It is true that heterogeneity here tends to be more binary--you are
either white or black, while in Europe, many other identities possess at
least as much importance. If you're critical of the article for
subsuming everything under race, that seems reasonable. But even if what
constitutes heterogeneity in Europe may be more complex, I don't still
think that this objection overrides the general point about homogeneity
and welfare state spending.
Joel Blau
raghu wrote:
On 4/29/07, joel blau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I don't know whether it is a cause, but it is certainly a correlation.
Social welfare has always had a tribal component..........
The article would have better if it had noted that receptivity to
cutbacks in the more generous welfare states like Sweden has increased
in part because conservative politicians have been successful in blaming
the cost of social programs on immigration from Middle Eastern countries
like Turkey. But otherwise, the point the article makes is actually
quite legitimate.
As Robert Gassler observed in another message this thread, the
tribalism argument works *much* better in Europe than in the US. It is
hard for me to imagine people who migrated to California in the Gold
Rush to have the same sense of "tribal identity" as say, the Welsh in
Wales.
The problem I have with the NYT article is that it reifies the concept
of racial identity far more than justified by the evidence. Ethnic
identity is something else. Racial tribalism suggests for instance
that Italian Americans have some deep-rooted sense of kinship with
Russian immigrants but not with Iranians. The article offers little
justification for such a sweeping conclusion. Racism is already a
sufficiently pernicious problem that we don't need idiot academics
drawing outrageous conclusions from flimsy data.
-raghu.
