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Truth conquers all
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Marxist or Marxist-inspired theories of history dominate American universities. These ideas quintessentially propose that economic differences between groups are caused by racism, sexism or classism in society. While that idea explains some history, some of the time, it does not come close to explaining history all the time.
It has been my experience that classes like sociology and literature uncritically enshrine these notions to the exclusion of other ideas. Worse yet, African-American, Chicano and women’s studies consistently based on these notions in such a way like the science of biology is based on cell theory. However, unlike cell theory, the “discrimination explains everything” theory is unproven.
Take for example, Indians in Uganda. According to the Times, during the 20th century Indian laborers built important railroads and frequently died from diseases and hungry lions. According to “World on Fire” by Amy Chua, they started out very poor and they suffered from white discrimination and animosity from Africans. Regardless, they soon began to outperform the native Africans in terms of economic output and ownership of wealth.
As far back as the Ottoman Empire, Jews have been the business and academic elite of most of the countries they occupied. It was not uncommon for the Sultan to have a number of prominent Jewish doctors for his royal medical staff. Jews were so widespread as customs officials that many of the Ottoman custom receipts were written in Hebrew. According to historian Bernard Lewis in his book, “Jews of Islam,” Jews did very well in private businesses as well.
As a group, Chinese ex-patriots have conspicuously succeeded economically. When they began to leave China and started setting up communities all across East Asia, they dominated the business community. According to the Tai Pei Times, in Malaysia, Chinese make up about a quarter of the populace but own about 40 percent of the county’s wealth. Malays who make up about 60 percent of the country only own 19 percent. The rest is held by foreigners or the Indian population.
“Given that ethnic Chinese dominate business life in just about every East Asian country except Japan and Korea – who have virtually no ethnic Chinese population – it would appear likely that some form of cultural tradition among the Chinese is at play here,” Stefan Carlson, an economist and contributor to the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, said.
This is where the Marxist or Marxist-inspired historians start tearing out their hair and howling for blood. Desperately they hunt like bloodhounds trying to find some kind of societal discrimination or bias on behalf of one race or another. In this case they can easily find one, the Malay government has established an extensive Affirmative Action program for the Malay majority since 1971.
The truth seems that there are some parts of some cultures that help advance economic and academic success better than other cultures. If you care to read a big long article that provides hefty evidence, check out Stanley Kurtz’s “Assimilation Studies.” Kurtz explains that Muslim Punjabis are poorer than Sikhs and Hindus Punjabis residing in London because of different behaviors. Namely, the behaviors concerning women and marriage.
When I have brought up the “culture matters” theory of history in polite company, I was called a racist. No small slight. To be compared to Bull O’Connor and Jim Crow stings. Kurtz recounts a similar situation in anthropology where the most scrupulous study of cultural differences are automatically called a form of racist imperialism and shunned.
This vilification is a bullying way of shutting off debate and ignoring contrary evidence. In spite of such intellectual vulgarity, people who notice the flaws in Marxist theory should seek out truth.
Until Marxist historians can produce scholarship that contradicts the “culture matters” explanations of group differences, we should continue to use it as a tool to examine the great story of humanity. Veritas Omnia Vincit.
DYLAN DUKE GINTZ
Arbiter Journalist
Well written.