Given the assumption of ethnic separatism, it is instructive to think of the circumstances that would, from an evolutionary perspective, minimize group conflict. Theorists of cultural pluralism such as Horace Kallen (1924) envision a scenario in which different ethnic groups retain their distinctive identity in the context of complete political equality and economic opportunity. The difficulty with this scenario from an evolutionary perspective (or even a common sense perspective) is that no provision is made for the results of competition for resources and reproductive success within the society. Indeed, the results of ethnic strife were apparent in Kallen’s day, but “Kallen lifted his eyes above the strife that swirled around him to an ideal realm where diversity and harmony coexist” (Higham 1984, 209).

In the best of circumstances one might suppose that separated ethnic groups would engage in absolute reciprocity with each other, so that there would be no differences in terms of economic exploitation of one ethnic group by the other. Moreover, there would be no differences on any measure of success in society, including social class membership, economic role (e.g., producer versus consumer; creditor versus debtor; manager versus worker), or fertility between the separated ethnic groups. All groups would have approximately equal numbers and equal political power; or if there were different numbers, provisions would exist to ensure that minorities would retain equitable repre-sentation in terms of the markers of social and reproductive success. Such conditions would minimize hostility between the groups because attributing one’s status to the actions of the other groups would be difficult.

Given the existence of ethnic separatism, however, it would still be in the interests of each group to advance its own interests at the expense of the other groups. All things being equal, a given ethnic group would be better off if it ensured that the other groups had fewer resources, lower social status, lower fertility, and proportionately less political power than itself. The hypothesized steady state of equality therefore implies a set of balance-of-power relation-ships—each side constantly checking to make sure that the other is not cheat-ing; each side constantly looking for ways to dominate and exploit by any means possible; each side willing to compromise only because of the other sides’s threat of retaliation; each side willing to cooperate at cost only if forced to do so by, for example, the presence of external threat. Clearly, any type of cooperation that involves true altruism toward the other group could not be expected.

Thus the ideal situation of absolute equality in resource control and repro-ductive success would certainly require a great deal of monitoring and un-doubtedly be characterized by a great deal of mutual suspicion. In the real world, however, even this rather grim ideal is highly unlikely. In the real world, ethnic groups differ in their talents and abilities; they differ in their numbers, fertility, and the extent to which they encourage parenting practices conducive to resource acquisition; they also differ in the resources held at any point in time and in their political power. Equality or proportionate equity would be extremely difficult to attain or to maintain after it has been achieved without extraordinary levels of monitoring and without extremely intense social controls to enforce ethnic quotas on the accumulation of wealth, admis-sion to universities, access to high status jobs, and so on.

Because ethnic groups have differing talents and abilities and differing par-enting styles, variable criteria for qualifying and retaining jobs would be required depending on ethnic group membership. Moreover, achieving parity between Jews and other ethnic groups would entail a high level of discrimination against individual Jews for admission to universities or access to em-ployment opportunities and even entail a large taxation on Jews to counter the Jewish advantage in the possession of wealth, since at present Jews are vastly overrepresented among the wealthy and the successful in the United States. This would especially be the case if Jews were distinguished as a separate ethnic group from gentile European Americans. Indeed, the final evolution of many of the New York Intellectuals from Stalinism was to become neoconser-vatives who have been eloquent opponents of affirmative action and quota mechanisms for distributing resources. (Sachar [1992, 818ff] mentions Daniel Bell, Sidney Hook, Irving Howe, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Charles Krauthammer, Norman Podhoretz, and Earl Raab as opposed to affirmative action.) Jewish organizations (including the ADL, the AJCommittee, and the AJCongress) have taken similar positions Sachar (1992, 818ff).

In the real world, therefore, extraordinary efforts would have to be made to attain this steady state of ethnic balance of power and resources. Interestingly, the ideology of Jewish-gentile coexistence has sometimes included the idea that the different ethnic groups develop a similar occupational profile and implicitly control resources in proportion to their numbers. In medieval France, for example, Louis IX’s ordinance of 1254 prohibited Jews from engaging in moneylending at interest and encouraged them to live by manual labor or trade (see Richard 1992, 162). The dream of German assimilationists during the nineteenth century was that the occupational profile of Jews after emancipation would mirror that of the gentiles—a “utopian expectation . . . shared by many, Jews and non-Jews alike” (Katz 1986, 67). Efforts were made to decrease the percentage of Jews involved in trade and increase the percent-ages involved in agriculture and artisanry. In the event, however, the result of emancipation was that Jews were vastly overrepresented among the economic and cultural elite, and this overrepresentation was a critical feature of German anti-Semitism from 1870 to 1933 (see SAID, Ch. 5).

Similarly, during the 1920s when the United States was attempting to come to grips with Jewish competition at prestigious private universities, plans were proposed in which each ethnic group received a percentage of placements at Harvard reflecting the percentage of racial and national groups in the United States (Sachar 1992, 329). Similar policies—uniformly denounced by Jewish organizations—developed during the same period throughout Central Europe (Hagen 1996). Such policies certainly reflect the importance of ethnicity in human affairs, but levels of social tension are bound to be chronically high. Moreover, there is a considerable chance of ethnic warfare even were precise parity achieved through intensive social controls: As indicated above, it is always in the interests of any ethnic group to obtain hegemony over the others.

If one adopts a cultural pluralism model involving free competition for re-sources and reproductive success, differences between ethnic groups are inevitable; from an evolutionary perspective, there is the very strong predic-tion that such differences will result in animosity from the losing groups. After emancipation there was a powerful tendency for upward mobility among Jews in Western societies, including a large overrepresentation in the professions as well as in business, politics, and the production of culture. Concomitantly there were outbreaks of anti-Semitism originating often among groups that felt left behind in this resource competition or who felt that the culture being created did not meet their interests. If the history of Judaism tells us anything, it is that self-imposed ethnic separatism tends to lead to resource competition based on group membership, and consequent hatred, expulsions, and persecu-tions. Assuming that ethnic differences in talents and abilities exist, the suppo-sition that ethnic separatism could be a stable situation without ethnic animosity requires either a balance of power situation maintained with intense social controls, as described above, or it requires that at least some ethnic groups be unconcerned that they are losing in the competition.

I regard this last possibility as unlikely in the long run. That an ethnic group would be unconcerned with its own eclipse and domination is certainly not expected by an evolutionist or, indeed, by advocates of social justice whatever their ideology. Nevertheless, this is in fact the implicit morality of the criti-cism by several historians of the behavior of the Spanish toward the Jews and Marranos during the Inquisition and the Expulsion, as, for example, in the writings of Benzion Netanyahu (1995), who at times seems openly contemp-tuous of the inability of the Spaniards to compete with the New Christians without resorting to the violence of the Inquisition. From this perspective, the Spaniards should have realized their inferiority and acquiesced in being economically, socially, and politically dominated by another ethnic group. Such a “morality” is unlikely to appeal to the group losing the competition, and from an evolutionary perspective, this is not in the least surprising. Goldwin Smith (1894/1972, 261) made a similar point a century ago:
 

A community has a right to defend its territory and its national integrity against an invader whether his weapon be the sword or foreclosure. In the territories of the Italian Republics the Jews might so far as we see, have bought land and taken to farming had they pleased. But before this they had thoroughly taken to trade. Under the falling Empire they were the great slave-traders, buying captives from barbarian invaders and probably acting as general brokers of spoils at the same time. They entered England in the train of the Norman conqueror. There was, no doubt, a perpetual struggle between their craft and the brute force of the feudal populations. But what moral prerogative has craft over force? Mr. Arnold White tells the Russians that, if they would let Jewish intelligence have free course, Jews would soon fill all high employments and places of power to the exclusion of the natives, who now hold them. Russians are bidden to acquiesce and rather to rejoice in this by philosophers, who would perhaps not relish the cup if it were commended to their own lips. The law of evolution, it is said, prescribes the survival of the fittest. To which the Russian boor may reply, that if his force beats the fine intelligence of the Jew the fittest will survive and the law of evolution will be fulfilled. It was force rather than fine intelligence which decided on the field of Zama that the Latin, not the Semite, should rule the ancient and mould the modern world.

Ironically, many intellectuals who absolutely reject evolutionary thinking and any imputation that genetic self-interest might be important in human affairs also favor policies that are rather obviously self-interestedly ethnocen-tric, and they often condemn the self-interested ethnocentric behavior of other groups, particularly any indication that the European-derived majority in the United States is developing a cohesive group strategy and high levels of ethnocentrism in reaction to the group strategies of others. The ideology of minority group ethnic separatism and the implicit legitimization of group competition for resources, as well as the more modern idea that ethnic group membership should be a criterion for resource acquisition, must be seen for what they are: blueprints for group evolutionary strategies. The history of the Jews must be seen as a rather tragic commentary on the results of such group strategies.

The importance of group-based competition cannot be overstated. I believe it is highly unlikely that Western societies based on individualism and democracy can long survive the legitimization of competition between impermeable groups in which group membership is determined by ethnicity. The discussion in SAID (Chs. 3–5) strongly suggests that ultimately group strategies are met by group strategies, and that societies become organized around cohesive, mutually exclusionary groups. Indeed, the recent multicultural movement may be viewed as tending toward a profoundly non-Western form of social organi-zation that has historically been much more typical of Middle Eastern segmen-tary societies centered around discrete homogeneous groups. However, unlike in the multicultural ideal, in these societies there are pronounced relations of dominance and subordination. Whereas democracy appears to be quite foreign to such segmentary societies, Western societies, uniquely among the stratified societies of the world, have developed individualistic democratic and republi-can political institutions. Moreover, major examples of Western collectivism, including German National Socialism and Iberian Catholicism during the period of the Inquisition, have been characterized by intense anti-Semitism.

There is thus a significant possibility that individualistic societies are unlikely to survive the intra-societal group-based competition that has become increasingly common and intellectually respectable in the United States. I believe that in the United States we are presently heading down a volatile path—a path that leads to ethnic warfare and to the development of collectivist, authoritarian, and racialist enclaves. Although ethnocentric beliefs and behavior are viewed as morally and intellectually legitimate only among ethnic minorities in the United States, the theory and the data presented in SAID indicate that the development of greater ethnocentrism among Euro-pean-derived peoples is a likely result of present trends.