Amy Chua. World on Fire. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday. 2003(Amy Chua. The world is on fire.)

"After the fall of the Berlin Wall, not only in the Western world, but also far beyond its borders, there was an unshakeable confidence that the magic fusion of democracy and the free market will transform our world into a community of modernized and peace-loving nations... And that such signs of backwardness as interethnic strife and religious fanaticism are doomed to disappear soon." With these words on the cover of the book, Amy Chua characterizes the generally accepted view of globalization-and then refutes it. From the very first pages, the reader is convinced that the promised universal reconciliation has resulted in an unprecedented increase in chauvinism and racial hatred in various parts of the world. Amy Chua, an expert in Third-world economics who leads a seminar on "Legitimacy and Development" at Yale University, analyzes in detail both the history of long-standing diseases and the causes of their current exacerbation. The researcher tells in detail about the nationalist myths that are taking hold of the masses with a new force. However, much more than the crooked mirrors of ideologies, it is interested in the economic reality reflected in them.

Amy Chua, a Chinese-American native of the Philippines, learned what "interethnic tensions" are long before she began studying the economy of developing countries. Born into a "small but entrepreneurial minority "(representing only about one percent of the Philippines 'population, but controlling at least 60 percent of the country's private economy, including major airlines, banks, and hotels), she knew from childhood about the gulf that separates Filipino Chinese from native islanders." ... Millions of Filipinos work in the Philippines. for the Chinese, and almost none of the Chinese work for the Filipinos... With the exception of a handful of corrupt politicians and a few Spanish aristocratic families, all Filipino billionaires are of Chinese descent. But all of it

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the menial work is done by Filipinos. All the farmers are Filipinos. All domestic servants, as well as all illegal residents, are also Filipinos... My relatives, "Chua continues," live literally walled off from the Filipino masses, in fashionable neighborhoods populated exclusively by Chinese... where all entrances are guarded by a well-armed private security service" (p. 4).

The reaction of Filipinos is predictable. "Unmotivated" murders of Chinese people follow one after another. (In 1994, Amy Chua's aunt was added to the list of victims, killed by her own chauffeur. The disappearance of the killer and the release of his accomplices did not surprise anyone. "This is the Philippines, not America," the uncle explained to his American niece (p. 2).)

For many centuries, the Chinese entrepreneur has been a key figure in the entire East Asian economic life. However, in the era of globalization, the division of labor along ethnic lines has become almost grotesque. And it's not just the " spirit of capitalism." The "globalized" market is closed to newcomers: only those who are lucky enough to inherit significant capital and old connections can compete here.

The main result of economic reforms in the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, etc. is thus not just that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, but also that the former are an ethnic minority and the latter are indigenous. It is not surprising that the union of a "domestic" bureaucrat with a Chinese financier has become a symbol of power, and anti-government protests are almost inevitably accompanied by Chinese pogroms.

The powerful Chinese diaspora is probably the most impressive example of what Amy Chua calls "a market-dominating minority." Similar minorities exist in many countries. And the increasingly hostile reaction of the "majority" to them defines, according to Chua, the main contradiction of our time.

A special place in the picture drawn by Chua is occupied by Africa. Descendants of European colonialists (whites in South Africa), newcomers from the Middle East (Lebanese in West African countries), natives of India who control the entire trade and financial life of the east coast, as well as "indigenous" African elites (Kikuyu in Kenya or Ibo in Nigeria and Cameroon) - all these population groups have one thing in common:

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dominant role in the economy of the poorest continent on earth. In Rwanda, a similar role was recently played by Tutsis , which paved the way for their genocide (pp. 97-122).

Globalization has also borne fruit where the ethnic factor was previously hardly used as a weapon in political battles. In Latin America, the conflict between the rich and the poor has become increasingly understood in recent years as the struggle of oppressed Indians against the" white newcomers " - the Creole nobility. Its meaning was expressed a few years ago by Felipe Quispe, a charismatic leader of the Aymara Indians from Bolivia. When asked by a journalist about the reasons for his participation in terrorist activities, he answered bluntly:: "So that my daughter doesn't become your servant!" (p. 50).

Even conflicts whose ethnic nature is obvious (Middle Eastern and Balkan), Amy Chua also interprets as a reaction of the "poor" to the economic domination of an "alien minority". The hated market elite is now represented by Ashkenazi Jews (more precisely, their descendants), as well as Slovenes and Croats; on the other side are in one case Arabs (as well as Eastern Jews), and in the other - Serbs and Montenegrins. It is not surprising that the extreme escalation of these conflicts coincided with the period of globalization.

Amy Chua is also true to her scheme when it comes to reforms in post-Soviet Russia and, of course, the all-powerful oligarchs (pp. 77-94). When listing (though not without mistakes) the tycoons of Russian capitalism with Jewish surnames, she confines herself to referring to the rather banal arguments of her friends, emigrants from the CIS, about the Jewish penchant for business. Chua accurately describes the populist reaction to oligarchic capitalism, with its distinctly anti-Semitic motivations. However, considering the oligarchs as real private owners, it ignores, firstly, the state-bureaucratic basis of the "oligarchy" (sometimes using "exotic" managers-appointees in order to "not highlight" the real owners), and secondly , the real ethnic diversity of the modern Russian market (Caucasian and Asian groups, the Russian province and so on).

What forces in the world are currently engaged in an irreconcilable struggle against economic "minorities"? Regardless of the region, the picture is the same everywhere, writes Chua: the threat to the owners of the market comes precisely from democratic forces, at least from those who appeal to feelings

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with the majority; with dictators (or at least with authoritarian governments) they easily find a common language. "Anti-Elitist" movements already have, if not a common ideology, then a common orientation - anti-American. And no wonder: As Chua shows, the United States is now the world's largest "market-dominant minority" (pp. 229-259). However, unlike other such minorities, America dominates not only in the economy, but also in the political and military fields. It is also characteristic that there are no such minorities in the United States itself. (Contrary to frequent speculation on this subject, the richest Americans are all white Anglo-Saxons.) Nevertheless, the withdrawal of communism from the historical limelight did not mean a weakening of anti-American sentiment, but only a change in their conceptual basis: "scientific socialism" gave way to ethno-nationalism, whose most radical heralds call for nothing less than the destruction of the United States. The situation is no better with the allies: often (in particular, in the Middle East) it is the most authoritarian and corrupt regimes that take pro-American positions. Capitalism and democracy don't necessarily go hand in hand, and Amy Chua aims to warn Western society against romanticizing both. The market economy is not omnipotent in establishing social justice and ensuring individual rights.

Another thing is that Chua, as you can easily see, puts out of brackets what the "dominant minorities" described by her differ from each other. The rich Chinese people of Indonesia, the Afrikaner people of South Africa (who first seized political power and only then took control of the market) , and the trading diasporas of West Africa not only have a different past, but also a different social role in the present. To a specialist in the Balkans, a purely" market-based " interpretation of the Yugoslav conflict would seem an obvious simplification.

Finally, there is a distinction between the real" dominant " minorities and those who only happen to play the role of "symbols" of such domination. For example, the myths of the "Jewish conspiracy" flourished not in those eras when Jewish bankers controlled the European economy by lending money to kings and emperors, but, on the contrary, when their influence was rapidly decreasing. To what extent is this trend found in the history of other "market minorities"? To make all these points clear would be to continue the poignant and necessary conversation that Amy Chua had started.

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