A few questions:

1. How far do low Gini coefficients correlate to low diversity? My impression is that they do. Japan's monoculture seems to be connected to its relative equality.

In a more homogenous society, moderately well off taxpayers look at benefit claimants and think, "there but for the grace of God go I". They have more empathy because they can more easily imagine how they could have wound up in the benefit claimant's shoes. If the people on benefit feel like a completely alien social grouping the empathy may be lost, and therefore the willingness to vote for social programs for the poor.

2. When I read the religious affiliations of US politicians I suspect there is a very high degree of lying and deception going on. At least some of those politicians must be secret Atheists, don't you think?

At least some of those politicians must be secret Atheists, don't you think?

yes. people who work in DC tell me this is so.

We live *above* the Malthusian limit? You mean we have more people than we can feed?

Fortunately, we're well below it (and it would help us to stay there if we stopped subsidizing the conversion of food for fuel in the form of ethanol).

yeah, tx linda.

Define diversity. Somalia is mono-lingual, mono-religious, mono-ethnic, and has a diverse array of clans.

Every society is diverse along some metric -- the question is whether the metric is salient for inter-group conflict (and distrust).

Every society is diverse along some metric -- the question is whether the metric is salient for inter-group conflict (and distrust).

right. did you read my post before you commented?

Koreans are corrupt nepotists. Look at all the family business scandals that happen over there. It wouldn't be surprising if the President is biased against Buddhists and non-Christians.

Koreans are corrupt nepotists

!finns are corrupt nepotists :-) very little value add to this comment.

South Koreans like to Work Hard, Riot Hard.

Yes. But I never understand what you're talking about.

(Actually, I was responding mostly to comment #1.)

Is there research on how effective having a defined outsider lower-class is in reducing other religious or ethnic tensions?

For example, how important was it to white unification in America to have blacks be the designated bottom of the barrel? Did this help European immigrants get over their Old World ethnic and religious differences?

And now that anti-black attitudes are no longer a unifying belief among whites, are the political culture wars the result of intra-white religious differences becoming more important and definitional?

I get the impression that many white evangelicals feel that secular upper income whites look down on them as the dregs of society. Obviously nobody likes thinking of themselves as the bottom of the barrel and that spurs a backlash.

Human nature being what it is, some sub-group will always be considered the dregs of society. But if that group is a large percentage of society that seems a recipe for instability.

Is it perversely good for a society as a whole if there is some 5% minority group that everybody else hates?

(To be clear, I think it'd be ideal if everybody got along with everybody. I just don't think that is how human nature works.)

Besides ethnicity and religion, there's nationality as such. Switzerland has been diverse in language and religion for centuries -- the unity of the country is, as far as I can tell, purely political and historical. (It's not geographical either, most mountainous areas are terribly fractured).

I'll just repeat that in the historical sciences, exceptions and outliers can be as important as, or more important than, the typical cases. According to most theories, Switzerland shouldn't exist.

Besides ethnicity and religion, there's nationality as such. Switzerland has been diverse in language and religion for centuries -- the unity of the country is, as far as I can tell, purely political and historical. (It's not geographical either, most mountainous areas are terribly fractured).

switzerland is also one of the most politically decentralized countries in the world. coincidence?

Hi Razib

As far as I can tell, without the system of Cantons, the Swiss Germans would be an immoveable permanent majority; which would in turn lead to secession by the non-German regions. I couldn't find any statistics showing whether Swiss-German, -French, -Italian or -Roman regions tend to be richer.

The Swiss I know always tend to say, "oh Basel - that's a German town", or "oh Geneva, that's a French town". So there isn't a sense of, say, wealthy Swiss-French with poor German-Swiss gardeners tending their lawns. Ethnic diversity doesn't correlate with class or income separation - at least not among the traditional inhabitants of Switzerland. Switzerland has imported both an underclass of poor non-Swiss and an overclass of international billionaires. Even with this, Switzerland's Gini coefficient is lower than both the UK and the US.

I think it is important that the religious difference in Switzerland (Catholic v. Protestant) cuts across the linguistic ones. In particular, Geneva is traditionally Protestant, and received a lot of Huguenot refugees from France in the 16th and 17th centuries. If Geneva had been Catholic I suspect it would have merged with France long ago.

Switzerland is a deliberately, systematically multicultural nation that functions pretty well. You can call it "decentralization", but it's the equivalent of having a Spanish-language state in the U.S. It seems to be a counterexample for several different arguments.

. You can call it "decentralization", but it's the equivalent of having a Spanish-language state in the U.S. It seems to be a counterexample for several different arguments.

equivalent if there was A LOT more federalism. remember, the swiss have traditions on *towns* voting on *individual* citizenship applications. the quotes around decentralization are totally unwarranted. it's easy to get along with another group if they have your back (repel enemies) but don't want too much collaboration on domestic issues. ask the belgians....

Historically Switzerland was very decentralized, but it's increasingly less so. A pretty loose confederation has developed into a nation. In any case, my point is that "decentralization" is a weak way of describing what is really a non-national, pluralistic state, even more decentralized than federalist states.

It's quite impressive that Nazi Germany was not able to subvert Switzerland by recruiting Swiss Germans the way it recruited Czech Germans, or as far as that goes, Austrians.

I looked at the stats in your other post and it seems that majority populations in each canton mostly are from 76% to 85%, with four of the 16 cantons larger than 100,000 having majority populations of less than 76% and five greater than than 85%.