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Ethnic Nepotism
In social science, the term ethnic nepotism portrays a human propensity for ingathering inclination or in-gathering bias connected by nepotism for individuals
with the same ethnicity inside a multi-ethnic culture.
The term was instituted in the 1960s with regards to the ethnic (tribal) pressures
and contention in the then-as of late autonomous states in Sub-Saharan Africa, for
example, Nigeria.
Affected by W.D. Hamilton's hypothesis of kinfolk choice, ethnic nepotism depicts
a human propensity for in-gathering predisposition or in-gathering bias connected
on the ethnic level. The term was authored by humanist Pierre L. van cave Berghe
in reference to the circumstance in the Belgian Congo.[citation needed]
Sociobiological theory
The theory views ethnocentrism and racism as nepotism toward extended kin and
an extension of kin selection. In other words, ethnic nepotism points toward a
biological basis for the phenomenon of people preferring others of the same
ethnicity or race; it explains the tendency of humans to favor members of their own
racial group by postulating that all animals evolve toward being more altruistic
toward kin in order to propagate more copies of their common genes.
"The myth of common descent", proposed by many social scientists as a prominent
ethnic marker, is in his view often not a myth at all.[clarification needed]
"Ethnicity is defined by common descent and maintained by endogamy".
To guard one's genetic interests, Frank Salter notes altruism toward one's coethnics:
Hamilton's 1975 model of a genetic basis for tribal altruism shows that it is
theoretically possible to defend ethnic genetic interests in an adaptive manner,
even when the altruism entails self sacrifice. He argued mathematically that an act
of altruism directed towards the tribe was adaptive if it protected the aggregate of
distant relatives in the tribe. In sexually-reproducing species a population's genetic
isolation leads to rising levels of interrelatedness of its members and thus makes
greater altruism adaptive. Low levels of immigration between tribes allow growing
relatedness of tribal members, which in turn permits selection of altruistic acts
directed at tribal members, but only if these acts "actually aid in group fitness in
some way...." Closely related individuals are less likely to free ride and more likely
to invest in and thus strengthen the group as a whole, improving the fitness of its
members.
Regarding how this translates into politics and why homogeneous societies are
more altruistic, Frank Salter writes:
Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher
level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates
with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average
wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia
find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to
develop public infrastructure. Moscow beggars receive more gifts from fellow
ethnics than from other ethnics. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on
public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities
spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than
do the more homogenous cities.
J. Philippe Rushton has complemented kin selection and ethnic nepotism by his
genetic similarity theory which proposes that "genetically similar people tend to
seek one another out and to provide mutually supportive environments such as
marriage, friendship, and social groups. This may represent a biological factor
underlying ethnocentrism and group selection". He has also argued that:
[B]ecause fellow ethnics carry copies of the same genes, ethnic consciousness is
rooted in the biology of altruism and mutual reciprocity. Thus ethnic nationalism,
xenophobia and genocide can become the ‘dark side’ of altruism. Moreover, shared
genes can govern the degree to which an ideology is adopted. Some genes will
replicate better in some cultures than in others. Religious, political and class
conflicts become heated because they affect genetic fitness. Karl Marx did not take
his analysis far enough: ideology may be the servant of economic interest, but
genes influence both. Since individuals have a greater concentration of genetic
interest (inclusive fitness) in their own ethnic group than they do in other ethnic
groups, they can be expected to adopt ideas that promote their group over others.
Political ethologist Frank Salter refers to ideologies as ‘fitness portfolios’, and
psychologist Kevin MacDonald has described co-ethnics as engaging in "group
evolutionary strategies."
In Rushton's interpretation it is not clear whether the proposed genetic likeness that
supports ethnic nepotism is limited to external appearance, or it also includes other
loci. If that is the case, it would be difficult to deduct how similar blood types or
creatine levels, or others, among the multitude of invisible phenotype traits,
contribute to determine the bonding behavior towards people carrying the alleged
similar alleles. Also, there is no clue offered as to which of these specific alleles
are the most important for expression of ethnic nepotism. Hamiltonian kin
selection (in itself very controversial) refers exclusively to defined sets of discrete
behaviors that are innate, not learned and increase the reproductive fitness among
very close kin, whereas ethnic nepotism would appear to depend heavily on social
interactions and on morphology, or physical characteristics.
According to research by Van der Dennen, "ethnocentrism-cum-xenophobia"
seems universally present in preindustrial societies (and in many primate and social
carnivore species).
Tatu Vanhanen in his 1999 book Ethnic Conflicts Explained by Ethnic Nepotism
empirically examined the relationships between the degree of ethnic homogeneity,
the degree of ethnic conflicts, and the degree of democratization in the nations of
the world. He found that more ethnically heterogeneous nations had more ethnic
conflicts. The degree of democratization explained very little of the degree of
ethnic conflicts except that very authoritarian states such as the former Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia could suppress ethnic conflicts. Ethnic conflicts were only
slightly less common in more economically developed countries. They appeared
within all racial groups, cultures, and geographical regions. In Vanhanen's view,
people have a genetic tendency to easily learn ethnic attitudes and psychological
mechanisms leading to prejudice, scapegoating, and discrimination.
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