I bought the paper version of the December 2003 issue of Prospect yesterday, and was all set to quote from the two pieces I’ve already been reading with particular interest, while apologising for not supplying any links. Well, I can, but in the case of the longer article only to an introductory excerpt. How long even these links will last, I cannot say.
From Michael Lind’s review of D. B. C. Pierre’s Vernon God Little, which won the Booker Prize.
At one point Pierre’s cartoon Texas sheriff says: “How many offices does a girl have that you can get more’n one finger into?” The comic malapropisms of pompous black characters were a staple of racist minstrel-show humour of the Amos ‘n’ Andy kind. If Pierre, purporting to unveil the reality of black America, had depicted a leering, sex-obsessed African-American police officer unable to distinguish the words “office” and “orifice,” would jury members like AC Grayling – a distinguished philosopher whose work I have long admired – have voted to award such bigoted trash the Booker prize?
But I don’t want to be too hard on the Booker jury. They’ve democratised literature by proving that a book doesn’t have to be any good to win a prize, so long as it exploits socially acceptable national and ethnic stereotypes. …
Assuming Lind is right about the crassness of this book, and although I’ve not read it I have no particular reason to doubt him, the next question is: why? What gives? Why this animus against Americans, and especially against those most American of Americans, the Texans. In another article (“Vengeful majorities“) in the same issue, Amy Chua writes about (as it says on the cover of the issue) “The global backlash against successful ethnic minorities”:
Market-dominant minorities are the Achilles heel of free market democracy. In societies with such a minority, markets and democracy favour not just different people or different classes but different ethnic groups. Markets concentrate wealth, often spectacular wealth, in the hands of the market-dominant minority, while democracy increases the political power of the impoverished majority. In these circumstances, the pursuit of free market democracy becomes an engine of potentially catastrophic ethnonationalism, pitting a frustrated indigenous majority, easily aroused by opportunistic politicians, against a resented, wealthy ethnic minority. This conflict is playing out in country after country today, from Bolivia to Sierra Leone, from Indonesia to Zimbabwe, from Russia to the middle east.
Since 11th September, the conflict has been brought home to the US. Americans are not an ethnic minority. But Americans are perceived as the world’s market-dominant minority, wielding disproportionate economic power. As a result, they have become the object of the same kind of popular resentment that afflicts the Chinese of southeast Asia, the whites of Zimbabwe, and the Jews of Russia.
That makes a lot of sense to me. Americans as kind of global white Zimbabweans. It certainly fits everything I read and see around me.
And it leads me to think that it is among these “market-dominant minorities” that what is variously called (by the bosses of this blog) the Samizdata meta-context, or (by me, for these purposes) libertarianism, is likely to catch on most enthusiastically. Here, unlike how it is at most intellectual addresses, we both (a) note the conflict between liberty and democracy, and (b) pick a side without any waffling or muddling of the two together, namely: liberty. Hurrah liberty, screw democracy. Accordingly, we side unequivocally with the market-dominant minorities and against the vengeful majorities who now torment them, as and when they can. I warmly recommend reading all of Chua’s piece.
It so happens that, in between reading Amy Chua’s piece last night, I also participated in an LSE Hayek Society discussion, on the subject of free market education. This turned out to be a pretty accurate summary of the themes we talked about, despite it only being a guess/preparation for the event rather than a report. A minority said have a complete free market. A majority said: no, education has to be a little bit state funded, otherwise the poor and potentially uneducated would suffer too much.
But my point here is not about education. It is that the feeling I got was that there were basically two types of people in the room with me. There were Brits. And there were members of the world’s various market-dominant minorities, including a couple of Americans. And I guess you could say that we Brits are members of the “American” minority ourselves, for these purposes. If you do include us Brits in this category, practically all those present were ethnically on the liberty side of the liberty/democracy divide that Amy Chua writes about.
Although – big caveat which complicates things a lot – many of the most ferocious ‘anti-Americans’ are also Brits, and Americans. A lot of them don’t like anyone being “market-dominant” either.
It is, as the Anglo-American example illustrates, a lot more complicated than slabs of ethnically uniform opinion. Nevertheless, these market-dominant minorities are a big part of the human territory where, you feel, our stuff is now catching on most strongly. It’s not just Americans. It’s not just the Anglosphere. It’s not just the Anglosphere plus the Jews. There are lots more people involved than this. What the consequences of this global, albeit still selective, spread of our ideas will be is very hard to guess. But I bet you anything that, given the resources, talents and sheer numbers of these people, consequences there will be.
Texans are the most American of Americans? That’s news to this Yankee
I think Texans do look like that, from outside of America, to the rest of us. North-Easterners, by comparison, seem a lot more like Europeans, less unlike anyway. I can see, what with the Civil War and everything, that this may seem strange to Americans, but I think the phrase does make sense from out here.
An excellent article, which should be read -at gunpoint if necessary- by every pious bureaucrat trying to ‘democratize’ Iraq.
But I am troubled by Brian’s comment:
“we both (a) note the conflict between liberty and democracy, and (b) pick a side without any waffling or muddling of the two together, namely: liberty. Hurrah liberty, screw democracy. Accordingly, we side unequivocally with the market-dominant minorities and against the vengeful majorities who now torment them,”
Initially, I emotionally sympathized with him, but when my brain started working again I had to question this.
The current situation exacerbates rather than limits the erosion of the middle class and adds an ethnic element to the problem. When you consider the potential of the current technological/cybernetic ‘Industrial Revolution’ to divide humanity into the knowledgable and the useless, this is frightening. I certainly have reservations about democracy as opposed to representative government, and I believe wholeheartedly in free markets, but I can see “Hurrah liberty, screw democracy” coming to a point where the choice is between extermination of the poor, ignorant, useless, hate filled masses or else watching civilization sink into barbarism as it is overwhelmed.
From a Julian Simon point of view, this situation also seems very wasteful. All those poor wretches have perfectly serviceble minds. (I haven’t heard from Charles Copeland for a while-that last sentence should bring him out if he’s around.) When they waste their lives in poverty and ineffectualness, aren’t they costing us all potential wealth? If the trickle down effect of the local Market Dominant Minority is supposed to raise the standard of living of everyone in the country, shouldn’t there also be an opportunity cost for wasted lives?
The social welfare solutions for this problem are foolish and hardly worth considering seriously. At best they are band-aids and at worst are little more that danegeld.
The only real solution is going to be a market one. I don’t know what it is but I can imagine one of its features: It will make monopolization of economic power by an ethnic group costly to them by making them bear the opportunity cost of the unused minds of nonmembers of their group. This probably will happen by way of someone else competing with them by using this resource. The free market problem will occur when they try to limit this competition.
Perhaps the statement would be clearer if it were worded, ‘when thinking about how much they hate America,’ Texans seem like the most American of Americans. That’d be accurate. I was born in Texas but grew up in California. Think for a moment on the difference in my reception when I say, ‘I’m from Texas’ vs, ‘I’m from California.’
I’ve been beaten up for being from Texas, told that Texas is the place that they kill good presidents and supply the country with bad ones, asked if I wanted slavery back, whispered to by racists (in CA, NC, and NY) who assumed that because I was from Texas I’d be sympathetic to their noxious bigotry, told that I’d have to lose my accent if I wanted a promotion, and after skimming the education part of my resume, been told, you don’t seem like a Texan, that is, I’m too educated to be from Texas.
No cryin’ towels, though, please. There is no shortage of regional stereotypes, and they’re all ugly.
Sure. We are the world’s “market-dominant minority” and that’s why tranzis want a global governance system so they can impose populist solutions on us. Certain Continental Europeans had a big problem with particular “market-dominant minorities” about fifty years back; now they are a little more sophisticated about their methods of trying to deal with them.
Notice, by the ay, how many local market-dominant minorities have emigrated to the Anglosphere from elsewhere. Even though their advantage over the locals is much narrower, or even nonexistent, they are far more successful in the aggregate. One good resource for understanding this is Fukuyama’s Trust, another is Joel Kotkin’s Tribes.
To supplement GRH’s comments
a) In much the same way that the only remaining allowable and accepted slurs are those towards white Southern males, the world has decided that it’s OK to hate Americans and use caricature to express that; and, in fact, Europeans are particularly baffled that such caricatures really bug most Americans all that much (“What? You aren’t offended by my devastatingly sophisticated and nuanced mockery of your burgers and plasma TVs and chlorofluorocarbons and run-on sentences and such?”)
b) America:The planet::Texas:America
As an expat living in Berlin, it’s interesting to see how Bavarians are the Texans (well, almost…) of Germany. Foreigners always think Bavarian stereotypes when they think of Germany, but other Germans as well as the Bavarians themselves tend to think of Bavarians as being not really German at all. And…Bavarians are wealthy and hard-working (and pro-American, surprise, surprise) in comparison to other Germans, but appear to be less sophisticated. Hence the dislike they engender elsewhere in the country.
Ian
North-Easterners, by comparison, seem a lot more like Europeans, less unlike anyway.
Them’s fightin’ words, Brian. I wouldn’t suggest saying that to most Northeasterners outside of the major cities. The ones who are more like Europeans are the Francophilic, NPR-listening Manhattanites who refer to the rest of the country as “fly-over country” and feel all smug and clever for saying it. Trust me, I know–I lived in Manhattan for 7 years and worked extensively with these types. Most of them did 75% or more of every stereotypical thing that one expects of urban elitist leftists. And somehow they still think they are free thinkers. Mm-kay.
Well, from the point of view of a kid growing up in Australia, it always seemed to me that it was Californians who were the most American of the Americans. This may just have been that they obscured the view of the rest when I looked across the Pacific. Or it may be just that making itself visible is what Hollywood does.
Excellent, informative, article by Amy Chua. Thanks Brian for pointing to it. To all the rest: it’s long, but don’t be lazy, go read it.
Conclusion: beware of schematic solutions. The world is too complicated. Not every problem has a solution.
Here is a transcript of Amy Chua’s appearance on C-SPAN’s Booknotes program last February, where Brian Lamb interviewed her about her book ‘World on Fire.’
http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1714
Those who wish to grasp beyond silly stereotypes and preconceived Hollywood-informed notions of American culture must accept that the United States is a vast and diverse country.
America is not Dallas, L.A. or New York anymore than Europe is Athens, Rome or Amsterdam. In fact, I would very much enjoy seeing such people trying to make sense of a debutante ball in Charleston. 🙂
Tomorrow, America will pause and give thanks for liberty and the blessings of freedom. That is the unifying theme of our culture. That is the quintessence of what it means to be American. Those, American or otherwise, who search for a more precise formula are courting failure.
That said, this article makes a most interesing point. Western culture is essentially a deal struck between democracy, which empowers the majority and exalts equality; and capitalism, which empowers individuals, and exalts the distinctions between people which make some succeed and others fail. I don’t see anyway to resolve this tension.
Abby,
Well said. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the shooting range — another thing to be thankful for as an American.
Despite all efforts of some non-Texans (ie. from Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco) to deprive me of that right.
Did Amy Chua say anything more than that so-called “market-dominant minoritries” should be “nicer”?
See my two blog posts: Bush hate, Jew hate, Success hate; and Money grubbing hate leads to Jew hate.
It is Envy, and the desire to destroy the good of others; destroy, punish, tax.
Bush cut taxes on the rich;
Bush cut punishment to the rich;
Bush cut punishment to the money grubbers.
The LEFT hates money grubbers.