying tension metamorphosized into other questions: the practise of religion and the right of own-language schools. Now, the minorities have more reason to despise the majority because after sequestering everyone else’s assets, the Malays want their souls. And some Malays have not one fewer reason to despite the Chinese after the NEP, but a new one – the Chinese gets in the way of the private jobs. The Malays have begun to understand that asset owned, even if you possess them all, is finite wealth but incomes are quite altogether different. While all this ferments Mahathir told the world that Malaysia is a model of racial harmony, no thanks to democracy and laissez faire markets. And Chua bought it. But the world knew nothing of the reconstituted tensions, the street fights, deaths in police cells, the shoot-to-kill practices, and the segregation of Chinese, Malays, and Indians. In fact he proposed the Malaysian model to South Africa’s President Mandela: a Malaysian form of democracy under a regulated economy to transfer asset wealth from the minority to the majority. South Africa refused. The question remains why in Malaysia there are no reports of Aunty Leonas and Abiques, and no gang rapes of 150 Chinese women and girls. In Malaysia there is some safety in the congregated numbers. Because of political (the Malay reserve land) and economic controls (the NEP) most Chinese, not the tycoons, own homes within certain areas only. There is another and more relevant answer. For that Chua is better referred to the deputy information minister of Malaysia for his views on how he wish the see the end of the Chinese-language schools, and to the site, malaysiakini.com, which has catalogued numerous Indians, young healthy bodies, dead in Malay police detention cells. You see, there are deaths and there are more deaths from racism. Only some methods deployed towards them are more refined and do not make the headlines. Racism is a human not a material condition, so that for the Chinese to have left Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (as Chua did) then there will be one chance fewer to be stabbed with a butcher’s knife. The native stock in the Philippines and Indonesia might turn on their daughters and aunties next door, but it won’t necessarily be because the neighbours are richer. You don’t have to be rich and Chinese to have your neck sliced and bodies raped and abducted by the hundreds: ask those in East Timor, and in Pontianak, a town in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan. They numbered thousands, and they were of a different religion. Nothing to do with democracy and free markets, and not even the indignity of being a servant there. The irony is not finish. In Hong Kong, with wage cuts happening everywhere and every month, Filipino maids march on the streets shouting and calling the Chinese government racist because their wages would be cut by 12 per cent. After the deduction their wages would still amount to 15 times more than the national per capita income in their homeland, and so they merrily stayed behind. More ironically, behind the Hong Kong control point with China’s Shenzhen, millions of Chinese women have no work and willing to take wages at half the prevailing rate. In Malaysia Chinese families have everybody – fathers, mothers, daughters – out working so that the son may keep his place in the University of Chicago. One consequence is that they, in turn, have to employ the Filipinos and the Indonesians even in the knowledge that the brothers and uncles of the housekeepers commit the kind of atrocities Chua and others complain about.

Posted by: Leno | 4/20/03

world on the edge

What Amy Chua fails to realize is, democracy and free markets are not the cause of global problems, but the solution. At the early part of the 20th century there was maybe a dozen democracies. Today 60% of the world countries are either free or partly free. Free markets have been connected with democracy in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and at some time in the future, in Singapore. Other examples are in Spain nad Portugal where a liberalization of markets eventually lead to democracy. Rather, it is the dearth of free enterprise that is the cause of dictatorships. Examples are Yugoslovia where Molosovich refused to open up markets as that would decrease his power. And Mugabe in Zimbabwe is hardly an espouser of free markets. The greatest regions of conflicts, terrorism etc, are in the Middle East. The Middle East is not a free market haven. Rather the source of conflicts are ideological not economic. In fact, it can be said without a doubt that anticapitalist notions are the cause of tyranny, from the scapegoating of jews as international bankers by the Nazis preWW2(Jewish peddlers were criticized for offering stuff people didn't need and occasioning discontentment in the Middle Ages)to communism and its hostility to free markets. The problems Amy Chua mentions are mostly in countries with either a dysfunctional or no market economy. Democracies and thier concomitant rule of law, functional judicial systems, private property rights and economic freedom that lead to democracy. If not there would be no correlation between increasing frequnecy of free markets in the world, and increasing democracy, as the facts show. What she cites are either minor imperfections in the model or transitional periods to prosperity.

Posted by: Jeffrey Flota | 6/3/03

world on the edge

What Amy Chua fails to realize is, democracy and free markets are not the cause of global problems, but the solution. At the early part of the 20th century there was maybe a dozen democracies. Today 60% of the world countries are either free or partly free. Free markets have been connected with democracy in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and at some time in the future, in Singapore. Other examples are in Spain nad Portugal where a liberalization of markets eventually lead to democracy. Rather, it is the dearth of free enterprise that is the cause of dictatorships. Examples are Yugoslovia where Molosovich refused to open up markets as that would decrease his power. And Mugabe in Zimbabwe is hardly an espouser of free markets. The greatest regions of conflicts, terrorism etc, are in the Middle East. The Middle East is not a free market haven. Rather the source of conflicts are ideological not economic. In fact, it can be said without a doubt that anticapitalist notions are the cause of tyranny, from the scapegoating of jews as international bankers by the Nazis preWW2(Jewish peddlers were criticized for offering stuff people didn't need and occasioning discontentment in the Middle Ages)to communism and its hostility to free markets. The problems Amy Chua mentions are mostly in countries with either a dysfunctional or no market economy. Democracies and thier concomitant rule of law, functional judicial systems, private property rights and economic freedom that lead to democracy. If not there would be no correlation between increasing frequnecy of free markets in the world, and increasing democracy, as the facts show. What she cites are either minor imperfections in the model or transitional periods to prosperity.

Posted by: Jeffrey Flota | 6/3/03

the case of Jews in Germany

I have long believed that for many members of the working & agricultural classes in 1920s & 1930s Germany, Jews were looked upon as an 'economically dominant minority,' thus adding yet another example to Amy Chua's argument. And perhaps Hitler's youthful artistic aspirations were dashed by an Art Institute in which Jewish artists were prominent.

Posted by: Robert H Somers | 8/31/03

Untangible Relationships

In Amy Chua's analysis it appears she has decided on an outcome and used weak evidence to attempt to support it. The anti-thesis to her idea is that non-freemarket's and a totalitarian regime would be more effective at raising the impoverished. This could easily be disproved by analyzing the areas of interest before and after freemarkets and democracy. She also makes the claim that markets concentrate the wealth over the impoverished minority. This would be an example of Zero-Sum economics. This would only be true if industry and the markets didn't create wealth, but only collected wealth. This can easily be shown to untrue by looking at the combined wealth of different years. The difference in wealth between a millionare and the impoverished people of any country is going to be astronomical when looking at it on a purely mathematical light, but that is not really relative. The main scope of her writing is the analysis of market minorities. This is a falacy and here in lies the neglect of scope of her research. In a country that is third world, most lack significant education. Outsiders from first world countries come with businesses above the education level of the population. If it wasn't above the education of the population, the question would have to be answered: why didn't they already develop this product or service? Now the countries must play catch up to the first world countries, not in manufacturing, not in mining or any of the industries directly, but the education level. The industries are simply above the education level of country, and until the country catchs up outside help will need to be used. Until the country is producing significant wealth, the education can't be raised. So the industries are actually a benefit to the society. When she talks about the middle east, she seems to be ill informed. Many countries, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt and many others are currently run not by a democracy but a totalitarian regime. Many have huge unemployment and rely on oil revenue to provide for goods and services to thier people. It would be interesting to see a study on educated people, unemployed but provided for in places like Saudi Arabia. What is thier life like? Having the intelligence and the know how to perform yet denied by a totalitarian regime a means to express themselves as well as develop new enterprises. Could it be that this lack in meaning to thier life drives them to radicalism? Then it would be free-markets and democracy that would allow them to become productive. Many unanswered questions in her writing. It seems she started with the idea that free-markets and democracy were bad and filled in examples without thoughtfull analysis. The anti-thesis to her analysis is that totalitarinism and socialist planned markets are the solution, however there is not one example of this in our history that has been a panacea for the ills of society. Second, she has done no analysis of the existing markets before the arrival of free-markets and democracy. I venture to say economically most of these areas were suffering greatly before it arrived as well.

Posted by: Quek | 10/12/03