The Diaspora of Ethnic Economies: Beyond the Pale?
Author(s)
Cao, Lan
Abstract
Governments around the world have at different times adopted various race-conscious policies for various reasons. These policies generally fall into three categories. First, in the United States, for example, the Jim Crow system was used systematically to reinforce racial preferences in social, political, and economic life, to favor the white majority and exclude the black minority. This system can be characterized as one designed to further majority preferences in majority economies, that is, a system where the dominant majority not only controls the economic and political system but also has instituted racial preferences for its own majority members. Today, in the United States, governmental policies work in the reverse, as “compensatory preferences” to blacks and other designated minorities, to offset majority advantages and historical wrongs. India similarly pursues preferential policies for its untouchables. This second type of racial policy is aimed at implementing minority preferences in majority economies, to benefit minority groups in economies dominated by majority members. By contrast, in countries such as Malaysia and Nigeria, governments institute ethnic preferences to favor politically dominant (though economically weak) majority groups and to restrain minorities deemed by these governments to be “too” economically powerful. At various times in Europe, similar treatment was directed at the Jewish minority. This third type of policy institutes majority preferences in minority economies, that is, economies “controlled” by minority groups.
