Research Paper for IPE

Seemingly commonsense experience predisposed me toward the belief that discrimination and acts of racism go up during times of economic upheaval. However, through theoretical and scientifically critical readings, I realized my view was mistaken. This is because, while the nature of discrimination is very real, its creation and manifestation in policies and social norms accrue over the course of time, and are ultimately more complex than a theory that would say the natural disposition of man is to enact racist or discriminatory policies in reaction to a short economic downturn. This paper will explore some theoretical background and then move toward criticism and review of a meta-analysis of certain case studies.
Kenneth Burke was a philosopher of rhetorical studies in the twentieth century. His analysis of Hitler's rhetoric was meant as a guide against discrimination and scapegoating and to find the roots and causes of the war crimes the demagogue committed. Kenneth Burke outlines the theoretical definition of scapegoat in contemporary settings where he says that scapegoating is a “Projection device” where “The 'curative' process that comes with the ability to hand over one's ills to a scapegoat,” is the society attempting “thereby getting purification by dissociation” (Brummett 749). Thus, Burke declares that, “the greater one's internal inadequacies, the greater the amount of evils one can load upon the back of “the enemy” and in this way any spiritual inhibitions to purification are exorcised. By identifying the outward vessel, societies might make what is immaterial that much more material. Thus scapegoating is using an outward vessel as a projection of inner turmoil, and, considering economic strife in the world so common, this is the definition of scapegoating this paper will use in order to understand racism during such strife.
But Burke's model of scapegoating does not inherently depend on economics. Hitler was fighting against a spiritual malaise that the demagogue fought against with pseudo-religious principles; religious principles applied to the greater intangible spiritual malaise. Therefore, Burke's fundamental theory of how Hitler used antisemitism in order to mobilize his country is that Hitler's practices were rooted in cultural and religious discriminations, and therefore not necessarily economic crises. Burke says, “If a State is in economic collapse, you cannot possibly derive dignity from economic stability,” (Brummett 750). This means that in order to transcend the economic depression, Nazis needed the scapegoat function to be built; which in turn means there was no intrinsic scapegoating reaction from the spiritual malaise from the economic downturn.
In summation of his arguments, Burke says, “As for the basic Nazi trick: the “curative” unification by a fictitious devil-function, gradually made convincing by the sloganizing of repetitiousness of standard advertising technique- the opposition must be as unwearying in the attack upon it” (Brummett 756). Burke therefore believes there was a systematic doctrination of the people who were weakened by economic downturn. Furthermore, “Above all, I believe, we must make it apparent that Hitler appeals by relying upon a bastardization of fundamentally religious patterns of thought” but quickly adds that “There is nothing in religion proper that requires a fascist state” (Brummett 756). Therefore, I infer from Burke's argument, that the Nazi government had to systematically build up discrimination and antisemitic practices from established religious patterns. Because of the nature of the creation and expansion of discrimination was a harvesting instead of a harnessing, according to Burke's theory I infer that discrimination and racist practices do not stem from inherent or intrinsic reactions within human beings. In lay, Burke's case study is indicative that there was a systematic effort to control the people's will through propaganda and so, economic downturn alone is not necessarily the causal relation that downward economic activity results in racism; without this extra step of propaganda and rhetoric, scapegoating and discrimination would not have been possible.
In Scott Cummings' article he takes a position of general acceptance but greater specification of Neo-Marxist perspectives in order to conclude that scientific evidence limited toward the correlation between discrimination practices and the economic downturn of 1970-1975. In other words, Cummings does not argue against the fact that minorities are statistically more vulnerable during a recession. He argues that “it is reasonable to conclude that neo-Marxist crisis theory only partially clarifies the differential impact of recessions on minority and female workers” (852). One of the fundamental premises of the article is that a recession does not affect all parts of the economy equally, and that women and minority groups are unevenly distributed in this dis-unified system which is not affected evenly by a recession. Cummings said, “Despite lower scale scores overall in the competitive sector, selected industries within that sector also revealed significant market distributions during the 1974-1975 recession, especially textiles and apparel” (Cummings 847). That said, Cummings' conclusion is not that the recession did not cause harm to nonwhite and female workers, but that the recession was not the cause of their economic vulnerability to begin with.
The centerpiece of Cummings' article is a presentation of a series of sociological surveys on the effects of the recession on workers. Cummings first analyzed with bivariate analysis of women and minorities, and then analyzed with a further specified multivariate analysis of occupational status, race, gender, and industrial sector (Cummings 850). This multivariate analysis reveals that, “even in female-dominated spheres severely disrupted during the 1974-75 crises (e.g., textiles, apparel), men and women were affected alike. In these sectors, presumably, male and female secretaries were as negatively affected by the recession as were male and female equipment operators...In all three sectors, however, minority workers suffered significantly higher levels of disruption than their nonminority counterparts” (Cummings 850). Later, he says, “In summary, the data in Table 4 show that race and occupational status had strong independent effects on labor market disruption” (Cummings 851
In his summary, Cummings specifies what happens in the economic downturn does not happen equally across class structures, saying, “Blue-collar workers suffer more frequent and prolonged labor market disruptions than white-collar workers” (Cummings 852). More importantly toward my thesis, Cummings explains, “Despite the apparent mesh between selected aspects of crisis theory and some of the evidence presented in this study, the neo-Marxist model appears deficient in ability to explain higher rates of labor market disruption among minority workers. Female workers reveal rates of labor market disruption consistent with those reported by workers generally, or within specific industrial sectors....Furthermore, minority rates of disruption consistently exceed statistical norms within and between industrial sectors” (Cummings 852). Fully supportive of my thesis that discrimination transcends recession is Cummings' conclusion that “Because of discrimination within trade unions, minority workers have acquired less seniority than majority workers. Workers with limited seniority are typically the first to be laid off or terminated when an industry encounters crisis” (Cummings 852). That is, workers who have less seniority are laid off first, and the Recession was surely a catalyst for this, but it is an oversimplification to say that the proximate policy was discriminatory. On the contrary, the process of progression of seniority within unions, and company experience seems to be entirely licit when viewed proximately. Cummings says that this is the same in the civil service sector, as “many of those jobs have only recently opened to racial minorities” seniority works the same way. Cummings says, “While some neo-Marxist scholars of labor markets maintain that racism and sexism are intimately tied to the dominant relations of production, the evidence and argument appearing in this study suggest that this assertion needs further clarification” (Cummings 853). The intimate correlation is an oversimplification of problems of discriminatory practices as resulting from recession or economic downturns.
Finally, in terms of my own argument, the fact that economic vulnerability of women and minorities based on greater factors such as seniority means that indicators of discrimination are more deep-seated than what happens during an economic downturn. This is almost verbatim what Cummings says, when he writes, “Perhaps most important to the present study is the implication that racial discrimination appears both to transcend and to be shaped by the structural features of economic life” (Cummings 854). Racial discrimination, while it does seem to be affected by economic downturns, is a greater part of the political economy at large.
The ultimate weakness of science is what people do not know. While Burke's theory is historically accurate and Cummings' modest thesis is that there needs to be more research into the claim that economic downturn causes discrimination, there obviously needs to be more research into the relationship between economic downturn and scapegoating or prejudiced actions within a given society. There are many articles, such as one by Markham and Fong, for instance, which state that recession increased competition and therefore scarcity of resources and jobs, and that the white ethnic group were obviously “Of the major factors initially identified as leading to incidents of ethnic conflict and successful institutionalization of discrimination, the most significant turned out to be (1) poor economic conditions and scarcity of jobs; (2) the acceptance of racist ideology; and (3) a highly effective organization among native workers” (Markham, from the article's abstract). Another one notes that France in recession has been more discriminatory on immigrants (Glazer). Nevertheless, I believe that my thesis holds granted the two theoretical perspectives of discrimination during recession, these studies do not take into account sociological precursors and dispositions when they assert that the recession was part of the reason that the people were acting this way.
From Burke's perspective, I believe that sociological preconditions of a given society and the way that it is manipulated during times of economic recession are the cause of discrimination and not the other way around. I affirm that economic recession does not inherently cause discrimination so simply. The reason why popular culture leads us to believe that economic downturn causes discrimination is based on a misconception of both discrimination and economic downturn. It ignores both the cyclical nature of economics from recession to boom times, but also the wide scope of recessions. Discrimination runs largely predisposed before recession events, and has to do with cultural and societal norms such as warped religion, some of which can be shaped by propaganda. In order to show this, I firstly reviewed Burke's theoretical analysis of Hitler's systematic contortion of German society into a discriminating and prejudiced society. This was to show that economics alone would not have caused people to act racist and discriminatory. The society had to be transformed in order to practice systemic hatred. Burke's handling of Hitler emphasizes that the social norms alone, such as in a “religious state” would not have caused the scapegoating. I then showed a specific meta-analysis of Cummings' argument based on statistical evidence that a multivalent recession across industries would not make theoretical sense in understanding the vulnerability of social groups during recessions.
The implications of my critique of the commonsense logic that poor economic cause increase in discrimination incidents has applications for the study of how we implement theory. This firstly provides a contest of the status quo. People should not use economic distress, or wait for economic distress in order to pursue social progression and equal rights programs. Further considering my thesis, I believe social action programs such as affirmative action should be implemented, especially in light of the seniority problems that Cummings mentions specifically. These should be implemented regardless of downturns. I also believe that there should be more conclusive studies should be made as to whether or not one could find that people are more susceptible to propaganda when there are times of recession.


Works Cited

Burke, Kenneth, and Barry Brummett. Reading Rhetorical Theory. Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando FL: Harcourt, 2000.
Cummings, Scott. "Vulnerability to the Effects of Recession: Minority and Female Workers." Social Forces 65.3 (1987): 834-857.
Fong, E., and William Markham. "Immigration, Ethnicity and Conflict: The California Chinese." Sociological Inquiry 3 (1991): 471-491.
Glazer, .. "France to Immigrants: Go Home." France 57.10 (1993): 10.