Amy Chua has an interesting opinion about how countries with "market-dominant minorities" (ethnic minorities who, for widely varying reasons, tend under market conditions to dominate economically the indigenous majorities around them) often have problems when they try laissez-faire capitalism and free elections. (Actually, she's flogging her book.) But Paul Craig Roberts has a word for her. I'm afraid humans generally love to congregate in in-groups and hate the out-group; it may involve ethnic groups, but sometimes it's other perceived qualities, like class.