Listening to the current crop of republicans, it's obvious what the play is. They are trying to maintain socio-economic segregation by economic means. Their current policies can be traced back to the mid-70's when there was a strong reaction to the implementation of anti-racist legislation.
By squeezing money away from the government the tax cutting policies kept the lower economic segments of the society from progressing. The slight of hand the Republicans are trying to do is to pretend that is not their intention when in fact it has been one of the main policy drivers.
I really think the shift of wealth upwardly is a by product. There have always been greedy types in government, but I don't think this is the motivation. The parrallel of these policies and the implementation of civil rights legislation is too obvious to be anything else.
But I'm not writing to protest the policies, rather I wondering from an innovation point of view how effective is this methodology.
The first assumption I'll make is that there has always been socio-economic segregation in the USA. Granted not as much as in other places, but enough to structure our society. Racism in the USA is as much about economic prosperity as it is about a genetic bias. The waves of immigrants only gained acceptance when they gained financial parity.
This is a major assumption, I know, but the topic is too large to get into here. What I'm aiming at is to discuss the idea whether it is possible to control the social make-up through economic means.
I don't think it's possible. And that is probably the biggest shame of it. Republican policies will not stop multi-culturism (in any of it forms : race, sexual orientation, gender) because the factors driving greater integration and acceptance are not economic. All the Republican policies are doing is destabilizing our central poitical core (Big Government as they call it).
So what is driving multi-culturism? The very same factor that drives innovation - greater diversity. The United States has been successful because it has been able to bring together concepts, ideas, knowledge from a greater array of cultures than was ever possible before.
This engine of innovation also spurs multi-culturism. It is impossible to generate innovation through the use of diversity without also adapting parts of disperate cultures into the mainstream - it used to be called the melting pot.
