Abolishing caste will increase India’s GDP by FOUR TIMES what it can otherwise be

Let me repeat what I’ve noted yesterday that I’m focusing on caste only because its abolition is basically a good thing (deontological ethic) but because abolishing it will yield a massive boost to India’s GDP (consequentialist ethic).

I (very crudely) estimate that liberating Hindus will yield a massive increase in education, occupational mobility and reduction of wasted effort on useless activity. This, PROVIDED other conditions of liberty are available, will grow India’s per capita GDP by at least 4 times in one generation.

With only improved governance but no abolition of caste, India will NEVER come even remotely close to being a rich nation. Yes, there will be a few rich people in India, and good governance can increase prosperity, but its per capita will languish.

HOW PRECISELY DOES CASTE HAVE THIS ECONOMIC EFFECT?

Caste is a critical factor in determining self-respect. Self-respect eliminates self-doubt and the rubbish of oppression from the mind. It clears the mind and allows children to focus on the ACTUAL issue at hand.

Here’s an extract from John U.Ogbu’s work (which I had cited in BFN), to show how LOOKING DOWN UPON OTHERS has huge effects on their performance.

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John U.Ogbu, Cultural Amplifiers of Intelligence: IQ and Minority Status in Cross-cultural Perspective, in RACE AND INTELLIGENCE: Separating Science From Myth, Edited by Jefferson M.Fish

Involuntary Minorities and IQ Test Scores. I began to classify minorities as immigrants (voluntary minorities) or nonimmigrants (involuntary minorities) to avoid lumping together … groups with different histories and experiences.

The classification was based on an extensive comparative study of minorities in the United States and other societies. It was found that there are many significant differences between voluntary and involuntary minorities, including differences in educational and occupational experiences, attitudes, and strategies (Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu, 1987, 1998).

I argue that Black Americans were for centuries excluded from cultural tasks (White middle-class occupation and education) that enhance the development of those cognitive abilities and skills. Almost every study of the occupational history of Blacks … concluded with indisputable evidence that Black underrepresentation in high-level occupations was caused by racial discrimination (employment discrimination against Blacks and Mexican Americans).

Although both groups can learn cognitive skills, acquiring these abilities and skills has different affective meanings for immigrant (voluntary) and nonimmigrant (involuntary) minorities. Learning the Western abilities and cognitive skills …is affected by how the minorities perceive and interpret the cognitive skills and abilities. Voluntary and involuntary minorities differ in this respect.

Caste Status and IQ Test Scores. I have suggested since 1978 that caste status has an adverse effect on the IQ test scores and general academic performance of the lower castes, not only in the United States, but worldwide (Ogbu, 1978). What needs to be emphasized here is that the IQ test performance of lower caste groups is more depressed when the tests are interpreted as the property of the dominant caste and less depressed when the tests are seen as “foreign” to both the dominant and the lower caste groups. Thus, in Japan, where the lower caste Buraku interpret IQ tests as coming from the dominant Ippan caste, and in the United States, where the subordinate caste of Blacks interpret or identify IQ tests as the property of the dominant White caste, the test scores of the lower castes are depressed beyond what might be expected from differences in socioeconomic status. In contrast, in India, Nigeria (Igbos), and Rwanda, where IQ and academic tests were introduced by “foreigners,” chiefly the British and the French, the performance of the lower castes is not depressed beyond what might be expected from their lower socioeconomic status (Ogbu, 1986a; Ogbu & Stern, in press).

I have published papers specifically devoted to Black-White castelike stratification in the United States and its implications for mental development and IQ test performance (see Ogbu, 1986a, 1986b).

I have several publications on how and why immigrant (voluntary) and nonimmigrant (involuntary) minorities differ in general, with respect to schooling or IQ tests (see Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu, 1983, 1987, 1991; Ogbu & Simons, 1998).

INVOLUNTARY MINORITY STATUS AND IQ IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Analysis of the IQ test performance of minorities in other societies shows involuntary minorities have low test scores. Lower performance on IQ tests of involuntary minorities has been reported in India (Chopra, 1966; Gaur & Sen, 1989) Europe and North America (McShane & Berry, 1988; Verma, 1988), New Zealand (Ogbu, 1978), and Japan (DeVos, 1973). It is instructive, however, to observe the performance of the same minority group in one society where they are an involuntary minority and in another where they are a voluntary minority. I use the Burakumin and Koreans in Japan to show that it is type of minority status, not race, that affects IQ test scores.

The Burakumin

The Burakumin are an involuntary minority group in Japan. There are no racial differences between them and the dominant Ippan Japanese. They usually score lower than the dominant Ippan on the Tanaka-Binet IQ test. The lower test scores have been reported in the Osaka region (DeVos 1973; DeVos & Wagatsuma, 1967; see Fig. 10.5). Time magazine had the following to say about the Buraku-Ippan gap in IQ test scores in 1973:

The state proclaimed the outcaste system illegal in 1871, but prejudice did not yield to government fiat. On the average, Burakumin are less well educated than their countrymen, and their children test 16 IQ points lower than other Japanese.

The gap in IQ test scores persists even though the Japanese government has spent about $60 billion to improve the economic and social conditions and education of the Buraku since 1979 (Shimahara, 1991). On the other hand, the discrimination and prejudice against the Burakumin by the Ippan majority persists (Kegard Prefecture, 1989). During my visit to Osaka in the summer of 1999 I found that both discrimination against the Buraku and the low academic performance of the latter continue in 42 neighborhoods for which data were available. In one elementary school I visited, the gap in school performance between Buraku and non-Buraku widens as the children progress into higher grades.

As voluntary minorities, the Burakumin in the United States perform well. Or, to put it differently, there is no evidence that they do less well on IQ tests and in school than other Japanese immigrants. In fact, the only study of Japanese immigrant school performance in the United States that identified them indicates that they do slightly academic achievement or job performance.

The Korean Case

Koreans are an involuntary minority group in Japan. They were taken to Japan as forced laborers when Korea was colonized by Japan. In other words, Koreans did not choose to go to Japan expecting better economic well-being or political freedom, but were forced to become minorities in Japan. Having been separated from Korea for more than half a century, many Koreans in Japan do not feel that they can return to Korea, although they are now free to do so. Most were born in Japan, but they are still treated as foreigners by the Japanese and are required to get fingerprinted and to carry an identification card at all times. Job and school discrimination as well as other forms of discrimination are common among them. They have an oppositional collective identity and cultural frame of reference vis-à-vis the majority Ippan Japanese and they deeply distrust the Ippan majority.

We do not have IQ test scores of Japanese Koreans. However, the results of other standardized tests indicate that they do not perform as well as the dominant Ippan Japanese. For example, in 1976, 29.4% of the Ippan high school graduates and 18.7% of the Burakumin graduates, but only 12.7% of Koreans in Hyogo Prefecture qualified to enter a university (Fig. 10.6; see Lee, 1991).

Koreans in Japan and the United States are racially, culturally, and linguistically identical. However, Koreans in the United States are immigrants, or a voluntary minority group. In the United States, the immigrant Koreans perform as well as or better than mainstream White Americans on standardized tests (Fig. 10.7; Lee, 1991).

The test performance of the Burakumin and Koreans in Japan is instructive in light of the conventional view of Asians in the United States as “model minorities” who are academically successful. Their academic success in the United States is often attributed to their “Asian cultures” that, according to some, promote academic success more than other cultures, and to Asians being more intelligent than other groups. If these two factors were responsible for the performance of Asians in the United States, the Koreans and the Burakumin who live in Japan should be as successful as their fellow Koreans and Burakumin who live in the United States.

It is also instructive to compare Koreans in Japan, where they are involuntary minorities with Koreans in China, where, as in the United States, they are voluntary minorities.

Koreans in China are also portrayed as a model minority out of China’s 56 minority groups, in educational and professional accomplishments. We have no IQ test scores from China; however, Koreans in China have the highest rate of literacy among the minorities (89.55% vs. 57.37%) and a higher rate than the dominant Han group (89.55% vs. 68.81%; C.L.Lee, 1986).

CONCLUSION

The minorities have the biological potential to develop the required intellectual skills and they usually do. However, the minorities that have the most difficulty performing well on the IQ tests, even when they have the intellectual skills, are involuntary minorities.

Involuntary minorities perform poorly on IQ tests not only because of discrimination by the dominant group or because they are not familiar with the tasks in the tests, although these are important.

Additional barriers faced by involuntary minorities include a lack of incentive motivation, self-doubt arising from the internalization of intellectual denigration, and the conscious or unconscious opposition to adopting White ways that are associated with good IQ test performance because doing so threatens their collective identity.

For involuntary minorities, cultural bias in IQ tests means not just that they are not familiar with the intellectual tasks in the tests or with how to perform those tasks. For them, the bias extends to the instrumental, relational, and expressive meanings of the tests.

One prerequisite for increasing the IQ test scores of involuntary minorities is to recognize that the tests are a part of White American culture and intellectual attributes, and that they are perceived to be such by involuntary minorities. A second prerequisite is to recognize that Blacks belong to a distinct type of minority group whose experiences and interpretations of the tests may lead them to resist the tests consciously or unconsciously. Finally, residue of various forms of discrimination should be eliminated and programs should be developed so that the minorities will develop nonthreatening interpretations of the tests and test-taking.