World on Fire

World on Fire Ms. Chua talked about her book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, published by Doubleday. While proponents of globalization believe that exporting free markets and democracy to other countries will increase peace and prosperity throughout the developing world Ms. Chua shows that just the opposite has happened. When global markets open, ethnic conflict worsens and politics turns ugly and violent. She gives examples from around the world of how free markets do not spread wealth evenly throughout the whole of developing societies. Instead they produce a new class of extremely wealthy individuals who are almost always members of a minority group such as Chinese in the Philippines, Indians in East Africa, and whites in Latin America. These wealthy minorities then become a target of violent hatred. Adding democracy to this volatile mix unleashes suppressed ethnic hatreds and brings to power ethno-nationalist governments that pursue aggressive policies of confiscation and revenge. Ms. Chua further shows how individual countries are often viewed as dominant minorities, explaining the phenomena of ethnic resentment in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the rising tide of anti-American sentiment around the world. She believes that this more than anything accounts for the visceral hatred of Americans that has been expressed in recent acts of terrorism. close