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World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability | 
 enlarge | Author: Amy Chua
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  89 reviews
Sales Rank: 116101
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385721862
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.6
EAN: 9780385721868
ASIN: 0385721862
Publication Date: January 6, 2004
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Product Description
For over a decade now, the reigning consensus has held that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this astute, original, and surprising investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy.
Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world’s most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend of globalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 84 more reviews...
 Why is the world on fire? -- The primary answer may be . . . . . August 19, 2008
In World on Fire, Amy Chua proposes a thesis that is well researched, reality-based, and rooted in her experiences as an extended member of a Chinese Filipino family: The global spread of laissez-faire markets and nominal democracy has become a principal aggravating agent in group hatred and ethnic violence in some countries primarily outside the Western World where "economic-dominant minorities" concentrate enormous wealth and influence compared to the native, assimilated population.
In the Philippines, ethnic Chinese make up less than 2% of the population yet control 60% of the country's economy, once aided by the Chinese-protective dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. She further extends this model to comprehend the unintended consequences of globalization.
Ms. Chua writes in a clear and easy style as she cites further examples of this phenomenon. The reader is afforded a better understanding of these issues in many of the world's hotspots that are often disregarded by the world's mainstream media. A primary causal agent of genocide we often see but fail to understand may be deeply rooted in profound humiliation and poverty as a newly empowered oppressed majority lashes back indiscriminately at a now overwhelmed economic/politically-dominant minority or quite often their indigenous political enablers.
The author enumerates an array of Southeast Asian countries where a Chinese minority is overwhelming an indigenous people: Myanmar (Burma), a 5% Chinese minority exploits teak, jade, and rubies; pre and post-Suharto Indonesia, a 3% Chinese minority controls nearly 70% of the country's economy; and so on.
In Africa, she cites Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and Namibia where a minority white, South African elite extends its control over rich diamond mines: "South Africa's Oppenheimer family has controlled the richest diamond mines in the world since 1908"; the market-dominant minority Ibo of Nigeria, the Belgians giving rise to the Tutsi minority in Rwanda, and the Eritreans of Ethiopia.
In Russia, the Jewish Russian oligarchs sparked renewed anti-semitism and Russian nationalism as the oft-inebriated Boris Yeltsin ignored, then encouraged the onset of "gladiator capitalism." Putin would later exploit these special interests to gain power, then cleverly appease the Russian people by virtually neutralizing them.
The author also identifies similar market-dominant minorities -- the Indians, the Lebanese, the "pigmentocracy" of Mexico, Israel as a regional economic/politically-dominant minority in the Middle East, and the United States as a global economic/politically-dominant minority.
Arguably, many readers may have implicitly sensed the issues treated in World on Fire. Amy Chua's thesis neatly organizes and fairly explores the facts with nearly 35 pages of notes and references.
A View of the World from the Dark Side July 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Excellent and compelling.
I travel internationally 6 months of the year throughout the world, but even so, this book exposed a shadowy dark underbelly I was unaware of. The author's arguments are fresh, novel. believable and compelling.
Anyone interested in world dynamics and the rapid pace of change that is affecting the entire planet will welcome this innovative and paradigm shifting book.
Market-dominant Minorities breed instability April 25, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Amy Chua writes about a subject that should get far more attention than it does: that most of the developing world has ethnic minorities that dominate the economy and that the majority are fundamentally hostile to the minority. Chua claims that the economic and political reforms pushed by the West fail to take into account this fact and, therefore, the result is repeated instability and violence.
Free markets mainly benefit the ethnic minorities that already have the wealth, business connections and social capital, while doing little to benefit the masses. Democracy empowers the ethnic majority, who then use that power to persecute the market-dominant minorities. While Chua clearly beliefs that free market democracies are essential to the stability and prosperity of developing countries, she is ultimately very gloomy about the possibilities of a smooth and fast transition.
Chua starts by showing that, in contrast to the Western nations, developing countries invariably have a very small ethnic minority that dominates the economy. In Latin America and southern Africa, it the whites. In Southeast Asia, it is the Chinese. In Central and East Africa, it is the Lebanese and Indians. In Russia, it is the Jews. In West Africa, it is the Ibo and Lebanese. Most of this is not new, Charles Sowell for example has written about this subject in great depth, but it is a topic that has been seriously neglected.
Chua then shows that Western efforts to push free market and democratic reforms have one of the three following results:
1)Ethnic majorities use their new-found political power to nationalize companies owned by market-dominant minorities.
2)Market-dominant minorities protect themselves by supporting coups against the hostile democracies, leading to "crony capitalism."
3)In the most extreme cases, ethnic majorities undertake ethnic cleansing and genocide to eliminate market-dominant minorities.
One of the most interesting and thought-provoking sections in this book is about Jews in the Middle East and Americans globally. Each can be seen as international market-dominant minorities. While the rest of the book is focused on a minority in a specific nation, Chua shows that the same angst and violence that is focused on national minorities is also focused on the Jews in the Middle East and American globally. Because Jews and Americans are different ethnic groups who benefit disproportionately from free markets, the majorities focus their hatred on them.
Finally, Chua wraps up with a serie of recommendations on what to do. This is probably the weakest part of the book, because she has caught herself in a conundrum. She has spent the entire book attacking Western promoted economic and political reforms, but she still believes that such reform is essential in the long-run. Her most interesting proposal is for market-dominant minorities to use philanthropy in their home nation to help the majority, particularly by funding high-profile national symbols. She also makes the case that Western nations need to be aware of the fact that nations with market-dominant minorities will react fundamentally differently to free market and democracy than ones that do not.
Chua's main contribution is to introduce readers to the concept of market-dominant minorities: a concept that every observer of international affairs should be aware of (but few appear to be). For this, she deserves a five star rating. But the book has a number of glaring flaw that drop the rating to four stars.
My main problem with this book are the following:
1)Chua never shows how much the market-dominant minorities benefit their own nation. Charles Sowell shows that these minorities are often the drivers of their nation's economies conferring great benefits on the majority. Chua occasionally implies this, but more often she focuses on the suffering of the masses and the implication that their hatred of the rich minorities is partly justified. I wish she were more clear as to the tremendous benefits that market-dominant minorities bring, and the fundamental irrationality of the haters.
2)Chua continually claims that free markets and democracy are breeding or at least exacerbating ethnic tensions, but she never gives any evidence of to an increase in ethnic tension over the last generation. She does give a lot of examples of ethnic riots, murders, nationalizations and coups, but she never shows that the frequency and severity have increased over the last generation. My guess is that the facts would show the opposite, completely argument against reform. Chua also makes frequent references to leftist/communist dictatorships of the past oppressing market-dominant minorities (a very interesting point), but she casually skips over the fact that this completely contradicts her overall argument. Anti-market authoritarian regimes are just as capable as market democracies of oppressing market-dominant minorities
3)Sometimes Chua appears to be far too pessimistic about the standard-of-living of poor ethnic majorities in developing countries. She continually states that they are left behind by economic reform, but she never gives any concrete evidence. Based upon the hundreds of millions of people who have been lifted out of poverty in the last generation, it is difficult for me to believe that the contrast is as stark as she suggests. Clearly the progress is not as fast or as widespread as we would like, but it is not the stark ethnic divide that she suggests.
4)Chua is also quick to label authoritarian regimes as "democratic" to support her argument. To label Zimbabwe, Serbia and Rwanda in the 1990s as democracies (to give just three examples) is a bit disingenuous. They were actually some of the most authoritarian and anti-market regimes in the world. If she had a tighter definition, I think that she would find that the authoritarian regimes are just as capable as democracies of oppressing market-dominant minorities. It is quite possible that these anti-market authoritarian regimes are worse for their country than the ethnic tension that Chua says market economies breed.
Overall, though, I would highly recommend this book.
The Unsacred Fire of Liberty April 10, 2008
In "World on Fire" Amy Chua does something remarkable - she looks at isolated facts - some well known, some less so - and shows us a pattern. She offers an interesting a compelling theory that may be able to explain quite a lot about the world - although not as much as Chua thinks it can.
Before reading Chua, I knew of course that democracy sometimes led to extremist, racist parties taking over (see Zakaria's The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad). Every economist knows that free trade has redistributive implications, and there has even been literature about the unequal spread of wealth between various ethnic groups (Easterly's The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics). But are these facts related?
Chua argues that they are. From Africa to Asia, Bolivia to Burma, Kenya to the Philippines - small ethnic minorities have highly disproportionate amount of wealth - indeed, they often literally dominate the economy, with tiny minorities sometimes owning more than the majorities entirely. With Globalization - free trade en mass - the inequalities have, if anything, grown worse. Whatever the benefits to the majority in these countries (and I think Chua is overly pessimistic about these benefits) , they are greater for the rich.
The existence of these "Market Dominating Minorities", in Chua's terminology, is the cause of three types of backlash. First, the majorities, feeling that markets help the minorities and not themselves, strike against markets - nationalizations, trade barriers and economic discrimination against the minorities are widespread. Majorities elect and support demagogues, who incite hatred against the minorities in order to win popularity and votes. Second, the Market Dominating Minorities strike back - against democracy, either via direct rule or by sponsoring a dictator from the majority group. Finally, in rare cases, the unrest between majority and minority deteriorates into ethnic cleansing and genocide - think about Ruanda, Zimbabwe, and perhaps 1960s era Algiers.
I genuinely think that Chua's argument is original and penetrating. But neither the idea nor the book is flawless.
Chua lacks a theory about why minorities dominate markets; At times, it seems that they do it by brute force, or as a legacy from the colonialist era (especially in Latin America). At other times, the minorities seem considerably more entrepreneurial than the majority - even prospering in the face of government discrimination (Malaysia's Chinese and Russia's Jews). Often it's a combination of entrepreneurship and power. The absence of a theory regarding the rise of the phenomena makes it difficult to know how to deal with it.
A weakness of the book is that beyond this single, powerful insight, it has very few other ideas. Most of the book consists of stories of Market Dominating Minorities in various countries, and of anecdotes regarding Chua's adventures and misadventures in the tropics.
Third, Chua over-extends her concept of "Market Dominating Minority" to the US as the world's Market Dominating Minority. The characterization misfire - Chua offers no evidence that the psychological, social, or political forces that shape the hatred of an indigenous majority to a small minority owning what it perceives its own economic and political assets are the same as the hatred, envy and resentment people around the world feel towards the United States. One obvious difference is that the US does not own most of the world's assets, and that its share of world production is decreasing with the meteoric rise of India and China. The US's economic preeminence is declining - and yet anti-American feelings seem to be on the rise.
Even within countries, Chua's theory encounters some objections. If Market Dominating Minorities are such a conspicuous feature of most of the world's countries, why are they almost absent in Western history? The best candidate for such a minority in the West were Whites in the Jim Crow American South, and even that is an imperfect specimen. If we knew why the problem with dominant minorities seems to be absent in the West, perhaps we would know how to address is better in the rest of the world.
All of which leads us to the final objection to Chua's book - the lack of a solution. Chua spends a chapter on "The Future of Liberal Democracy", looking for ways outs. In the end, Chua offers two solutions: Prudence and Philanthropy. Prudence means that democracy and free markets should be introduced gradually, with adaptation to local conditions. Philanthropy, or rather PR, would be the attempt of the minorities to improve their image by contribution to society. I have to admit I'm skeptical of both.
I doubt angry majorities would be won over by the Philanthropy of the rich minorities, at least in the long term; It is bound to appear as the self interested activity that it is, and worse, as charity, and therefore condescending. The problem with Prudence, or governmental checks on popular democracy and free markets, seems to me to be one of vicious cycles - the kind of countries that could most benefit from effective activist government policies are the ones least likely to have them; Governments in third world war countries are notoriously corrupt and inefficient (In general, see William Easterly's book cited above and also his The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good; Edward Luce's In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India offers ample demonstration of incompetence in action in India).
Perhaps, and I say this very tentatively, the lesson we in the West should learn in humility. Western politicians, intellectuals, and general public obviously lack knowledge of the conditions world wide, nor do we posses the keys to economic growth and development. Perhaps we should leave experiments with the suitable government and economic structure of every land to its own people. One may call this approach cold hearted realism... or maybe the age old principle of Hippocrates: First, do no harm.
Excellent Book! March 3, 2008
Anyone who wants to understand the conflicts taking place in developing countries today and the American role in them should read this book.
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