Whining about ethnic competition

Editor's note: "Hollywood vs. America" is now here! Michael Medved provides provocative insights into the U.S. entertainment industry. Both autographed and unautographed copies now available in WorldNetDaily's online store.

Contemporary liberalism advances an impressive array of idiotic ideas, but none of them does more devastating damage than the toxic notion that America has room for only so much success – and that progress for any individual means reduced opportunities for his neighbors. That faulty logic becomes especially destructive when applied to ethnic competition – suggesting that advances by one segment of the population unavoidably hurt everyone else.

This twisted thinking turned up in a bizarre Feb. 27 front-page story in USA TODAY. The headline seemed to promise encouraging news: "ASIAN BUSINESS OWNERS GAINING CLOUT," it declared. But the subhead expressed the downbeat theme behind the report, warning: "Their Growing Success Has Shifted Power Away from Blacks." As reporter Jim Hopkins explained: "Twenty years ago, blacks were No. 1 in U.S. minority business ownership. Not anymore. Now Hispanics are first, Asians second and blacks third, a USA TODAY computer analysis of new government data show [sic]."

In other words, the story tried to offer new evidence of blacks as perpetual victims – showing African Americans losing ground, falling further behind, gypped and oppressed as always. Inevitably, the report quoted Jesse Jackson, sneering over the superior success of Asian entrepreneurs. "They landed on the ground," the civil-rights giant thundered. "We landed in chains."

Unfortunately, Jackson concentrates so intently on rattling those chains that he failed to notice the good news in the data collected by USA TODAY. Far from indicating black failure or regression, the raw numbers show a pattern of spectacular black success. In 1982, African Americans owned and operated 308,260 private companies; by 1997, that number had far more than doubled, to 780,770. So what if the number of Asian entrepreneurs increased even more rapidly – from 201,917 to 785,480. In what way does a successful Asian-American business harm the black community, or the Hispanic community for that matter? What rule – what logic – says that we only have room for so many minority businesses in this country?

Only people with no business experience could buy the poisonous suggestion that somebody else's success leads inevitably to your failure. I live in the Seattle area, where a plucky little firm called Microsoft didn't somehow suck up the oxygen in the region and destroy the local economy. In fact, Bill Gates' audacious endeavor helped even rival high tech firms – by making the Northwest a top center of the computer business.

If your neighbor cashes in some good investments, and builds the biggest house on the block, it doesn't hurt your property values – unless he rudely blocks your view or chops down some trees. Generally, the financial success of one individual, firm or ethnic group spurs additional economic activity that helps everyone.

Sanity requires that we celebrate the progress of others, rather than cursing it, because it's precisely such progress that facilitates our own success. If one store in a shopping center becomes wildly popular, it doesn't harm the other enterprises in the mall – it assists everyone by driving more customer traffic to the location.

Liberals regularly miss – or misconstrue – this simple but essential truth, viewing the free market as a battlefield for life-and-death, winner-take-all competition that pits capital against labor, blacks against Asians, men against women – with never enough success to go around. The left always focuses its attention on dividing wealth – rather than producing it – and they do so because of their love affair with government power. Bureaucrats can work to apportion riches in a manner they deem fair, but government never produces the riches in the first place – only private enterprise can do that.

In other words, the left sustains the sense of eternal grudge that fuels its lunatic projects by persuading people to focus on the attainments of others, rather than celebrating achievements of their own. Liberals love to highlight the "growing gap between rich and poor" – without noting the far more salient fact that poor people in American have progressed so dramatically that they now enjoy a standard of living that would have qualified as middle class in previous years. There will always be someone with a bigger business, a better car, a nicer house, a prettier wife – and it can drive you crazy if you concentrate on the blessings of that other guy.

Whining about the prosperity of Asian American businessmen as if it represented some sort of disaster for other ethnic groups ("their growing success has shifted power away from blacks") not only contradicts the can-do entrepreneurial attitude, but violates the optimistic essence of America itself. If our history teaches anything, it proves that in an unshackled economy there is more than enough success to go around.

SPECIAL OFFERS!

"Hollywood vs. America" is here!
Michael Medved provides provocative insights into the U.S. entertainment industry. Both autographed and unautographed copies now available in WorldNetDaily's online store.

Medved brings American history alive!
24-tape set presents nation's story from the founders' perspective. Also available from WorldNetDaily's online store.