5 ms·

I get hard working and low crime, but why does homogeneity make a country rich?

by wat10000 5mo ago

netsharc 5mo ago
It's a dog whistle for "if a country's racial identity remained pure everything would've been fine".
- wat10000 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - WarmWash 5mo ago
    Because of Japan. A rigid culture and tradition can obviously carry a lot of weight, but usually comes with intense racism as well.
    - wat10000 5mo ago
      Kind of a funny example, since Japan got crushed by the poster boy country for diversity, and this nonsense about homogeneity played no small part in their arrogance in thinking they could win.
      - wat10000 5mo ago
        I wonder why this got downvoted. Are we not supposed to mention the war? Does it make people uncomfortable to be reminded of how their rhetoric mirrors that of fascists?
  - philipallstar 5mo ago
    People talking about dog whistles constantly state that as if it's fact, instead of them just being race-brained.
- philipallstar 5mo ago
  It's nothing to do with race. You need to gain the mindset that not everything is about race.
  - wat10000 5mo ago
    If it’s nothing to do with race, then why is a country with four official languages being called “homogeneous”?
    - rayiner 5mo ago
      Why do people say China is “homogenous” when people speaking Cantonese can’t understand people speaking Mandarin? It’s because those groups of people have been part of a common polity off and on since the Qin dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Similarly, Switzerland has been a thing, in various forms, since French and Italian were considered different dialects of vulgar Latin. The groups that speak the four different languages nonetheless share 800+ years of common political and social history.
      - wat10000 5mo ago
        I’m pretty sure people say China is homogeneous because 90+% of the population is a single ethnicity, and approximately 100% is “Asian” for some meaning of that word. What you’re describing is national unity or identity or something like that, not homogeneity.
kuerbel 5mo ago
It's not even true, 40% of the population has an immigrant background. And as for low crime, yes, blue collar crime. Please don't ask about white collar crime, we don't talk about that here...
bluebarbet 5mo ago
Because it favors social cohesion and social trust, which are strongly correlated with economic success. Americans are reflexively thinking of race, but that's entirely incidental and basically irrelevant.
- tpholland 5mo ago
  But Switzerland emphatically does not have a homogenous population. It has an exceptionally diverse population, linguistically, religiously and culturally. And yet as you say it has an exceptional record when it comes to cohesion and social trust. Living the dream!
  - bluebarbet 5mo ago
    The social cohesion of Switzerland is mainly within the linguistic communities. Many Francophone Swiss hardly speak a word of German (just as their Belgian counterparts don't speak Dutch). And a large proportion of Switzerland's "diverse" immigrants are in fact from just across the country's borders (particularly Germans). "Diversity" is not what explains Switzerland's wealth.
    - tpholland 5mo ago
      Absolutely agree, and of course I would never argue that "diversity" explains Switzerland's wealth. It occupied a pretty unique and interesting place during the Reformation, and maybe there is something there. But the idea that either diversity or homogeneity can explain economic performance is obviously not bourne out by any serious examples. I was thinking about Belgium (and also thinking about Harry Lime) whilst typing away--it seems a bit of a counterexample to Switzerland where the same linguistic and cultural diversity within a country can lead to very different outcomes and senses. Nobody would ever write "Il n'y a pas de Suisse" as Destrée wrote "Il n'y a pas de Belges"--long history vs short history and as always the Reformation upheavals explain it perhaps
  - philipallstar 5mo ago
    Can you list the statistics that demonstrate the exceptionally diverse population?
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

I get hard working and low crime, but why does homogeneity make a country rich?

netsharc 5mo ago

It's a dog whistle for "if a country's racial identity remained pure everything would've been fine".

wat10000 5mo ago
[flagged]
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  Because of Japan. A rigid culture and tradition can obviously carry a lot of weight, but usually comes with intense racism as well.
  - wat10000 5mo ago
    Kind of a funny example, since Japan got crushed by the poster boy country for diversity, and this nonsense about homogeneity played no small part in their arrogance in thinking they could win.
    - wat10000 5mo ago
      I wonder why this got downvoted. Are we not supposed to mention the war? Does it make people uncomfortable to be reminded of how their rhetoric mirrors that of fascists?
- philipallstar 5mo ago
  People talking about dog whistles constantly state that as if it's fact, instead of them just being race-brained.
philipallstar 5mo ago
It's nothing to do with race. You need to gain the mindset that not everything is about race.
- wat10000 5mo ago
  If it’s nothing to do with race, then why is a country with four official languages being called “homogeneous”?
  - rayiner 5mo ago
    Why do people say China is “homogenous” when people speaking Cantonese can’t understand people speaking Mandarin? It’s because those groups of people have been part of a common polity off and on since the Qin dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Similarly, Switzerland has been a thing, in various forms, since French and Italian were considered different dialects of vulgar Latin. The groups that speak the four different languages nonetheless share 800+ years of common political and social history.
    - wat10000 5mo ago
      I’m pretty sure people say China is homogeneous because 90+% of the population is a single ethnicity, and approximately 100% is “Asian” for some meaning of that word. What you’re describing is national unity or identity or something like that, not homogeneity.

kuerbel 5mo ago

It's not even true, 40% of the population has an immigrant background. And as for low crime, yes, blue collar crime. Please don't ask about white collar crime, we don't talk about that here...

bluebarbet 5mo ago

Because it favors social cohesion and social trust, which are strongly correlated with economic success. Americans are reflexively thinking of race, but that's entirely incidental and basically irrelevant.

tpholland 5mo ago
But Switzerland emphatically does not have a homogenous population. It has an exceptionally diverse population, linguistically, religiously and culturally. And yet as you say it has an exceptional record when it comes to cohesion and social trust. Living the dream!
- bluebarbet 5mo ago
  The social cohesion of Switzerland is mainly within the linguistic communities. Many Francophone Swiss hardly speak a word of German (just as their Belgian counterparts don't speak Dutch). And a large proportion of Switzerland's "diverse" immigrants are in fact from just across the country's borders (particularly Germans). "Diversity" is not what explains Switzerland's wealth.
  - tpholland 5mo ago
    Absolutely agree, and of course I would never argue that "diversity" explains Switzerland's wealth. It occupied a pretty unique and interesting place during the Reformation, and maybe there is something there. But the idea that either diversity or homogeneity can explain economic performance is obviously not bourne out by any serious examples. I was thinking about Belgium (and also thinking about Harry Lime) whilst typing away--it seems a bit of a counterexample to Switzerland where the same linguistic and cultural diversity within a country can lead to very different outcomes and senses. Nobody would ever write "Il n'y a pas de Suisse" as Destrée wrote "Il n'y a pas de Belges"--long history vs short history and as always the Reformation upheavals explain it perhaps
- philipallstar 5mo ago
  Can you list the statistics that demonstrate the exceptionally diverse population?

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]