Middleman minority

Middleman minority
A middleman minority is a minority population whose main occupations link producers and consumers: traders, money-lenders, etc. A middleman minority, while possibly suffering discrimination and bullying, does not hold an "extreme subordinate" status in society. The "middleman minority" concept was developed by sociologists Hubert Blalock and Edna Bonacich starting in the 1960s but is also used by political scientists and economists. This idea was further developed by American economist Thomas Sowell.
Overview
There are numerous examples of such groups gaining eventual prosperity in their adopted country despite discrimination. Often, they will take on roles between producer and consumer, such as trading and moneylending. Famous examples such as Jews throughout Europe even at times when discrimination against them was high, Chinese throughout Southeast Asia and North America, Muslims and Parsis in India, Igbos in Nigeria, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, and many others.
Middleman minorities usually provide an economic benefit to communities and nations and often start new industries. However, their economic aptitude, financial success and clannishness, combined with social prejudices by other groups against businesses and moneylending, can cause resentment among the native population of a country. Middleman minorities can be victims of racist violence, terrorists, bullying, genocide, racialist policy, or other forms of repression. Other ethnic groups often accuse them of plotting conspiracies against their nation or of stealing wealth from the native population.
Examples
In Africa
Indians in East Africa
Igbos in Nigeria
Syrians in West Africa
In North America
Chinese Americans
Japanese Americans
Korean Americans
Greek Americans
Lebanese Americans
In South America
Japanese in South America
Lebanese in South America
The majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries Middle Eastern immigrants to Brazil (Lebanese, Syrians, etc., collectively called "arabes" or "turcos", the latter term because they came from the Ottoman Empire) were peddlers, merchants and other types of non-"producers".
In West Asia
Ottoman Greeks
Arab Christians in the Arab world
Hadhramis
Armenian
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
Armenians in Baku during the Russian Empire
Persian Armenians in Safavid dynasty
Armenian Americans
Azerbaijani
Azerbaijanis during the Imperial era of Iran (16th–20th centuries)
Azerbaijanis in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire
Azerbaijanis in contemporary Iran
Azerbaijanis in contemporary Russia
Jewish
American Jews
European Jews
Ottoman Jews
Radhanite Jews
Elsewhere
Chinese in Southeast Asia
Chinese and Vietnamese in Russia and Eastern Europe since the fall of Communism and collapse of the Soviet Union
Parsis in India, although having prospered, have done so under active patronisation of Indian rulers and have not been discriminated against because of their race.
See also
Colonialism, particularly exploitation colonialism and plantation colonies
Dominant minority
Market-dominant minority
Minoritarianism
Model minority
Neocolonialism
World on Fire (book)
Yuri Slezkine's book The Jewish Century (2004) discussed the concept of "Mercurian" people "specializ[ing] exclusively in providing services to the surrounding food-producing societies," which are characterized as "Apollonians"
References
Further reading
Silverman, Robert Mark. 2000. Doing Business in Minority Markets: Black and Korean Entrepreneurs in Chicago’s Ethnic Beauty Aids Industry. New York: Garland Publishing.
Pál Nyíri, Chinese in Eastern Europe and Russia: A Middleman Minority in a Transnational Era, 2007,
Sociological terminology
Minorities
Social groups
Social inequality
Harassment and bullying
Hate crimes