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World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability

by Amy Chua

3.8 · Rating details · 1,021 Ratings · 128 Reviews

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 de ...more

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Paperback, 368 pages

Published January 6th 2004 by Anchor (first published 2002)

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May 26, 2011 Whitaker rated it really liked it

Shelves: recommended-unreservedly, e-book, geopolitics, 2011-read, get-hardback

I LOVE THIS BOOK! It’s tight, nuanced, dismissive of simplistic explanations, and—except for an unfortunate lapse towards the end—doesn’t overreach in its analysis. What’s great about this book is not only what it’s about but what it’s NOT about. It’s not about how capitalism is evil; it’s not about developing countries being unsuited for democracy; and it’s emphatically not about capitalism and democracy being the causes of inter-ethnic hatred and violence.

Prof Chua takes care to focus her tig ...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Kerry rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Published in 2003, Yale Law Professor Amy Chua wrote that bringing democracy to Palestine will likely only bring a Hamas government hostile to western interests. Which is what happened. Chua argues that exporting democracy and capitalism to unstable regions may actually increase strife.

In the broadest terms, Chua believes the concentration of wealth in market-dominant America with a minority of the world population generates hatred and envy in world of have-not nations.

She feels this sort of en ...more

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Dec 06, 2014 Jj Li rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

I first found Amy Chua when all the controversy over Tiger Mom erupted, so when I went through youtube trying to find an interview of her talking about the book, I actually found an interview about this book instead. What she said there actually really impressed me, so I picked this one up. I haven't read any of the author's other books, because quite honestly the content doesn't interest me and I'm not a fan of the author's writing style. I find it a little wordy and heavy.

That being said, thi ...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Steve rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, thoughts

Chua links unfairness of ‘market dominant minorities’ and the rise in instability in the world through the increasing use of democracy and the ethnonationalism this generates among the less privileged majority. It is a fascinating angle, and in the examples given it seems to fit part of the explanation for much trouble around the world. Further she expands this view at the regional level (Israel as the market dominant minority in the Middle East) and then global level (the US as the market domin ...more

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Jun 30, 2008 Ed rated it it was amazing

Shelves: globalization-sux, development-and-its-enemies

How exporting fee market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability

If creating participatory democracy in nations that are now ruled by oligarchs, kings, sultans or presidents for life and if opening up backward economies in the developing world are good things, what could be better than doing both at the same time? While it might sound lovely, Amy Chua’s very incisive, well reasoned and beautifully written book shows that while trying to impose either democracy or free markets from t How exporting fee market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability

If creating participatory democracy in nations that are now ruled by oligarchs, kings, sultans or presidents for life and if opening up backward economies in the developing world are good things, what could be better than doing both at the same time? While it might sound lovely, Amy Chua’s very incisive, well reasoned and beautifully written book shows that while trying to impose either democracy or free markets from the outside is a treacherous undertaking, trying to do both is insane. The question is not what could be better but what could be worse. Civil war might be worse. A cholera epidemic might be worse. Civil war and a cholera epidemic simultaneously would be worse, but not by much, than the IMF showing up with demands for structural change and economic conditionalities in exchange for loans while the United Nations insists on overseeing elections.

Chua knows her territory from a few different angles. She first began thinking about her thesis while a young associate with a Wall Street law firm that was working on privatizations of government controlled companies in Latin America—in her case the national telephone company of Mexico. Spending months in conference rooms in Mexico City she noticed that those making the decisions on the deal—decisions that enriched a few people—were taller, lighter skinned and more European looking than those who ran copies and brought coffee. The clerks and coffee servers were shorter, darker and indigenous looking—they didn’t make any decisions and they certainly didn’t get wealthy.

Another viewpoint involved her family. Chua is from a wealthy Chinese family long resident in the Philippines where they are part of the richest (and most powerful) 1% of the population. Her grandparents had a sprawling house in a suburb of Manila attended by a score of Filipino servants who lived in a dank basement and who worked whatever hours their employers decided. Chua’s grandmother was murdered, most likely by her chauffeur. He fled and the police spent little time and energy trying to arrest him, writing off the killing of an old woman as all but justifiable given the resentment of the native population against the Chinese bourgeoisie. Amy Chua was shocked at this attitude—although she didn’t share her grandparent’s disdain for their servants she expected that the police would protect them as citizens of the Philippines.

She developed the idea of the “market dominant minority” in developing nations, looking at the Chinese in Southeast Asia—particularly Thailand and Indonesia; Caucasian dominance in majority Amerindian countries of Latin America, such as Bolivia and Peru; Indians in central Africa and Ibos in Nigeria. In each case there is tremendous resentment against the racially defined oligarchy. In some the resentment resulted in large scale slaughter, economic ruin and exile for the Chinese, Ibos and Indians.

At first glance Chua’s ideas seem counter-intuitive. How could anyone be opposed to better economic conditions and more representative government in developing nations? She shows that the actual real-world results of such reforms are often the further enrichment of those who already control most of the wealth in the nation while political power passes to those already organized to take, almost invariably the military. The combination of the rich getting a lot richer while the most corrupt acquire formal, political control is inherently unstable.

While neither a historian nor an economist, Chua has done her research, knows her subject and writes beautifully. Highly recommended.
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Dec 27, 2010 Andrew added it

Shelves: policy-and-social-commentary, neoliberalism-and-postmodernity

Amy Chua's talent is gathering evidence. This shouldn't surprise me-- she was a lawyer by training-- but she ignores what generates market-dominant minority, and in doing so, leaves out a critical part of how to solve the problems she articulates. Furthermore, she has a way of hazarding her own solutions. First she suggests market reforms, then education, and then kind of backpedals on both of those.

She's quite right in saying that there's no universal panacea for the instabilities and imbalance ...more

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Dec 06, 2008 Eric_W rated it it was amazing

Shelves: current-affairs

We read this in our college reading club several years ago. It's an excellent book to read along with Niall Ferguson's War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and Descent of the West and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. Chua's basic premise is that ethnic economic disparities that often arise in times of economic progress lead to ethnic strife during economic instability. Market dominant ethnic majorities become much richer even as ethnic majority poor get ...more

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Oct 02, 2008 Sarah rated it really liked it

Recommended to Sarah by: Megan Campbell

Shelves: politiconomy

In the first few pages of World on Fire, Chua divulges her own family's tragedy in connection with the effects of exporting free-market democracy. Such a dramatic introduction to the issue drew me into this book, and encouraged me to trudge through some of the economic jargon and statistics, as the sensitive topic was all informed by the author's personal loss.
Having witnessed this phenomenon with the Chinese in Southeast Asia prior to reading the book, it was provocative to rethink my own obse ...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Doug rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

I really liked reading Joseph Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Discontents, and this book adds an ethnic dimension to the thesis of how America's rigid adherence to imposing laissez-faire capitalism on developing nations is causing more harm than good and leads to a backlash against globalization.

In the West we tend to think of Sierra Leone as a country where modernization and globalization have not yet penetrated. But Sierra Leone reached this stage of savagery in part as a result of moderniza

...more

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Nov 18, 2011 John Sibley rated it really liked it

Amy Chau's " World On Fire" should be required reading for both non-fiction and fiction writers. Why? It will reveal how there is always an inherent tension between market-dominant-minorities which causes inflamed dormant ethnic hatred. Which can help show why characters in a novel react to social forces.
Author Chau reveals how in certain pockets of the United States market-dominant-minorities control the market of the ethnic majority. A glaring example is that in all the major inner cities in ...more

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Dec 03, 2007 Russell rated it really liked it

In this book Amy Chua explains how the first tide of globalism is invariably brought by "market dominant minorities", read: jews, chinese, overseas Europeans of all stripes. The local population invariably revolts against globalism by killing the messenger in riots, pograms, etc.

This step of the analysis was excellent. Globalism, the great wave of the hour is still entrenched in the great issue of the last century, ethnicity.

Her further analysis fell flat for me. She implied that some kind of gl ...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Cherie rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: activists, those who question globalization, economists

B: Someone put this on my desk at work--I returned from the weekend to find this waiting for me. I don't know who left it, but it is a fascinating book. Chua examines why so many developing countries undergo ethnic violence and economic instability after adopted "free market democracy." She looks at how a select minority of people rule a country--and what happens when the majority try to get control of what they feel belongs to them. A lot of it is a critique of the United States and the way in ...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Marks54 rated it really liked it

This is a sharp book about the perils faced by economically prosperous ethnic minorities in countries around the world, with the ultimate point that creating too many losers in an economy can imperil democracy - as well as the winners - and lead to authoritarian rule. Short, but very well written.

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Nov 11, 2010 Doron rated it liked it

Response to both Amy Chua in ‘World On Fire’ and Paul Collier in ‘War, Guns and Votes’ - my views on their criticism of how the developed world has tried to build democracies in failed and fragile states, how their opinions agree, how they differ.

Amy Chua and Paul Collier share some penetrating insights into the problems associated with the spread of democracy since the early 1990s in their respective works, ‘World on Fire’ and ‘War, Guns and Votes’. At the forefront of their analyses is the con Response to both Amy Chua in ‘World On Fire’ and Paul Collier in ‘War, Guns and Votes’ - my views on their criticism of how the developed world has tried to build democracies in failed and fragile states, how their opinions agree, how they differ.

Amy Chua and Paul Collier share some penetrating insights into the problems associated with the spread of democracy since the early 1990s in their respective works, ‘World on Fire’ and ‘War, Guns and Votes’. At the forefront of their analyses is the contention that launching a process of democratization unhinged from the constitutional checks and balances in place in the developed world is a recipe for political violence and instability. This flawed approach characterizes the way the developed world has gone about building democracies in failed and fragile states during the last half century, and consequently (illiberal) democratization has counter intuitively planted seeds of more violence and chaos in these states, not less. Ethnic identity constitutes the major determinant of group allegiance in developing societies rather than shared national identity, further exacerbating the potential for political violence in such societies, and is recognized by both authors as a significant destabilizing factor in the face of rapid democratization.

Where these writers tend to differ is not so much in the nature of the problem – excessively rapid and illiberal democratization executed in an environment of intense Western pressure across the developing world is more likely to increase than decrease political violence, at least in the short-term - but in their views of its underlying and intermediate causes and potential remedies. For Collier, the problem of democratization leading to more violence for the world’s the “bottom billion” derives primarily from a lack of accountability and legitimacy in their state leaders and governments, and the need to cultivate a shared sense of national identity to trump and subsume sub-national ethnic identities. Chua, however, emphasizes the role of markets alongside rapid democratization as a catalyst for political violence and internal conflict by amplifying the economic (and indirectly, in some cases, the political) power of ethnic “market dominant” minorities. For Chua, the basic incongruity between the political empowerment of the previously disenfranchised majority and the market driven concentration of wealth among ethnic minorities through the process of democratization is a dangerous destabilizing force in fragile and failed states.

The keen observation that Western liberal democracies were not created in the blink of an eye but rather evolved gradually over time in incremental fashion is crucial to the criticism leveled by these authors at the way the developed world has tried to democratize the bottom billion. Both Chua and Collier share the view that the pace of recent democratization in developing countries is not simply unrealistic to effect positive change there, but fundamentally flawed and potentially quite dangerous since other critical components of liberal democracies are yet to be established these countries. Collier in particular stresses the historical importance of inter-state warfare and ethnic conflict in shaping state boundaries and forging national identities in Europe over the course of several centuries, and how these shared national identities have contributed to collective efforts to produce public goods, namely security and government accountability. Developing states have not followed the same path of war and conflict to reach independence, and therefore have not fashioned the same sense of shared identity and patriotic citizenship, impeding collective efforts to create public goods. There are therefore structural impediments to achieving strong democracies in developing states highlighted by these authors, such as the lack of government accountability, the weak rule of law, the absence of shared identity and few or no constitutional protections for the human rights of minorities. Given the deep ethnic divisions common to many developing societies, and the long legacy of autocratic rule and frequent coup d’états since independence characterizing to the politics of developing countries, the potential for political violence is considerable in the face of elections without economic, legal or institutional reforms. Chua and Collier share this core sentiment about the dangers of overly rapid democratization in the developing world before these structural obstacles and poor provision of public goods remain unaltered.

Both writers appreciate there is an important economic dimension to this problem of rapid democratization, although they do not describe the economic dimension in similar terms or lend equal weight to it in their analyses. Collier develops a fairly subtle argument in this respect around the evidence he has gathered showing that democracy is likely to reduce political violence provided a certain level of average income in society is met (i.e. the middle-income level), but likely to increase it if average incomes fall short of that level. But for Collier this evidence confirms that the underlying causes of the problem are not so much economic as political: that in countries where governments lack accountability and legitimacy (typically low-income states), democracy increases the prospects of violence. Middle-income countries tend to already be on the path to political and economic reform, with higher levels of government accountability and legitimacy, so democracy serves to further enforce those trends, undermining the basis for group grievances and thus reducing prospects of violence.

In contrast to Collier’s analysis, Chua attributes the relationship between political violence and democratization to economic factors, particularly the role of markets that often accompany the democratization process in the form exported by Western nations to fragile and failed states. Chua argues that extreme economic disparities apparent in developing countries lie at the heart of the potential for political conflict due to the way wealth is concentrated among the political elites and market-dominant minorities, fueling envy, resentment and fear among the poverty stricken majority. In her view globalization has only exacerbated these extremes of wealth in the developing world and heightened the economic dominance of a small minority in these states. Chua places particular emphasis on the ethnic makeup of market-dominant minorities in developing societies as a pivotal factor in creating this volatile mix of a politically empowered but economically deprived majority by way of rapid free-market democratization (in this analysis the United States is also guilty of being a market dominant minority to the rest of the world as the economic engine of global capitalism, spurring anti-Americanism from friends, foes and competitors alike). The consequent potential for violence is seen to be more severe where ethnic market-dominant minorities exist, causing a backlash against either markets, democracy, the market-dominant minorities themselves, or some combination among them. This argument bears some similarity to Collier’s focus on the detrimental and divisive effects of ethnically based loyalties in developing countries preceding national identity, but Chua elevates the importance of the economic power of these minorities and their alienation from wider society to a far greater degree than Collier. Consequently her criticism of the efforts of the developed world to democratize fragile and failed states is decidedly more Marxian (and controversial) in nature than Collier, and seeks to disentangle the positive political potential of democracy as a force of freedom from what she sees as the negative economic downside of globalization and free markets that have spread alongside democracy to developing countries in the past thirty years.

The prescriptions offered by Collier and Chua to address the problem of democratization fueling further political violence and instability vary considerably. In Chua’s case part of the solution rests in finding ways to allow poor majorities in developing states to participate in the wealth effects of markets and to reduce income disparities. Chua focuses on ameliorating the economic and political dominance of minorities by extending education and employment opportunities to the uneducated and dirt poor majorities. She also advocates wealth redistribution through tax reforms, titling programs to spread land ownership across the population, shares in the ownership of state companies and markets for the poor, and government interventions to rebalance wealth across ethnic groups; a form of affirmative action for repressed, indigenous majorities in developing states. Finally, Chua is confident in the power of market-dominant minorities (including the US vis-a-vis the rest of the world) to change their negative image by providing public goods like healthcare, education and charity to society and the potency of symbolic acts by leaders of state to bridge ethnic divides, such as Nelson Mandela’s support for South Africa’s white rugby team in 1995. Recognizing and addressing group grievances for Chua is very much the name of the game: the onus is on prevention by tackling the causes of political violence. This approach therefore inevitably leads to the suggestion that the process of democratization itself must be reexamined and alternative versions of democracy explored beyond free-market democracy. But at no point in ‘World on Fire’ does Chua see reason to abandon democracy promotion in failed and fragile states, and on this she shares common ground with the optimism of Larry Diamond, as does her contention that alternative available models of democracy lend support to calls for the spread of democracy in the world.

Unlike Amy Chua, Paul Collier is of the view that political violence cannot be prevented by addressing group grievances. Instead, Collier advocates harnessing such grievances where possible to bring about positive social and political change. One intriguing proposal he offers along these lines is to harness the power of political coups in developing states rather than seeking to eliminate them since the very threat of a coup can serve to discipline governments and force them to embrace the democratic process. This thoughtful argument approaches some of the logical thinking behind Diamond’s optimism about the future prospects for democracy in the world based on internal factors and the recognition among autocratic leaders since the early 1990s that their political survival cannot be sustained through endless violence, that they are increasingly threatened by regime fractures, and that they therefore have no option but to embrace the democratic process. Collier also shares Diamond’s optimism around external factors and the ability of the international community to foster democratic change in developing states through a variety of mechanisms: foreign aid conditioning to direct the flow of funds towards those most in need based on verification of public spending, introducing international standards of conduct to elections to stamp out sham elections and vote rigging, and the supply of security through international military bodies who abide by a set of clear guidelines for action. Collier’s prescriptions are therefore anchored in the notion that political violence is best addressed through measures that make violence more difficult, rather than in attempting to eradicate the grievances that give rise to political violence. ...more

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Jul 12, 2015 Shawn rated it it was amazing

It is such a pleasure to read an author like Amy Chua, whose intellect ascends forth from the pages, with an enamoring beauty, that deeply stimulates the reader with the force of sheer common sense. Chua’s steady presentation of facts, interlaced with her insightful analyses, slowly brings the reader to intellectual climax. If all the globes peoples could see with the clarity of Chua, we might quickly find solutions for many of our problems.

Chua unveils the absurdity of promoting both democracy ...more

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Dec 14, 2013 Babak Fakhamzadeh rated it liked it

Shelves: current-affairs

Before starting on Chua's treatise, I was rather skeptical of the book which has the subtitle "How exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability". Published shortly after 9/11, I was assuming the book was riding the wave of America's need to have the attacks explained.
Not so much, though I'm sure the book benefited from the related interest upon its release, devoting the last part of the book to the causes of the event in question.
Chua focuses on market-dominant m ...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Jonathan rated it really liked it

In this book Chau suggests that the policies of market liberalization and democratization that are promoted as part of the Washington consensus of globalization can have disastrous consequences for groups of people that she describes as “market dominant minorities.” She describes situation after situation where an ethnic minority that has come to be identified with affluence and ownership during periods of market liberalization end up being scape-goated in times of political (and economic) uphea In this book Chau suggests that the policies of market liberalization and democratization that are promoted as part of the Washington consensus of globalization can have disastrous consequences for groups of people that she describes as “market dominant minorities.” She describes situation after situation where an ethnic minority that has come to be identified with affluence and ownership during periods of market liberalization end up being scape-goated in times of political (and economic) upheaval.
Chau does not write from an anti-capitalist perspective. While she describes the perils that can come with simultaneous market liberalization and expansion of “democracy,” she certainly seems to be more concerned about the negative effects of expanding democracy, than she is critical of the idea of free markets. There are times that her distrust of democracy along side an assumption that free markets are positive at times is a disturbing.
Chau is not a critic of capitalist globalization, and where she is a critic she is critical, it is of very different aspects of it than someone from an anti-capitalist perspective would be. But she does describe this very interesting aspect of globalization. If you care about people, care about democracy and the rights of minorities, if you are interested in the dynamics of how the powerful play people against each other, in you are interested in how free markets, privatization, and wealth disparity relate to inter-ethnic violence, then I think you’ll find this book interesting. Chau brings an insider’s take on these issues too. She writes about the privatization of telecommunication in Mexico in Chapter 2, a project she had a front row seat for as an associate at a Wall Street firm. Her insider’s perspective reminds me of John Perkins in Confessions of and Economic Hitman without the obnoxious macho hard boiled bravado.
She also shows genuine concern for the fate of what she terms market dominant minorities. She opens the book with a story about her ethnically Chinese family in the Philippians. I really appreciate her ethical perspective of not settling for a position or an idea of social progress that allows for the scape-goating of any group of people. While Chau addresses this from a pro-market capitalist perspective…. maybe a classically liberal one …. I think this is a really important piece for anti-capitalists to look at. Can a movement that is based upon or fueled by anger at a scape-goated group be liberatory or will it in the end serve the interests of capital and the ruling class? (How does Chau’s depiction of the dynamics of ethnicity and nationality of markets and minorities jive with the thinking of anti-colonial heavy weights like Fanon?)
I recently heard an interview with Shailja Patel (http://kaya.com/authors/shailja-patel/) in which she talked about the way that Britain used social policy to pit ethnic Indians and Black Africans against each other in East Africa. I believe if we are going to have real movements for human liberation we need as much information as possible about how people have been pitted against each other in service of capital and empire. I think Chau’s book presents some valuable information in this regard.
I think Chau is describes the dynamics of race in South America – Brazil in particular-, again in Chapter 2 in a way that is much more critical and nuanced than I often hear Latin America described. Given that I know next to nothing about the dynamics of race and ethnicity in Africa and Asia, gave me a little more information about the complexity of these issues in those parts of the world. Because I don’t know much about ethnicity and nationality I’m not clear on how accurate Chau’s explanations might be or what biases they might include. Still, I really appreciated this book if nothing else because it gave me some more information about the complexity of ethnicity and nationality in some Asian countries (Chapter 1) and on the African Content (Chapter 3).
I picked this book up in 2003, because it seemed to be talking about the connection between ethnic violence and neo-liberal globalization and because it seemed like it would include information about parts of the world I didn’t know much about. In some ways I was disappointed, disturbed even, by the absence of any critique of capitalism, of Chau’s implicit bias towards capitalism, but in the end I learned a lot from this book, found it really interesting and I believe that Chau’s perspective is really valuable for critics of neo-liberal globalization of all stripes.
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Dec 20, 2011 Js Saputra rated it it was amazing

This is my opinion. But, I wrote in Indonesian:

Saya beruntung, 7 tahun yang lalu, 28 April 2004, salah satu mantan murid, sehabis melawat ke Amerika, mengantar ‘buah tangan’ berupa buku. Seolah, mantan murid itu, tahu apa yang sedang saya pikirkan dan impikan yaitu “World on Fire” karya Amy Chua.

Kini, ternyata ketika saya baca ulang buku setebal 348 halaman, tersusun dengan pendahuluan, bagian pertama yang mengulas The Economic Impact of Globalization dengan 4 rincian (Rubies and Rice Paddies, L This is my opinion. But, I wrote in Indonesian:

Saya beruntung, 7 tahun yang lalu, 28 April 2004, salah satu mantan murid, sehabis melawat ke Amerika, mengantar ‘buah tangan’ berupa buku. Seolah, mantan murid itu, tahu apa yang sedang saya pikirkan dan impikan yaitu “World on Fire” karya Amy Chua.

Kini, ternyata ketika saya baca ulang buku setebal 348 halaman, tersusun dengan pendahuluan, bagian pertama yang mengulas The Economic Impact of Globalization dengan 4 rincian (Rubies and Rice Paddies, Llama Fetuses, The Sevent Oligarch, The Ibo of Careroon ), bagian kedua yang mengupas The Political Consequenses of Globalization, dengan 4 rincian (Backlash against Market, Backlash against Democracy, Backlash against Market Dominant Minorities, dan Mising Blood), dan bagian ketiga yang membahas Ethononationalism and the West, juga dengan 4 rincian (The Underside of Western Free Market Democracy, The Middle Eastern Cauldron, Why They Hate Us, dan The Future of Free Market Cemodcracy) masih sangat relevan. Tidak hanya untuk Indonesia dan Asia Tenggara, tetapi juga menjadi permasalahan dunia: minoritas yang dominan dalam pasar era global.

World on Fire dimulai dengan pengalaman tragis, yang mendasari pembahasan minoritas yang dominan dalam pasar era global. Peristiwa dibunuhnya Leona, tante Amy Chua, seolah menjadi pembenaran Amy Chua bahwa “minoritas yang dominan dalam panguasan perekonomian berkonsekuensi logis pada kecemburuan social.

Didukung observasi dan data akurat hampir di seluruh pelosok dunia “World on Fire” menjadi “refleksi” bagaimana mengurai korelasi “minoritas etnis yang dominan dalam ekononomi” dengan “mayoritas etnis yang miskin”. Kegagalan mengelola kontradiktif akan melahirkan kerusuhan social: Serbia (1990), Rwanda (1994), Indonesia (1998), Israel (1998). Dalam konotasi yang sama, kejadian pengeboman ‘menara kembar” Amerika (2001) merupakan indicator dominasi minoritas.

Setelah tujuh tahun World on Fire masih tetap relevan dan penting. Selayaknya menjadi referensi bagi para penguasa di seluruh dunia agar berkemampuan menyeimbangkan “dominasi minoritas etnis bidang ekonomi” dengan “mayoritas miskin yang dominan”.

Setelah “Word on Fire” menjadi bestseller versi New York Time, Business Week dan buku terbaik tahun 2003, Amy Chua menulis “ Day of Empire : How Hyperpowers Rice to Global” (2007), dan “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother “ (2011). Ibu dua anak yang lahir tahun 1962 ini layak mendapat hadiah nobel perdamaian karena sumbangan pemikiran yang tajam dan akurat ‘bagaimana menjinakkan pasar bebas para era globalisasi”.

Sumber: http://id.shvoong.com/humanities/phil...
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Oct 31, 2007 Evan rated it liked it

Recommends it for: those interested in neoliberalism

I did read this book a few years ago, but remembered it today while writing about the May 1998 anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta. In 2004, it was one of the shrewder books I had read disentangling free trade from democratization, and hence arguing against the neoliberal ideology of the Washington consensus.

The basic thesis, which is easy to grasp without reading the book, is that in many parts of the world (especially the so-called developing world), national economies are largely in the hands of " I did read this book a few years ago, but remembered it today while writing about the May 1998 anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta. In 2004, it was one of the shrewder books I had read disentangling free trade from democratization, and hence arguing against the neoliberal ideology of the Washington consensus.

The basic thesis, which is easy to grasp without reading the book, is that in many parts of the world (especially the so-called developing world), national economies are largely in the hands of "market-dominant minorities." For example, ethnic Chinese in much of Southeast Asia and Lebanese in West Africa. Chua's point, (fairly self-evident, I think, once it is spelled out) is that these minorities gained their economic power through exclusive transnational trade networks, which also tends to make them the "go to" people for multinational corporations. Thus, they tend to benefit disproportionately from market liberalization. In contrast, democratization reverts power to the disenfranchised majorities, who tend to want to use their newfound "civil society" to do a variety of uncivil things to these minorities.

Despite the sensationalist title, Chua actually seems ambivalent about which is worse. There is, no doubt, some justice in the retribution sought by the masses against the few who control their national wealth. On the other hand, the fact that this "justice" often takes the form of racist violence and drives the minority (along with their wealth) out of the country, can't be seen as good for any developing country. As ethnic Chinese with family in the Phillipines, Chua herself is less than thrilled at the prospect of more power falling into the hands of "the people," even as she affirms a belief in democracy.

Chua paints herself a friend both of globalization and democratization, but ultimately flounders in trying to reconcile these commitments with the problem she herself has raised. The strength of the book, however, is in its clear demonstration of the failure of "free market democracy" as it actually plays out in most of the world. Not a problem that's going away anytime soon. ...more

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Dec 06, 2010 Brett rated it liked it

Recommended to Brett by: Jeannette Ward

Shelves: race, foreign-relations, economics

Amy Chua got a lot of ink earlier this year for her essay about motherhood, but since I'm perpetually behind the times, I'm just getting to her 2004 book about globalization, democracy, and market-dominant minorities. Her thesis is pretty sound: in societies where market-dominant minorities exist (and her research is convincing that these do exist in many places in the world), the sudden democratization can create a volatile environment that can lead to persecuation--and in extreme cases, even g ...more

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Apr 12, 2015 Matt rated it liked it

Shelves: academic, non-fiction, global-economy, political-op-ed

I'd give this book gets 4 stars as a conversation-starter, 3 stars in terms of depth and cohesiveness.

The thesis, stated early in the introduction, is "that the global spread of markets and democracy is a principal, aggravating cause of group hatred and ethnic violence throughout the non-Western world." Chua, later to gain notoriety as the self-proclaimed Tiger Mother, certainly conveys more nuance than what's obvious from that one line, examining a wide range of locales where what she calls "ma ...more

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Aug 07, 2013 Nelson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, political-science

Hmmm...some lawyer writes a book with this kind of subtitle. Must be an ignorant anti-capitalist screed, right? Actually, no. Amy Chua is no Naomi Klein. She was an economics major at Harvard. Her father, Leon, is famous in my field (http://www.chuacircuits.com/).

The book is about economically-dominant minorities, and inspired by the murder of her Chinese-Filipina aunt Leona at the hands of her chauffeur. She advocates wealth redistribution from economically dominant minorities to the less well ...more

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Jul 10, 2007 Kerry Mccaskill rated it it was amazing

One of the most brilliant books I've ever read. It sounds like a dull topic but the writer's passion for the subject brings it to life. Full of fascinating and surprising details about how democracy works (or, more accurately, doesn't work) when superimposed on other cultures and economic systems. It provides gripping examples demonstrating why economic democracy and political democracy have to be introduced in the proper sequence or political democracy will not only fail but fail spectacularly ...more

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Jan 15, 2015 Willy C rated it it was amazing

longer review incoming for this book as well:

for now, I'll just heartily recommend it to anyone interested in international development, ethnic violence, and economic justice in the developing world.

rough summary: in many countries, there exist 'market-dominant minorities' who are dominant in many sectors of the economy. economic liberalization and globalization, generally promulgated by Western do-gooders, tend to enrich those minorities as a result of their entrepreneuralism, tight-knit reli ...more

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Oct 11, 2007 Liza rated it really liked it

My mom saw an interview with Chua and decided to buy this book. I don't know if she'll ever read it, because she prefers the newspaper, but I might have to persuade her otherwise. Chua's thesis is that the market dominance of ethnic minorities incites ethnic hatred and that this is becoming increasingly problematic with globalization. World on Fire was published in 2003, so the examples she references have become all the more stark with recent developments in Burma (where Chinese are the market- ...more

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Oct 06, 2014 Narma rated it really liked it

Shelves: political

I agree with Chua's approach to the roots of nationalism and ethnic hatred, however, I don't necessarily believe market democracy itself is responsible for the 21st century ethnocentrism. There is a large role that democracy as whole (not just market democracy) plays in socially empowering minorities and assimilating the majority to accommodate the minority. This sort of influence can often leave a majority with a loss of identity. This loss of identity, I believe, is the leading cause of nation ...more

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Jul 24, 2014 Ben rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

An interesting look at how America's policy of trying to promote both full-participation democracy and laissez-faire capitalism has had unexpected consequences. The book primarily deals with the inequalities the version of capitalism we export causes, how they certain around minorities in various countries and how that can lead to ethnic hatred which is easily exploited by charismatic demagogues. She expands her theory to examine both the situation in Israel and the hatred of America among much ...more

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Nov 23, 2011 Jarek rated it really liked it

A free market think tank opposed this book while misunderstanding its thesis, which is probably as good of a recommendation as they come.

Reading this book I was reminded a little about reading recent Michael Lewis articles. It reads well, the arguments seem tight and are backed up with more examples and anecdotes than you care to think about, it's generally agreeable, and you want to believe it, but at times it's hard to tell which stories are taken for more than they're really worth and what is ...more

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Dec 03, 2015 Nils rated it really liked it

Basic thesis: "market dominant minorities" tend to be the big winners of globalization in their respective countries, and that disproportionate success makes them the target of majorities who (not incorrectly) see them as a symbols and embodiments of unequal effects of globalization. In undemocratic polities, this can lead to horrific violence, either endemicly or acutely; but it may be no better in a democracy, where majoritarianism may lead to its familiar Tocquevillean tyranny. In short, the ...more

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Aug 11, 2010 Adfitz rated it really liked it

I mostly enjoyed this one for the concise summary of many post colonial conflicts I knew very little about. The main brunt of the book explores the dangers of the typical democratic and free market packages that the US is shipping into unsteady territories (with a decent although sometimes unapologetic recognition of colonialism and post-colonialism as a primary source of inequity). What makes this book unique from other critiques of modernization is the emphasis on ethnicity as something that i ...more

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About Amy Chua

Amy L. Chua (born 1962) is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She specializes in the study of international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization an ...more

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The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America

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“As it happens, the first souvenir I bought was a dried llama fetus. Revolting as it may sound, my poor stillborn llama is actually rather cute. Frozen in the fetal position and dried stiff like beef jerky, it has the gentle, smiling face of a camel and plenty of soft, if slightly formaldehyde-scented, fur. I bought the llama fetus partly because it horrified me, but also for educational purposes, so that my eight-year-old daughter Sophia could show it to her class. (She refused.)

Bolivians buy llama fetuses to ward off evil in its many guises. Bolivian miners—who, with a life expectancy of forty-five years, basically live their entire adult lives dying—look to llama fetuses for protection against dynamite explosions and the lung-destroying silicon particulates they inhale all day. Downing high-proof alcohol also helps. “The purer the alcohol, the purer the minerals I find,” one miner told me wryly.” — 4 likes

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