World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua
About the Author
Amy Chua is the daughter of a Hokkien Chinese family from the Philippines. She has a law degree from Harvard Law School and has worked in corporate law. She is now a professor of law at Yale Law School. She is best known for her memoir of raising her daughters.
Market-Dominant Minorities
In many countries throughout the world, wealth is concentrated in the hands of successful ethic minorities. This generates much envy in the majority ethnic group, which is poor. The poor see the rich businessmen as leeches, stealing the country’s wealth, when actually they are the producers of wealth. The prosperous ethnic minorities are also perceived as being loyal to their own ethnicity, rather than the nation. The author says that explaining why some ethnic minorities are so economically successful is not an aim of her book.
Three Backlashes
Three backlashes against market-dominant minorities:
- Against Capitalism
- Against Democracy
- Against the Ethnic Minority (including genocide)
Philippines
- Chinese were in the Philippines before the Spanish.
- Almost all rural land controlled by families who are descendants of the Spanish colonists
- Ethnic Chinese dominate the banking, airlines, commercial real estate and hotel industries in the Philippines.
- Many ethnic Filipinos and envious of the rich, ethnic Chinese.
- Each year several hundred rich ethnic Chinese citizens are kidnapped for ransom in the Philippines.
Indonesia
- Grand Eunuch Admiral Cheng Ho visited Java in the 1400s and found many prosperous ethnic Chinese
- Low intermarriage rate between ethnic Chinese and native Indonesians
- Pork factor (Chinese love pork; Muslims don’t eat pork)
- The 1998 riots against the Chinese caused $40 billion of capital to flee Indonesia.
Malaysia
- Anti-Chinese Riots in 1969 in Kuala Lumpur.
- Low rate of intermarriage between native Malays and ethnic Chinese
Burma
- In the early 20th century, Indians were the main prosperous ethnic minority
- In the later twentieth century, the Chinese became the most successful minority
- Rangoon and Mandalay are both dominated by ethnic Chinese
- Burma has absorbed many Chinese immigrants from China’s Yunnan Province.
Asia World Company
Lo Hsing-han was an ethnic Chinese, born in the Kokang Province of the northern part of the Shan State of Burma. Lo made his money in opium, working with the opium queen, Olive Yang. Lo’s Asia World Company includes shipping and construction.
Thailand
Thailand is unusual, because the Thai government forced the ethnic Chinese to assimilate. For example, they required that all schools teach in Thai or English, and not Chinese. Many ethnic Chinese speak the Thai language only, and there has been widespread intermarriage between Chinese and Thais. There is little anti-Chinese feeling.
Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group
In the 1920s, two poor, Chinese immigrant brothers named Chia Ek Chor and Chia Siew Whooy started the Chia Tai seed shop in Bangkok, Thailand. They created the Charoen Pokphand Feedmill in 1953, which eventually developed into the multi-billion-dollar Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group. The CP Group is involved in chicken farming, KFC franchises in Thailand, motorcycles, beer, telecommunications
Vietnam
The Vietnamese boat people of the 1970s were mainly ethnic Chinese who had their property confiscated by the Communists for being bourgeois.
Middle East
The Christian Copts were a market dominant ethnic minority in Egypt, until Nasser stole their wealth. The Maronite Christians of Lebanon were the targets of envy by the Muslim majority during the Lebanese Civil War.
Africa
Indians arrived in Kenya not as colonists, but as laborers to build the Uganda-Kenya railway. But over time they rose to become the main businessmen of East Africa. The Igbo are a market dominant ethnic minority in Nigeria, and the Bamiléké are a market dominant ethnic minority in Cameroon. The Lebanese Christians are a market dominant ethnic minority in western Africa. In particular, they dominate the diamond trade.
Cottage Industries
The ethnic majorities often operate cottage industries which do not evolve and cannot compete with the dynamic entrepreneurs.
Crony Capitalism
Not all of the financial success of ethnic minorities is due to talent and hard work. They also often have strong ties to government officials.
Property Rights versus the Universal Franchise
The West democratized gradually, making sure that property rights were respected. For example, at first the franchise was granted only to property owners. The fear of extending the franchise is of the tyranny of the majority. Voters who do not own property have less motivation to respect the property rights of others. Dictatorships that respect property rights work better than democracies that do not. Democracy enables the poor majority to rise up against the market dominant minorities. Capitalism lifts all boats, but it also widens the gap between rich and poor.
Preferences for Majorities
Affirmative action in the United States favors poor minorities, while affirmative action in developing countries favors poor majorities, such as the Malays in Malaysia, and the French-speaking majority over the economically dominant English-speaking minority in Quebec.
