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The purpose of this site is to try and get the world to start dealing with the interaction between culture and success in a mature and intelligent manner. Poll: Do you believe culture influences success? Yes 69.01% No 19.5% Uncertain 11.4% - Newest Articles - Per capita income figures for the countries and regions of the world. While rarely read this is Gandhi's most important written work. The traditional explanation for the noticeable differences in income across cultures was to say that they differed in their level of civilization. - Categories - - All Articles - Per capita income figures for the countries and regions of the world. While rarely read this is Gandhi's most important written work. The traditional explanation for the noticeable differences in income across cultures was to say that they differed in their level of civilization. This 1920 work by Roger Babson is a classic with in its genre. It promotes the traditional, pre-1960s explanation for the connection between success and culture. Current events in Zimbabwe are giving us an unprecedented opportunity to measure and judge the effect of white settlement and colonization in Africa. Average US Incomes by Race, Ethnicity and Religion. Max Weber's claim that Protestantism is more conducive to success than Catholicism and that Calvinism is in particular more successful is widely repeated and rarely examined. We need to recognize that culture is the personality of a group or race and we must see culture and having seen it, make it a work of art. The moral justification for welfare is supposed to be that we are temporarily helping out our fellow man through a rough stretch of road or helping the disabled permanently. If it is to become a system for continually transferring wealth from one group to another the people behind this change owe us an explanation. The great taboo of our age is not speaking about race, but speaking about culture. Bourgeoisie is more than just a term of abuse used by the Left, it refers to a real people who led real lives. Selections from the Federal Outlook Selections from a 1960's Rhodesian newspaper. How Africa Underdeveloped Africa Africa is the poorest place in the world. Why? Will Famine Come to Zimbabwe? The end of commercial farming in Zimbabwe could plunge the country into famine. The Tragedy of the Zimbabwe Commons Communally owned property always has and always will suffer from the 'tragedy of the commons' problem. Band Aid Africa recieves $15 billion a year in aid. Is it helping? Culture is to the group what personality is to the individual. Civilization is to the group what enlightenment is to the individual. All groups have cultures, but not all cultures are civilized. If all cultures were civilized than the term would have no descriptive quality. Civilization does have a descriptive quality and it is something worth achieving and defending. Per capita income figures for the countries and regions of the world. While rarely read this is Gandhi's most important written work. The traditional explanation for the noticeable differences in income across cultures was to say that they differed in their level of civilization. This 1920 work by Roger Babson is a classic with in its genre. It promotes the traditional, pre-1960s explanation for the connection between success and culture. Average US Incomes by Race, Ethnicity and Religion. We need to recognize that culture is the personality of a group or race and we must see culture and having seen it, make it a work of art. The moral justification for welfare is supposed to be that we are temporarily helping out our fellow man through a rough stretch of road or helping the disabled permanently. If it is to become a system for continually transferring wealth from one group to another the people behind this change owe us an explanation. The great taboo of our age is not speaking about race, but speaking about culture. |
(4/8/01) The historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote, "The development of personality is essentially involved in the recognition of it in oneself and others." This comment was made in his "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy." Considered one of the great works of history it lays out his belief that the Renaissance was the time when man fully discovered himself, and came to see and develop himself as an individual. Burckhardt felt that, "To the discovery of the outward world the Renaissance added a still greater achievement, by first discerning and bringing to light the full whole nature of man. This period, as we have seen, first gave the highest development to individuality, and then led the individual to the most zealous and thorough study of himself in all forms and under all conditions."
This quote and Burckhardt's vision of a Renaissance where the personality was observed and perfected as a work of art, as one's own creation, has always stayed with me. What strikes me the most is his linking of development and recognition: the way to see inevitably becomes the desire to improve. Observing that we are malleable individuals with the freedom to think, feel, and act Burckhardt's Renaissance men take it upon themselves to make all human acts an art and oneself a work in progress, an attempted masterpiece.
This recognition of oneself as an individual and the subsequent and inevitable desire to improve oneself is part of our history, but it's a history which doesn't stop and which is not limited to individualism or Renaissance aesthetics. However, the connection between recognition and development, observation and the desire to improve and perfect, is permanent and unchanging. We must see a thing, we must recognize it's existence. This is the first step and this is the step which makes all further actions inevitable. We must not be blind, the scales must fall from our eyes, and we must see the world we live in. Instead of simply continuing with an individualism which has given us all it can give, I say we must recognize history itself and perfect history, and make this a work of art.
We are not Renaissance men and their achievements have already been made and can only be mimicked, not matched. Our own achievement has to be a further falling away of the scales, an increase in man's ability to recognize himself and the world around him. What we need to recognize is that culture is the personality of a group or race and we must see culture and having seen it, make it a work of art.
The reality we live in shouts and screams at us insisting that culture is the dominant factor determining how much success or failure a group or race will have. The scales before our eyes are there of our own choosing, we refuse to recognize what is right before us. The cultural basis of success is the unspoken subtext of almost every political dispute or intellectual argument today. We are currently a world of cowards, sniping at the edges of our problems, never having the courage to stand up and speak clearly about the world we live in. We all know that cultures are not equally successful: we are all equally successful in avoiding the subject. It must be this generation's duty to end this willful blindness and recognize culture and relation to success. We must recognize culture in ourselves and others, and then we must perfect it and be our better selves.
I have thought long and hard on this, and for personal reasons I believe I have thought longer and harder than others. What must be done now, in this time, and in this place is to recognize the extent to which culture determines wealth and success and then be the ones who take the inevitable next step of assuming the burden of improvement. A great man once said that America was created by God as a place where every race would come together so we would learn how to live in peace and then share that knowledge with all the world. I believe in that vision with all my heart. We are Americans, and it is our duty and our fate to learn how to live together and to create the ideas which will bring peace and happiness to this world. This cannot be done without dealing with what is claimed to be the root of all evil: wealth. We cannot learn together without the scales falling from our eyes, without admitting that it is malleable personality which most determines success for the individual and malleable culture which most determines it for the group.
To take up this burden is to be surrounded by so much ugliness. There is a hard and ugly edge to so much of what is involved with saying some cultures are better at succeeding than others. The inevitable attacks on anyone who speaks this truth are hideous in nature. Yet it is the very ugliness of falsehood which is its doom. If we speak openly of the subject, if we recognize the truth, the distinction between what is right and what is wrong will be as clear as the difference between a rose and a weed.
We absolutely have to say that culture is what determines group success and we must say it directly and forcefully. In this time and in this place that means saying Black culture, and African culture in general is not as good at succeeding as white or European culture. It must be stated in these terms because these are the terms of the public debate and white and Black have become the symbols used in the debate to represent the successful and the unsuccessful.
It should not be pleasant to say these things. The correct reaction to this unpleasantness, to this ugliness, is to want to change the things that make it necessary to say those things. To recognize, to see is the first step which makes improving inevitable. We must recognize that Black culture is not as good at making money as white culture. This is either the first step or the only step because the development of culture is essentially the recognition of it in oneself and others.
I don't have to convince anyone that cultures vary in their ability to succeed. I have to convince you that talking about it openly is the best way to improve all cultures and all the world. The achievements of past ages are finished, what is permanent is that each new advance requires a new recognition, a further falling away of the scales. We simply have no other choice but to speak openly of these things. We must not be afraid, it is only our destiny and we cannot avoid it.
The Twentieth Century gave the impression of being a struggle between ideologies which has now been won. The last 100 years gives the impression of democracy having defeated Nazism and Communism. It would be easy to say that the debate between believing that culture determines success and believing that all cultures are equally successful will replace the struggle with Communism as the pivot of world history. I feel these things go deeper than that and I think a more conclusive and far reaching victory needs to be won. Communism is obviously based on the idea that success comes from power and that those who have wealth did not gain it through merit. That the debate over culture is simply an extension of the debate between Capitalism and Communism should be obvious. Simply replacing white with bourgeois and Black with proletarian makes today's dominant ideas indistinguishable from Communism. What is less clear is the connection between the struggle over culture and Nazism. I hope this quote from Nahum Goldmann makes it more clear:
"The economic position of the German Jew compared to the Jews in other countries, including America, was unequaled. Jews were represented on the boards of the big banks- something that had been unparalleled elsewhere- and they had also made their way into industry. They controlled a significant proportion of wholesale trade and even participated in branches of the economy like shipping or the electrical industry: they played a leading role, as names such as Ballin or Rathenau prove. I know of no emancipated Jewish population, in Europe or America, as firmly rooted in the general economy of its country as that of Germany was. Contemporary American Jews are richer, both absolutely and relatively, but even in America, with its unlimited opportunities, they have never succeeded in penetrating the central core of the economy-heavy industry, high finance, shipping, and railroads-as they did to a high degree in Germany. Their position in the intellectual life of the country was almost unique too. Brilliant names represented them in literature. The theater was, to a considerable extent, in their hands. The daily press, especially the sector of it that had international influence, was substantially Jewish-Owned or edited. I would confidently assert, paradoxical as this may sound after the Hitler period, that no other branch of the Jewish people was able to make such use of the opportunities offered by nineteenth century emancipation. The history of the Jews in Germany from 1870 to 1930 represents the most spectacular rise any branch of Jewry has ever achieved."
I hope that quote makes clear that what we are dealing with is one single debate and I hope this quote makes clear the consequences of this debate. Be not deceived: it is not three struggles against Nazism, Communism and now Liberalism, it is one struggle against those who say man cannot improve himself through the power of his will. All three philosophies deny that the successful deserve their success. In the end they are one argument in three forms. Today's Liberalism is merely a strategic retreat by those who deny the malleability of our fates and our own ability to choose. America has succeeded against the first two forms, it is now our duty to win a conclusive victory against the entire idea that the successful should be ashamed, and ultimately punished for their success.
We must pick up this burden. We must begin to recognize that the individual and the group can make choices which create greater or lesser success than choices made by other individuals or other groups. We must confront those who insist that above average success in inherently immoral and only gotten through treachery. Victory is assured, if the battle is only begun.
The two choices are clear: either we believe that man has a divinely given free will and can choose to better himself, or we believe we are mechanical creatures lacking the ability rise above, destined to be both eternally equal and eternally static. By eternally equal I mean we will always be equal to each other in the sense that one rock is always equal to another rock. While all men's souls are equally loved by God all men's actions are not equally loved due to free will. Man's will can not be truly free if we are not free to make choices which are truly better or worse than other choices. We have been given life not to end where we start, but to have the opportunity to advance and the opportunity to fall back. Free will makes an eternally static world impossible. We will either advance or decline.
To move forward is to choose that this world will be it's better self, that it will be the world it should be. We must make the right choice, we must admit that the successful are so due to culture and we must deny the contrary view that they are successful due to treachery. In America this inevitably becomes a conflict with the dominating and controlling view, that all cultures are equal and it is only due to treachery and conspiracy that some succeed. This view divides America and the world into two groups. Whether the two groups are called Western and Third World, Industrialized and Underdeveloped or white and colored it is always the same idea and philosophy. This dualism insists that there are only two groups and one has come to enjoy greater wealth through treachery. This view cannot accommodate third and fourth groups, it is inherently dualistic and to change that is to destroy the model.
The dominating ideology directly states that whites are the richest people in the world and that they do not deserve this wealth, but have acquired it through treachery. This ideology cannot tolerate or withstand the idea that there are groups who are wealthier than whites. To state this is to break the model. This model must be broken. The facts which contradict the dominating and controlling ideology must be stated and the facts which demonstrate that culture is the force determining success must no longer be hidden. We must see the world around us. We must recognize culture and then improve it.
Table 1 Difference From Average +55% +27% +18% +13% +7% +6% +4% +1% +1% -2% -5% Scotch-Irish
-6% -7% -29% -32% -36% -38%
When the only facts allowed to be spoken are those which support the dominant ideology then the success of that ideology is assured. To speak any fact which does not support the dominating and controlling ideas is to become the enemy of those who benefit from those ideas. Because of the powerful forces arrayed against those who would speak the truth the fact that whites are not the richest Americans goes unspoken. Our world is dominated by a false vision of whites being the wealthiest and all others the unfortunate victims of white treachery. The reality is that whites are merely the third richest Americans and that no two white ethnic groups make the same amount and at least four white ethnic groups are of below average wealth.
Jews are 2.4% of America and Asians are usually estimated at 3%. These are the two richest races in America. They are tiny minorities living in a country which is 70% white. The only explanations for their above average success is that their cultures are this much better at succeeding or they are engaged in a secret conspiracy to defraud those around them. It is not possible that such small minorities are more powerful than the 70% of America which is white and are dominating them through force. Other than culture the only explanation would be a secret conspiracy. However a secret conspiracy could easily be defeated by a quota system. The Soviet Union had a quota system restricting Jewish representation in top positions to their proportion within the population. The 70% of America which is white could easily enforce such a system and defend themselves from even the most clever secret conspiracy. And yet, there are no such quotas. Well, there are anti-Asian quotas in the educational system, but these are the idea of the educational elite which insists it is the enemy of white domination, not the enforcer of such. This educational elite insists it is at odds with white America and white America agrees. Polls show the overwhelming majority of all whites want colorblind admissions and they have voted for this when given the chance to.
Other than one small exception instigated by a small group of extremists controlling education white America makes no collective effort to stop Jews and Asians from enjoying greater wealth. This is despite much collective effort on the part of Jews and Asians to stop whites from enjoying wealth greater than the national average, yet lower than their own wealth. It is simply not believable that Jewish and Asian wealth is not earned, but instead stolen. To simply state that tiny minorities such as Jews and Asians have such wealth is to state that their cultures are better at succeeding. The other possibilities are absurd and easily disproved. It is because stating that Jews and Asians are richer is equal to saying that all cultures are not equally good at succeeding that stating these things is taboo. The truth must not be spoken lest the ugliness of our naked Emperor be revealed. Any mention of this greater wealth is met with the fury one would expect of a dominating ideology threatened with extinction. To simply state the facts of the world we live in is to destroy the justification for the domination by the elite. Today's ideology states that all cultures are equally successful and that whites are the richest due to power. The fact that whites are merely the third richest race in this country disproves that. This is why what would otherwise be statistical trivia is instead forbidden knowledge, and the knower subject to attack by the elite.
I only know of two criticisms of the idea that Jews and Asians are richer due to their culture which concede that they possess greater wealth. One is that Jews have a much higher average age than non-Jews and are only wealthier due to the old being wealthier than the young. First of all, this only serves to perpetuate the stereotype that all Jews are really, really old. Secondly, over 25% of the Ivy League is Jewish and they are only competing against others of the same age for admission. This is more than 1,000% overrepresentation. It is hard to believe that Jewish wealth is only the result of Jews being really, really old when the supposedly scarce young Jew is having success similar to the success of the Jewish population as a whole.
The other criticism is that Asians are immigrants and only the motivated and able immigrate. One refutation of this is that Hispanics are immigrants and are not showing the benefit of this effect. Another is that by this logic Blacks and Native Americans would deserve to be the poorest, as they are the only ones who are not voluntary immigrants. No Liberal would accept this argument, yet many claim benefits to an immigrant background which make this conclusion inevitable. The clearest refutation of the immigrant advantage idea is the fact that the Asian countries the immigrants come from show no sign of having lost their best and brightest and these countries have well above average levels of success despite being entirely native born.
In addition to showing that whites are only the third richest Americans these figures show that if whites have a conspiracy to defraud the rest of the county it is remarkably unorganized. No two white ethnic groups make the same amount. If the entire race was engaged in conspiracy one would expect a better planned and executed conspiracy where all whites enjoyed the fruits of their treachery to an equal extent. Instead several white groups have below average incomes. If a conspiracy exists, why haven't the Scotch-Irish bolted and joined the Jews? Why aren't the Scandinavians in secret talks with the Asians? And who said the Irish could be in charge of everything? It's a good thing Max Weber isn't alive to see this, because the richest whites are Catholic.
No group in America has had more advantages than the English-Americans. No group has had more power, influence and position in American life. No group has had such an untroubled and happy 200 years, free from the hardships that so many others have had to endure. The English-Americans have the advantage of being the model for Americaness itself. We all know that the people in a Norman Rockwell painting are English-Americans, and George and Mary Bailey were of the American chosen people as well. The list of official English-American advantages is long and longer than anyone else's, including mine. What have they gotten from it? A measly 6% more than average. Even the Italians are doing better.
The diversity in white incomes creates many problems for the dominant ideology. The gap between the poorest white group and the richest is almost as large as the gap between Blacks and the national average. One problem is, how much do whites make? If a Black or Hispanic wants to make as much as a white person, we have to ask, 'Which white people?' Do you want to make 7% less than average, like a Scandinavian? Or are you greedy and want to make 13% more like the French? There is the important question of why a Black or Hispanic would choose to have white wealth in the first place. Why not ask to be as rich as the Jews and Asians? Why are Liberal political demands based on giving minorities wealth equal to whites, why not equal to the Jews? Reality makes the political demands of Liberalism absurd. By recognizing reality we can finally make this absurdity apparent.
One might say that Blacks and Hispanics deserve to be as wealthy as the average of all whites. This is as absurd as saying they should be as rich as the Czechs. The ethnic mix of white America is due to the vagaries of history. When the potatoes went bad 2 million Irish came to this country in 10 years. If the potatoes had not gone bad they would have stayed home and been happy. That means the average white income in America would be different. So if we say that the average income of all whites is the right amount for Blacks and Hispanics to make then we are saying that if the potatoes had not gone bad it would the wrong amount. This is absurd, but this is also Liberalism.
A liberal might say that Blacks and Hispanics should make the national average, because no one should be below average. If no one is below average than no one can be above average. To do away with below average groups is to do away with above average groups. Are the liberals going to tell Jews and Asians that they have to stop making more money? Are we going to say the same things about Jews that Hitler said? The equality liberals seek can only be achieved if there are no above average groups. This does not present a problem if you believe that all cultures are equally good at succeeding and whites have become wealthier through treachery. When one actually looks at the world as it is liberal goals become absurd.
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World Wide Average White Income of $18,266 |
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More Africans have moved to America of their own free will than were brought here as slaves. There are only estimates of how many slaves were brought here and the usual estimate is 550,000. That is less than the total number of legal immigrants from Africa on record with the INS. The usual estimate of the African slave trade is 25 million. Of those 14 million were taken by the Arabs and 11 million by Europeans. Only 5% of the latter are estimated to have been brought to the U.S.. This does not mean that most Blacks in America are descended from voluntary immigrants. The Africans brought here as slaves have been here for 400 years and have grown to be the overwhelming majority of the 30 million African-Americans in this country. It's still worth noting that almost 3 times as many Blacks from Africa, Haiti and Jamaica have voluntarily moved to this country as were forced to come from Africa. In addition most of the 2,581,141 legal immigrants from the Spanish speaking Caribbean are of African descent. These numbers do not include Puerto Ricans who are not classified as immigrants. I state these facts to make the point that the descendants of the slaves are better off for being here and would likely be trying to come here if they were in Africa instead. One thing is for certain: they are not trying to move back.
If life for Black people was worse here than many would leave to go someplace better. If the cause of their misery was the white race they would move where there are no whites. If whites were making Black life better, many would move to where there are whites. It is the latter which is happening. African-Americans do not need to travel halfway around the world to be in an all black country. Jamaica is not that far away. Moving to Jamaica would not be all that greater a distance than moving from Boston to Los Angeles, and yet that journey is not made. Black emigrants would not need to learn a new language. Many of the largest and most prosperous countries in Africa count English as an official language. The burden of assimilating into a new culture cannot be an excuse. The culture of the other 88% of America is supposed to be more different from African-American culture than the culture of Africa. If this is not the case then Blacks should start calling themselves American-Americans.
The only reason left to not emigrate is that Black folk have deep roots here after 400 years. Do you know how long African-Africans have been in Africa? Their roots go back to forever. Yet 613,727 have moved here and only God knows how many more want to. The deep roots theory doesn't work when so many people with roots as deep or deeper want to move to where African-Americans already are yet complain about being. I know it's painful to admit your life was improved through the violation of your ancestors. This pain does not justify denying the improvement exists.
The real reason so many Black people want to come here and the ones already here want to stay is that this is one of the best places to live. One of the ways this can be measured is by income. It is fair to judge the goodness of Black people's lives here by income. It is fair because they themselves claim to prove the badness of their lives by pointing to income, specifically the fact that it is 32% less than white income. If income can be used to prove frustration it can also be used to prove satisfaction.
A Black man in America makes over 14 times more than the $1,450 that the average African makes. This average includes South Africa, the richest country in the history of the African continent. The average income for the 93% of the sub-Saharan African population outside of SA is $964. That's before taxes. In Zimbabwe you start paying taxes at $436 a year. If African-Americans were not descended from slaves they would most likely be making about $964, before taxes. This is why the Africans who are not descended from slaves want to move here and join those who were.
The story is the same for Hispanics. All Americans know than when an African-American says he hates America and is only here because of slavery there is always a chance that he is telling the truth. It's somewhat different when Mexican people walk across the desert to get here and then insists that they hate being in the place they worked so hard to get to. The reality is that Hispanics are here because they want to be here. Again, one measure of this is income. An American making the minimum wage makes more money than the average person in Mexico. American minimum wage is more than the average person in Latin America makes and almost more than the average person makes in Argentina, the richest country in Latin America.
The average Mexican-American makes 2.5 times what the average Mexican makes. This is not a sacrifice. Moving to America was not an act of charity on the part of the 5,819,966 Mexicans who moved here legally. There are an additional 2,700,000 Mexicans here illegally and 5,000,000 million illegals total and most of these are Hispanic. They are not coming here because they hate being here. They are coming to live in a society which gives them a better life than their own societies give them.
The essential reason Blacks and Hispanics can make more money in America than living in Africa or Latin America is that the culture of the white American majority creates opportunities for non-whites. Whites do not deny non-whites opportunity, they create opportunity for them. Asian-Americans make more than ten times the average for East Asia and the Pacific. Asian-American income is 40% higher than even the income of the richest Asian country, Singapore. Jewish-Americans make more than twice what Israeli's make. Whites make 61% more than West Europeans and this is the smallest difference in income from place of origin for any race in America. The advantage of living in America instead of one's place of ethnic origin is unequal and whites receive the smallest advantage of all. All the non-whites in America have greater wealth because of the opportunities created by the white majority. The strongest possible evidence that America gives non-whites greater opportunity than they would otherwise have is their enormous desire to immigrate here.
Despite the strongest evidence possible for the idea that America is good for minorities the dominating ideology insists that America is the worst place for minorities and we have to give greater power to those who promise to remedy the issue and compensation for the victims. The most common form of compensation asked for are quotas which would force Blacks and Hispanics to have the same incomes as whites. There is also the belief that Blacks should be given direct payments as reparations for what was done to people they never met before they were ever born. The most common number demanded is around $50,000. This figure is intended to compensate Blacks for being here due to slavery instead of in Africa. This is a very interesting concept. The average Black person in America makes over $18,000 a year more than the average person in Africa. Every 3 years the average African-American makes more money because of being descended from slaves than what many of them are asking for as compensation. If an African-American works from the ages of 21 to 65 they will make $816,200 more than what they would have made in Africa. There is no reason to give people $50,000 to compensate them for making $816,000.
Of course, the argument made by liberals is not that African-Americans and Hispanics-Americans have to be compensated for making more than Africans and Hispanics, but for making less than whites. That would be 32% less for Blacks and around 36% less for Hispanics. The liberal argument is very clear. All people should make the same amount of money. All groups are equally productive and all groups should get the same results. Since Blacks and Hispanics get inferior results, they deserve compensation for past inferior results and quotas to prevent future inferior results. Like all liberal arguments, it makes perfect sense and cannot be contradicted if the image of reality liberals present is true. Specifically, if the liberal view that all cultures are equally good at succeeding and whites are undeservedly the wealthiest is true than all liberal ideas are true. If not then all liberal ideas are false.
This liberal view of the world is an imaginary one. It is important to state the contradictory facts for all the basic positions of liberalism. It is therefore important to point out the facts which contradict the arguments for affirmative action and all other forms of compensation for having lower incomes than whites and specifically the idea that there is a cosmic justice in making the same income as the national average. Any argument which could be made for all races within a country making the same income could be applied equally to all countries making the same income. There is no logical distinction between mandating that groups within a country make the same and mandating that all countries have equal wealth. Either both are true or neither are true.
If it is wrong for Blacks to make 32% less because it is impossible for their culture to be worse at succeeding than it is wrong for Blacks to make over 3 times what the average human being makes worldwide. If all cultures are equally successful than we should all be making the world average of $6,490. All American minorities make more than the average person worldwide. African-Americans make more money than 88% of the people in this world. This is as justified or as unjustified as German-Americans making 1% more than the average American. If liberals want equality than we must have true equality. If Italian-Americans have to give up the 7% extra they make than Jews and Asians have to give up their above average wealth. If the American races which are above average have to give up their wealth than America must give up it's national wealth, and we must all get by on $6,490 a year. You go first.
A liberal might reply that the imbalances in national wealth are simply the result of a worldwide racial imbalance. They might argue that the reason Mexico is poor as a country is because of the same racial prejudice which makes Mexican-Americans poor as a race. Liberals are likely to say that affirmative action and other forms of compensation here in America are simply the first step in a world wide compensation of the victimized races. This argument does not work any better than any other liberal argument. The average white person world wide only makes $18,266. Every race in America is already richer than the average white person. Blacks make 14% more than the average white person. Mexicans make 7% more. The poorest race in America are the Puerto Ricans. They make 4% more than the average white person. Even the poorest race in America would have to give money to white people under a consistently applied system of world wide racial balancing. Affirmative action in America can not be the first step in a world wide remedying of racial imbalances because African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans already make more money than the white race.
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| Argentina |
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We are supposed to be here for a reason and that reason is supposed to be larger than ourselves. Our lives are meant to be lived for something more than our own selfish gain, we are supposed to be trying to build a better world for all. This is not being done. Historical progress is almost completely limited to West European and East Asian Culture. These are the only cultures which have some sort of upward trajectory and experience change and growth and participate in the type of self and group improvement which is the only real history. These two groups are the only two groups which are on a journey. They are the seekers.
The other cultures of the world are not seekers. These cultures are static. They adapt to the modern world only to the extent that they try to avoid real change and take the necessary measures to avoid truly being part of history. The other cultures of the world do not believe that culture can be changed and made better at succeeding. They do not recognize the malleability of man. They do not recognize that there is such a thing as Civilization and that there is such a thing as History. The majority of this world is static and has no desire to advance and make their culture a work of art, an attempted masterpiece.
The counter argument is that the other cultures believe in advancement, but in an advancement which does not focus on material greed. This is nonsense. No one is more greedy than the Third World. No one is more money grubby or more obsessed with having the shiniest car, the shiniest clothes, the shiniest hat. The unsuccessful are more drawn to the material symbols of success than the successful The worn out argument that the less successful are merely less materialistic is dispelled at the first meeting of these supposed ascetics. The entire political discourse of the Third World consists of how to get more of the First World's money. This is not a voluntary asceticism. This is an overall failure of attempted expropriation with scattered patches of successful expropriation. It is not and never was a rejection of Western or Eastern materialism. The only thing rejected are the ideas which would achieve the wealth sought.
This world is filled with unnecessary poverty and unnecessary failure. It need not be. There is no reason the poor countries could not equal and surpass those currently wealthy if they chose to accept that success or failure are of their own doing. The most jealously hoarded commodity in this world is the one which cannot be diminished by sharing: the truth. Those of successful West European and East Asian background have not chosen to share their knowledge that man and culture are mutable and that we can all change and end hardship and deprivation. This knowledge is not shared, rather it is kept secret from the rest of the world.
The result of this world's refusal to recognize culture and it's effect on wealth is the backwardness and poverty of the rest of the world which is not from the two cultural groups independently formed at the ends of the earth. The rest of the world is not untouched by the physical realities of civilization, there are cars and computers everywhere. It is untouched by the historical changes W. European and E. Asian culture have undergone. The extent to which the rest of the world is untouched by cultural and philosophical change is masked and hidden due to the migration of W. Europeans and E. Asians to every single country on Earth. This migration creates wealth and economic activity across the globe and gives the impression of worldwide industry and the false belief that the whole world is on an upward trajectory. It is important to unmask this belief so we can all recognize that cultural change has not spread beyond these two successful groups.
With the possible exception of Haiti, which is the poorest country in the western hemisphere every country in this hemisphere is at least 1% white. The correlation(r squared) between per capita GNP and the percentage of the population which is white for Latin America is 58%. If you do not include Mexico is goes up to 71%. According to the latter relationship Mexico should have a per capita GNP of $3,380, but it is instead the third richest Latin American country and has a per capita GNP of $7,719. Mexicans have saying which goes "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so near the U.S." I agree Mexico could stand to come closer to God, but nearness to the U.S. is clearly helping that country. I believe the 71% correlation is closer to the true relationship and Mexico defies the general trend due to the advantage of neighboring the U.S.(Some Latin American countries were not used because of the unavailability of data on the size of the white population or because they are not independent or because they are under communism, which ruins an economy in a way unrelated to larger trends).
Most of Latin American countries became independent between 1808 and 1826 and have had similar histories since then. The whites living in these countries are mostly from the Iberian peninsula and thus similar. These countries serve as the closest thing possible in this world to a controlled experiment on the connection between culture and wealth. An examination of the relevant statistics will show most of the economic activity in Latin America is due to W. European migration. The point of this is that if it were not for this migration these countries would endure even greater hardship because the cultures of the other residents have not experienced internal change, only responses to external changes. The Western Hemisphere is a huge piece of land and most of the economic activity there is due to migration, not to the native populations or the Africans brought during slavery.
The impact of migration is also seen in Africa. The countries of Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana were once part of what was known as the 'White South' or the 'Settler South'. The mean per capita GNP for these countries is $5,464. The mean for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa is less than a thousand dollars a year. The correlation between the size of the white population and per capita GNP for these countries is 70%. South Africa alone accounts for over 40% of sub-Saharan Africa's entire economic activity. The presence of whites in the old Settler South gives the false impression of greater economic activity among the original inhabitants than there truly is.
Most Americans have never heard of the phrase 'East Asian' and if they have they assume it is a purely geographic term. This needs to change. The broad term 'Asian' causes errors in judgment and obscures the truth. We need to see things for what they are and we need to see the real causes of Asian economic success for what they are. The three E. Asian cultures are: China, Japan and Korea. All three share a similar foundation and are greatly influenced by the golden age which produced Kung-Fu-Tzu(Confucius) in the 5th. Century BC. It is interesting to note that Socrates, Aristotle, Buddha, Zoroaster, Kung-Fu-Tzu and Lao Tzu all lived during or very close to the 5th Century BC. Philosophy has made little progress since.
The economic success of the Asian region is described as a miracle. The previous rise of Europe and America is never described as such. A miracle is any good thing which we cannot understand. The establishment cannot understand E. Asian success because it refuses to accept that culture determines success. Economic success by Western Europeans is never called a miracle by the establishment, it is only called a crime.
As with the Western Hemisphere there is economic activity across Asia and the region has produced impressive growth. Like the Western Hemisphere, this growth and activity is uneven. There are tremendous discrepancies behind the overall growth. The reality is that only the three E. Asian cultures are truly succeeding and are behind all the economic success. This reality is hidden by the fact that one E. Asian culture, that of China, exists in every Asian country. There are probably people of Chinese descent in the majority of the countries in the world. Within Asia there are four countries which are almost entirely Chinese: Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China.
It is the Chinese who bring economic activity to the non E. Asian countries of Asia. It is their efforts and their culture which creates the growth. The correlation between the size of the Chinese population and per capita GNP for: Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia is 98%. For the last 3 countries the rest of the population is Malay and the comparison more clear. These countries vary in natural resources, however the one with the most is Indonesia and that is the poorest. Outside of countries which are entirely E. Asian economic activity is proportional to the size of the Chinese population. I know of no statistics breaking down the level of economic activity in Vietnam between North and South, but observers always state that almost all economic activity in that country occurs in the South, which is where almost all the Chinese residents are.
The success of Chinese emigrants is not a new phenomena. The Chinese have been migrating throughout Asia and having great success in their new homes for centuries. This has some times been ill received by the local populations. When the King of Siam said, "The Chinese are the Jews of the East," he did not mean the Chinese killed Buddha. He meant that they were richer than others and came to this great wealth unfairly. While the American establishment views Chinese success as a "miracle," the rest of Asia has often had a differing opinion.
What is important about this is that we live in a world where cultural change and real participation in history, as contrasted to merely being affected by history, has been restricted to two cultural groups. The migration of these two groups to every single country in the world has brought increased economic activity to every part of the world. It has also given the false impression of greater activity and success among the other cultural groupings than truly exists. The world constantly laments the poverty of so much of the world, but this poverty is even worse than what we are told. It is also easier to solve than the establishment would have us believe. It would not be difficult to create other "miracles" to go with the E. Asian "miracle." All we have to do is try.
References for Data | PDF File of World Bank GNP Figures | PDF File of INS Immigration Figures
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