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Keidi Awadu explains the critical importance of literacy and how we can use books such as Joel Kotkin's 'Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy' as basis for our individual and collective growth throughout the African Diaspora.
Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy. - book reviews
Joel Kotkin's Tribes - a book about people ready for the 21st Century claims that only Jews, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and British are ready. These groups have some commonalities which include (1) strong sense of identity, (2) international network, and (3) a passion for technology.
Occasionally a book comes along that is so fresh, so brilliant and so convincingly argued that it changes one's way of looking at the world. Joel Kotkin's Tribes: How Race, Religion and Family Determine Success in the New Global Economy (Random House) is that kind of book.
Kotkin, a fellow at the Center for the New West in Denver, has produced a book that will make the high priests of political correctness and quota politics throw up their hands in horror.
Kotkin argues that one of the most important generators of economic growth in the world is the activity of a small number of highly educated 'global tribes' -- the Jews, the Japanese, the offshore Chinese, the offshore Indians and others -- who have strong ethnic, cultural and usually religious identities.
Their cultural values teach them pragmatism, economic adaptability and readiness to move from country to country, even from continent to continent, in search of economic opportunity. They are, Kotkin argues, the yeast in the bread of the global economy, the catalyst peoples who make the chemistry of economic success work. And their importance in the new global economy, with its emphasis on high-tech information flow, is greater than ever.
This kind of talk is political dynamite. Historically, liberals have avoided such arguments for fear of appearing racist. Conservatives are content to argue that such minority groups be given a chance to contribute in society. Both sides tend to share silently the comfortable assumption that the American melting pot both can and should absorb such groups after a couple of generations or so
Such minority groups, often traumatized by repeated persecutions precisely because of their economic achievements, also have tried to deny their own separateness. Many such groups hold to what Jewish scholar Reuben Kimmelman calls the equation that invisibility equals safety: The more visibility in a society that an individual and his relatives receive, the more likely he will be targeted for a pogrom.
Kotkin turns all these assumptions on their head. The secret of the success of these groups, he says, is in their distinctiveness. The clannishness they are often accused of really exists and is an essential ingredient of their success. Far from condemning such characteristics, we should welcome them. Societies as a whole can flourish only when they succeed in attracting such groups.
Some of Kotkin's choices as tribes will surprise his readers. The most Powerful and successful international tribe of all, he convincingly argues, is the British. Far from shriveling into obscurity with the decline and fall of their empire, the British mercantile classes have exhibited a renewed vitality since being freed of their burden.
This has been the case especially since Margaret Thatcher took power as prime minister in 1979. During the 11 years of her premiership, British overseas investment soared to levels not seen since 1914.
Britain is now the biggest foreign investor in the United States, far outstripping its two nearest rivals, the Netherlands and Japan. The British and their North American offspring continue to control by far the largest accumulation of foreign investment and most of the largest corporations in the world, Kotkin says.
Kotkin's recipe for success and prosperity for the United States -- indeed, for any nation -- is to create the conditions for a 'global metropolis' such as New York or London, where the major trade of the world is concentrated. In such places, tribes can enjoy the economic freedom to create wealth, a tolerant, pluralistic culture, and public polity to maintain their traditions.
In one of his most fascinating chapters, Kotkin targets the up-and-coming global tribes of economic overachievers, and his picks are fascinating: the Armenians, the overseas Palestinians and the Mormons, whom he follows literary critic Harold Bloom in tapping as most likely to constitute the next world religion.
There are frustrating gaps in this book, however. While the economic tribes of the Northern Hemisphere receive comprehensive treatment, Latin America and Africa are virtually ignored. One would have liked some discussion of the impact on South America of the flight of capital from Argentina, or of the role of the Ibo, often called the 'Jews of West Africa' -- a classic tribe of persecuted economic overachievers if ever there was one.
But you can't have everything. Tribes is essential to understanding the kind of values that really make our global economy work. Entertaining and wise, it
distills many of the achiever cultures' hard-learned lessons for success.
Martin Sieff is a reporter for the foreign desk of the Washington Times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_pivKLTVGo
Joel Kotkin's Tribes - a book about people ready for the 21st Century claims that only Jews, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and British are ready. These groups have some commonalities which include (1) strong sense of identity, (2) international network, and (3) a passion for technology.
Occasionally a book comes along that is so fresh, so brilliant and so convincingly argued that it changes one's way of looking at the world. Joel Kotkin's Tribes: How Race, Religion and Family Determine Success in the New Global Economy (Random House) is that kind of book.
Kotkin, a fellow at the Center for the New West in Denver, has produced a book that will make the high priests of political correctness and quota politics throw up their hands in horror.
Kotkin argues that one of the most important generators of economic growth in the world is the activity of a small number of highly educated 'global tribes' -- the Jews, the Japanese, the offshore Chinese, the offshore Indians and others -- who have strong ethnic, cultural and usually religious identities.
Their cultural values teach them pragmatism, economic adaptability and readiness to move from country to country, even from continent to continent, in search of economic opportunity. They are, Kotkin argues, the yeast in the bread of the global economy, the catalyst peoples who make the chemistry of economic success work. And their importance in the new global economy, with its emphasis on high-tech information flow, is greater than ever.
This kind of talk is political dynamite. Historically, liberals have avoided such arguments for fear of appearing racist. Conservatives are content to argue that such minority groups be given a chance to contribute in society. Both sides tend to share silently the comfortable assumption that the American melting pot both can and should absorb such groups after a couple of generations or so
Such minority groups, often traumatized by repeated persecutions precisely because of their economic achievements, also have tried to deny their own separateness. Many such groups hold to what Jewish scholar Reuben Kimmelman calls the equation that invisibility equals safety: The more visibility in a society that an individual and his relatives receive, the more likely he will be targeted for a pogrom.
Kotkin turns all these assumptions on their head. The secret of the success of these groups, he says, is in their distinctiveness. The clannishness they are often accused of really exists and is an essential ingredient of their success. Far from condemning such characteristics, we should welcome them. Societies as a whole can flourish only when they succeed in attracting such groups.
Some of Kotkin's choices as tribes will surprise his readers. The most Powerful and successful international tribe of all, he convincingly argues, is the British. Far from shriveling into obscurity with the decline and fall of their empire, the British mercantile classes have exhibited a renewed vitality since being freed of their burden.
This has been the case especially since Margaret Thatcher took power as prime minister in 1979. During the 11 years of her premiership, British overseas investment soared to levels not seen since 1914.
Britain is now the biggest foreign investor in the United States, far outstripping its two nearest rivals, the Netherlands and Japan. The British and their North American offspring continue to control by far the largest accumulation of foreign investment and most of the largest corporations in the world, Kotkin says.
Kotkin's recipe for success and prosperity for the United States -- indeed, for any nation -- is to create the conditions for a 'global metropolis' such as New York or London, where the major trade of the world is concentrated. In such places, tribes can enjoy the economic freedom to create wealth, a tolerant, pluralistic culture, and public polity to maintain their traditions.
In one of his most fascinating chapters, Kotkin targets the up-and-coming global tribes of economic overachievers, and his picks are fascinating: the Armenians, the overseas Palestinians and the Mormons, whom he follows literary critic Harold Bloom in tapping as most likely to constitute the next world religion.
There are frustrating gaps in this book, however. While the economic tribes of the Northern Hemisphere receive comprehensive treatment, Latin America and Africa are virtually ignored. One would have liked some discussion of the impact on South America of the flight of capital from Argentina, or of the role of the Ibo, often called the 'Jews of West Africa' -- a classic tribe of persecuted economic overachievers if ever there was one.
But you can't have everything. Tribes is essential to understanding the kind of values that really make our global economy work. Entertaining and wise, it
distills many of the achiever cultures' hard-learned lessons for success.
Martin Sieff is a reporter for the foreign desk of the Washington Times.
http://www.youtube.com/wat
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