The whole premise of this is stupid. The Caste system is silly. Officially it's illegal or something along those lines per Indian law but culturally it's still very much relevant. But it's old, archaic, outdated, not useful...
EDIT: I really shouldn't say tribalism is not useful. We wouldn't be so tribal if it didn't have its benefits (evolutionarily speaking). But now that we live in a global world it is increasingly becoming a net negative.
Tribalism has brought us, wars, petty disputes, populist politicians and bigotry.
I know which one I would choose in a heartbeat.
I would say most people all over the world maintain a weak form of particularist identity and a weak notion of global identity and simply don't think about the contradictions.
Tribalism, by my definition at least, comes when the foreigner (whether ethnically or ideologically) is seen as not just an outsider but also as a competitor or a threat. In extreme situations perhaps they are, but in a civil society properly governed by the rule of law, this kind of tribalism is just poison for a community.
I’d go further and say that because it’s an evolved inclination, we’re far less immune to it than we’d like to think - that tribalism and globalization form a false dichotomy; you can have both. I.e. tribalism within a framework of international cooperation or a global empire as the will of a tribe (or alliance of a few tribes).
The post-war global order is a very new thing, depends on a delicate power balance enforced by continual threat of war - buy in or die is hardly what you probably want to endorse when you champion globalization, but there’s a degree of that at work since the end of WWII. Growing up a Roman citizen makes you kinda partial to the global benefits of empire. If you disagree with Rome, you realize it’s not all peaches and cream.
What’s different in the modern world we live in is more the scale of the tribes than a lack of tribes. But sitting in Rome, you think all the world is Rome.
Degrees matter here. Most of the world's population live in countries where less than 1% of the people are immigrants. That's not very global.
Western Europe and countries founded by colonists from Western Europe (the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) are following a different pattern than most of the world.
This is a sloppy article, and I do find the article’s assertion tenuous. There is an ecosystem of educated Indian elite[1]. Perhaps Brahmin’s are overrepresented as a group in that, but I’m not so sure. There are certainly some underrepresented groups, but the caste system isn’t binary. It’d be interesting to see some unbiased data.
[1] Relatively speaking. While more privileged than a large majority of Indians, a lot of them come from modest middle-class backgrounds (by Indian standards, back in 70s, 80s pre-liberalization India), leveraged their privilege of education through sheer grit and work.
These things really do span generations.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/04/898574852/its-more-than-racis...
My take away from this is that there is nothing natural about one caste having an advantage in business, that success in any field has much more to do with who has financial and social capital than with what caste someone is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Marriage_Act,_1954
Obviously, just like mixed race marriage took a while to be culturally accepted in the US, it is a similar situation in India.
More importantly, it almost always comes down to socioeconomic class rather than caste or race. The upper socioeconomic “castes” or “tribes” or whatever you want to call them have been inter marrying forever, and no one cares.
I would easily bet if a Brahmin kid brought home a significant other worth a billion dollars, their parents would not give a crap if the SO was a lower caste person. By definition, just being worth a billion dollars would somehow elevate them out of their caste. Same with white and black and Asian and Latin American or any other tribal designation.
Its usefulness, like most things, depends where you fall along it. I'm sure those at the top find it very useful to get the things they want.
The caste system will die as India urbanizes and good riddance to it. Apparently the economist thinks it's relevant because they have nothing else to talk about.
How did they discover this? My colleges thought it was a great idea to post the caste next to exam seat numbers. Yeah… this was in a metro, not a small town.
Here in the US, some narrow minded people straight up ask about caste. Some are “smarter” and ask about how you celebrate specific festivals as a way of inferring your caste.
It’s deeply systemic in India much like the systemic racism in the US. Only a privileged person can say it’s gone since no one treats anyone as untouchable anymore. There are many more subtle ways. People don’t get jobs because of their last names. Promotions will be denied or you might be the first to be laid off. Nepotism is rife.
My wife is upper caste and her life experience in India is diametrically opposite of mine. She acknowledges my experience but still doesn’t fully comprehend it. Heck my in law still cling to stereotypes and how I’m one of the good ones (cue similarity to racism in America)
If you really look carefully you’ll start to notice it everywhere.
But it makes a lot of sense that a family with centuries of experience in commerce is more likely produce leading businesses. It would be foolish not to factor that in to decision making as a signal.