Capitalism’s Hidden Heroes: “Middleman minorities” reveal the free market’s strengths—along with their own. (Rinzen Widjaja, December 6, 2024, Modern Age)
Jews are not alone in this unenviable position. In an article titled “Is Antisemitism Generic?” the economist Thomas Sowell argues that such anti-Jewish attitudes reflect a broader pattern of persecution toward “middleman minorities.” Other groups that fall into this category include the Chinese overseas, Indians in Southeast Asia, and the Igbo people in Nigeria.
The rise of globalized trade and digital economies has only expanded the role of middleman minorities as they have moved beyond traditional industries like retail and exerted influence in global tech and e-commerce. After its forced expulsion from Malaysia, for example, Singapore transformed from a small island into Southeast Asia’s financial center and one of the world’s most developed countries in just thirty years. And in the United States, Silicon Valley’s South Asian diaspora has significantly contributed to advances in technology.
And yet the middleman minority, and his role in the economy, is as poorly understood as ever. In fact, this success comes in part from the suspicion with which they are often viewed. In his book Migrations and Cultures, Sowell argues that the “middleman minorities” were united by society’s reaction to them, as many individuals within these minorities may not hold middleman jobs but are nonetheless treated similarly by the majority population. While middleman minorities are not confined to a single race or culture, all have been persecuted for having something in common: what Sowell describes as the human capital of “experience and knowledge used in economic activity.”
So why are they seen as suspect if their contributions are so useful? Sowell notes that fewer people reach the upper echelons of middleman professions, which require greater education or sophistication, than the lower levels. Yet, what he calls “modest prosperity” among middleman minorities provokes more societal animosity than the wealth enjoyed by other groups, such as the nobility or entertainers. There is a common perception of middleman minorities as parasitic because the occupations they are associated with don’t produce goods directly, a view further intensified by their “racial or cultural differences” from the majority group.
During periods of heightened intergroup tensions, this can lead to mob violence. The Holocaust is an example of a culmination of centuries of resentment toward the Jewish people in Europe. In the May 1998 riots in Indonesia, anti-Chinese sentiment at the end of the New Order regime fueled mass lootings and fires targeting Chinese Indonesians, and during the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom, mobs killed 8,000 to 30,000 Igbos en masse.