Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

230 Laurence S. Moss5 Descriptive realism of the abstract modelIs ethnic conflict about economic trade and, if it is, is the erosion of the gains fromtrade due to duplicitous behavior (real or alleged)? Could it be that the dominantethnic group has a real bill of indictment against the ethnic group who is about to beexpelled or massacred that refers to deceptive behavior on their part?In an exhaustive study of ethnic nationalism in Africa and Asia, Donald L.Horowitz insisted that the fighting is not about economic problems at all (Horowitz1985). Horowitz concluded that “ethnically differentiated traders appear to thrivein the developing world because they are seen as more useful than harmful, becauseaspirations are limited, and because economic motives are not necessarily themainsprings of ethnic action” (p. 124). What do tribes argue about? According toHorowitz, “control of the state, control of a state, and exemption from control byothers are among the main goals of ethnic conflict” (p. 5).But surely control of the state and control of the taxation mechanisms, includingthe central bank of issue, can mean the diversion of jobs and currency reserves toone’s friends and allies. Economic motives and the corruption associated withbribery and stealing would seem to have everything to do with eliminationiststrategies. In the case of the Rwandan genocide, the Tutsis actually did dominatethe private economy and did have significant control of the major apparatus of thestate in Rwanda. 11 This disproportionate share of government jobs and relatedentitlements dated back to the administration of the region by the Belgiangovernment. As a result, the Hutus harbored a deep-seated grudge that the Tutsihegemony must be ended once and for all if Hutu rights and privileges were to berestored. It would be interesting to see if the grudges about political position andcontrol extend to broad generalizations about Tutsi duplicity in trading and fraud.Little has been done to examine the specific arguments the Tutsis offered to eachother and their children for the wholesale slaughter of the Hutus in Burundi or theHutus’ rhetoric preceding the slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda. The Hutunewspaper Kangura published its “Ten Commandments of the Hutu” in Decemberof 1990, years before the worst months of the genocide. Commandment 4 statedthat “every Tutsi is dishonest in business. His only aim is the supremacy of hisethnic group. As a result any Hutu who does the following is a traitor” and the listincludes investing money with a Tutsi or going into business partnership with aTutsi (Power 2002: 338–9).In Europe, the evidence is entirely consistent with the abstract model that I havesketched here. Consider the Gypsies or Roma people. According to Vaclav Havel(1996), the test of the Czech Republic’s civility will be how well the Gypsies aretreated in the Czech Republic. It is not surprising that Havel would single out thisgroup as the barometer of Czech tolerance, for the Gypsies have long had thereputation of being incorrigible D-types. The awful notion that they are moreinterested in scheming and defrauding their non-Gypsy trading partners thaninvesting in a clean reputation for fair play is deeply ingrained in Western cultureand vocabulary (Smith and Walstad 1989: 69). The C-types (non-Gypsies) aregenerally able to recognize Gypsies “at-a-distance.” And so they protect themselves