Decline of Social Capital caused by increased diversity?

From: cryofan@mylinuxisp.com
Date: Tue Apr 01 2003 - 07:51:05 MST

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    Extropian/Libertarian/Freemarketeer dogma holds that "self-organizing" social
    networks producing "social capital" will step in to take the place of Papa
    Federal Govt in quasi-anarchist utopias.

    At the same time that same Extropian/Libertarian/Freemarketeer dogma endears
    itself to CorpGovMedia by maintaining that increased ethnic and cultural
    diversity will increase social capital and that therefore a "there shall be
    open borders" philosophy is beneficial.

    However, here is article discussing a paper by an MIT social scientist that
    indicates that social capital is decreased by ethnic and cultural diversity:

    http://vdare.com/letters/tl_033103.htm

    I have always thought that the basic premise that diversity is inherently
    beneficial is flawed, just because of the conclusion drawn by the cited paper.
    I have always thought that it was obvious, mainly because it is much easier
    for the citizenry to control the govt when the populace is homogenous.
    Witness Switzerland and Iceland, and to a (continually) lesser degree,
    Scandanavia.



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