Non-Linear Ethnic Niches. Arctotherium explains how diversity causes market fracture

https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/non-linear-ethnic-niches

This is a really interesting article. It's long and detailed, but the main claim is that economic niches are being taken over by particular minorities for reasons that have little to do with particular ability, but are the result of in-group assistance/synergy effects. In-group members have access in that particular industry to more talent, more capital, more assistance via their ethnic and family connections. This is creating an India-like caste system in the west, fracturing the labor market so that after the transition, any given industry has less talent, less capital, and less assistance, and any given ethnic group has fewer opportunities. Given that free association, individualism, and a relatively homogenous majority was a main advantage or at least a core social pattern of the Western economic rise, this is a total disaster.

We've all seen this in practice, so it's nice to see a great synthesis of the whole idea with data and thinking through of the economic effects. Unless immigration is stopped and reversed shortly, this is the bloody end of individualism in the west.

I wonder though how this argument applies in China. Does China have a larger non-gated majority labor market not just in absolute scale but also relatively? How much caste-like kin networking is there in "Han" china? My impression is that asian countries have less of this problem internally than India, and less immigration (so far) than Europe or the Anglosphere.

I've speculated before that informal ties within cults (ie religious minorities) and such may take over industries and even result in a re-tying of economic to biological capital (ie human capital becomes vertically integrated thus incentivising fertility). This is an interestingly bleak twist on that thesis: economic productivity is much less in that world, and society becomes a low trust shithole.

So what are us civilized individuals to do in such a world?

“In-group members have access in that particular industry to more talent, more capital, more assistance via their ethnic and family connections.”

Sounds to me like they are more cooperative, trusting, and trustworthy, which are rare and value-generating virtues. The same kind of virtues built the success of Toquevillian America.

If “””heritage American””” culture has lost those virtues - if you personally do not have people you trust to lend or borrow money from, or to work for while they teach you a trade, then Gnon has decreed that despite your formidable advantages in being a native English speaker and knowing the business environment from birth, you are not worthy to compete in these markets. This is not “civilization” but a loss of ancestral virtues and a just loss of community capabilities.

If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent Cambodians to take over your lucrative donut shop industry.