immigrant and ethnic enterprise in north america* · immigrant and ethnic enterprise in north a...
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North AmericaIvan Light aa University of California, Los AngelesPublished online: 13 Sep 2010.
To cite this article: Ivan Light (1984): Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North America , Ethnic and Racial Studies, 7:2,195-216
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise inNorth America*
Ivan LightUniversity of California, Los Angeles
In the decade 1820-30, 80 per cent of free white Americans owned theirown means of livelihood (Corey, 1966: 113). This decade was the high-water mark of self-employment in America, and subsequent trends haveshown an almost uninterrupted decline. Generations of sociologists havedeclared that business self-employment in the modern United States hasbecome an economic anachronism which is in the process of disappearance(light, 1979: 31). Following Marx on this point, they have observed thatthe progressive concentration of capital reduced the once numerous classof free enterpreneurs that existed in the last century. Indeed, three decadesago C. W. Mills (1951) already showed the steady decline of agriculturaland non-agricultural self-employment in the United States between 1870and 1950:
A larger number of small businesses are competing for a smaller share ofthe market. The stratum of urban entrepreneurs has been narrowing, andwithin it concentration has been going on. Small business becomes smaller,big business becomes bigger. (Mills 1951: 24)
After Mills wrote this evaluation the decline of self-employment in theAmerican labor force unambiguously continued until 1973. In that year aslim majority of American farmers continued to be self-employed, but lessthan 7 per cent of non-farm workers were self-employed (Ray, 1975). Giventhese trends, government and business analysts agreed that the probability ofself-employment had become poorer than in the past and its rewards corres-pondingly more meagre (Cingolani, 1973: 8-10; Special Task Force, 1973:21). In this economic context, social scientists generally concluded that smallbusiness self-employment was incompatible with capitalist economic concen-tration and could be expected to slide into oblivion for this reason (Bottomore,1966: 50; O'Connor, 1973: 29-30; Horvat, 1982: 11-15; Auster andAldrich, 1981).
However, on the cultural side, sociologists had to explain the atavisticpersistence of entrepreneurial values and ambitions in the American laborforce (Chinoy, 1952; Walker and Guest, 1952) as well as the extent of self-employment among the wage-earning population (Iipset and Bendix, 1959:
Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 7 Number 2 April 1984© R.K.P. 1984 0141-9870/84/0702-0195 $1.50/1
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Table 1. Self-employed and unpaid family workers in the United States, 1948-79 (number in thousands)
1948
Non-agricultural industriesTotal employedSelf-employedPercent of totalUnpaid family workersPercent of total
AgricultureTotal employedSelf-employedPercent of totalUnpaid family workersPercent of total
1948
51,9756,109
11.83850.7
6,3094,664
73.91,31820.9
1958
56,8636,102
10.75881.0
4,6453,081
66.394120.3
1968
72,9005,102
7.04850.7
3,2661,98560.855016.8
1972
78,9295,332
6.85170.7
3,0051,789
59.546715.5
1979
94,6056,652
7.04550.5
2,9931,58052.8
. 30410.1
Source: T. Scott Fain, 'Self-Employed Americans: Their Number Has Increased,' Monthly Labor Review 103 (1980):Table 1, p. 4.
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North A merica 197
102-3, 177-81). Given the USA's laissez-faire traditions (Meyer, 1953) it waseasy to understand entrepreneurial ambitions and frustrated aspirations ascultural residuals of an economically bygone era (Vidich and Bensman,1960: 305-6). Thus, Riesman (1950) juxtaposed the 'inner-directed' old-fashioned individualism of yesteryear's entrepreneurs with the gr-1 -handed'other-direction' of corporate executives, finding in this contrast a shifc inthe modal personality from the former to the latter. In a similar exercise,Miller and Swanson (1958: 123) found that achievement imagery in theAmerican middle class had shifted away from self-employment towardbureaucratic careers in corporate hierarchies. Bell's (1976: 84) analysis ofthe 'cultural contradictions of capitalism' identified the Puritan traditionas a self-destructive rationality whose adolescent heirs had discarded thedisciplines of planning and work in favor of 'voluptuary hedonism'.
Entrepreneurship's protracted decline provided a neat illustration ofcultural lag, the belated adjustment of superstructure to changes in produc-tion relations (Aronowitz, 1973: 257). A small business economy neededentrepreneurial motivations in its labor force. When the economic basis ofsmall business deteriorated, socialization lagged behind, continuing to produceentrepreneurial ambitions and values in lifelong wage workers (Lynd andLynd, 1937: 70). The temporary result was a glut of disappointed aspirantsfor small business self-employment, a situation of imbalance between supplyand demand (O'Connor, 1973: 29-30). Ultimately, the market's surplus ofaspiring entrepreneurs reached back into the socialization system, causingreallocation of motivational resources away from this overpopulated occu-pation in diminishing demand. As salaried workers corrected their aspirationsfor realistic prospects, the social origins of American small business ownersdeclined (Newcomer, 1961: 490; Meyer, 1947: 347; Mills, 1966). By 1952the 'creed of the individual enterpriser' had become 'a working class pre-occupation' (Iipset and Bendix, 1964: 462).
Ethnic and immigrant enterprise in America
Taken very generally, cultural lag still offers a satisfactory explanation ofwhat happened to entrepreneurial individualism in twentieth-century America.However, the cultural lag orthodoxy encounters two serious objections, oneempirical, the other conceptual. First, as Giddens (1973: 177-8) has observed,the rate of decline in self-employment was never so rapid as Marxistshad expected even though the direction of change was mostly negative.Moreover, in the specific period 1972-9, 'the number of self-employedAmericans rose by more than 1.1 million, reversing decades of steady decreases'(Fain, 1980: 3). This stabilization suggests that a plateau in self-employedpopulation firmly supports an ideology of entrepreneurship among a minority(see Table 1). This conclusion is particularly appealing since Boissevain(1984) has reported that in 1978 'Common Market countries registered a netincrease in the number of entrepreneurs and family workers' thus reversingtheir postwar trend of decline.
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198 Ivan Light
Second, cultural lag orthodoxy depends upon a simplifying, inaccurateassumption of homogeneity in economy and labor force. A homogeneouseconomy means uniformity in industrial conditions among the varioussectors as well as a uniform rate of capitalist concentration in each. Laborforce homogeneity means all workers are identical in values, attitudes, skills,employment access, and return on human capital. Both assumptions areunrealistic. The USA economy actually consists of a plurality of sectorswhich differ in respect to industrial conditions, capitalist concentration,and rates of change. O'Connor's (1973) distinctions between competitive,monopoly and state sectors need attention, and this tripartite division couldeasily be augmented in the interest of exactitude (reviewed in Kallenbergand Sorenson, 1979). Additionally, the USA labor force consists of unequallysituated groups which differ in cultural heritages. At the very least, one mustdistinguish the immigrant, the nonwhite, and the native white labor forcesectors. Workers in these sectors experience differential returns on humancapital, rates of under- and unemployment, welfare and legislative support,and career opportunities.
Given variation in the economy and labor force, uneven resolution ofcultural lag follows. On the one hand, some business sectors retain contrary-to-trend compatibility with entrepreneurial activities. On the other, someworking populations retain atavistic aspirations for business self-employment.In point of fact, immigrant and nonwhite workers cluster heavily in theeconomy's competitive sector within which, by definition, a small businessmilieu persists (Waldinger, 1982:1-2; Zenner, 1982: 474; Auster and Aldrich,1983). Thus, on structural grounds alone, there is reason to predict thatold-fashioned entrepreneurial ideology should remain among immigrant andminority sector workers long after native white workers have resigned them-selves to salaried and wage employment in the monopoly and state sectors.
This situation is not really novel. In actual fact, the foreign-born havebeen overrepresented in American small business since 1880 and probablyearlier (Light, 1980: 33; Higgs, 1977: 92). Two explanations seem plausible.The first is disadvantage in the labor market. Such disadvantage causesforeigners to concentrate in small business because they suffer under- andunemployment as a result of poor English, unvalidated educational credentials,discrimination, and so forth (Reitz, 1980: 191). Anyone who is disadvantagedin the labor force derives from this unfortunate situation a special incentiveto consider self-employment, and the greater his disadvantage, the greaterhis incentive. The unemployed apple vendors of the Great Depressionepitomize the resourcefulness of workers who, unable to find wage-earningjobs, turn to any and every pitiful self-employment from economic desperation.
However, labor markets' disadvantage cannot be the whole explanation ofthis phenomenon, because some immigrant and ethnic minority groups havehigher rates of urban self-employment ('entrepreneurship') than do others(Goldscheider andKobrin, 1980: 262-75; Boissevain, 1984; Jenkins, 1984).Given equal disadvantage why do some foreign groups have higher ratesthan others, and why should the foreign-born in general have higher rates
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North America 199
of business self-employment than disadvantaged native minorities, especiallyblacks (Handlin, 1959: 74)? Native blacks are more disadvantaged thannative whites, yet the blacks' rates of business self-employment have beenand remain lower than the native whites' rates and much lower than theforeign-born rates despite presumptively higher disadvantage of the blacks(Light, 1972,1979;Wright etal, 1982: 724).
Orthodox and reactive cultural contexts
The orthodox answer to this issue has fastened upon transplanted culturalendowments of various ethnic minority groups. Derived from Max Weber,this model of entrepreneurship has claimed that individuals introject culturalvalues in the course of primary socialization. When a group's values andmotivations encourage business enterprise, cultural minorities producesocialized adults who prosper in business. The prototype is Weber's (1958a)Protestant sectarians who espoused the values of diligence in a calling, thrift,profit, and individualism. These values and attendant motivations causedadult sectarians to prosper in business. With appropriate adjustments, thismodel might account for the anomalous and persistent overrepresentationof selected cultural minorities in self-employment. American examplesinclude Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Greeks, Macedonians, West Indians,Dominicans, Gypsies, Iraqi Christians, Lebanese, Koreans, and Arabs.1 Inall such cases, cultural theory has explained business overrepresentationand/or success in terms of intact, unmodified cultural heritages. A fineexample is the migration of Gypsy fortunetellers. Before debarkation inNew York City, the Gypsies already knew how to tell fortunes, and theircultural baggage included ready-to-use skills (crystal balls, tarot cards,palmistry) other groups simply lacked. Gypsy practice of these skills in theUnited States only involved the utilization of a cultural tradition for thespecific purpose of self-employment (Sway, 1983).
This view has merit, but research in ethnic enterprise has disclosed itsinadequacy. In reality, immigration and alien status release latent facilitatorswhich promote entrepreneurship independently of cultural endowments(Turner and Bonacich, 1980: 145, 148). Three facilitators are especiallyimportant. The first is psychological satisfaction arising from immigrationto a high-wage country from a low-wage country. Immigrants in the UnitedStates have recurrently proven willing to accept low money returns, longhours of labor, job-related danger, and domestic penury in order to maintainbusiness self-employment. Relative to their countries of origin, even adverseconditions look good to immigrants and, until fully adapted to the Americanstandard of living, immigrants obtain satisfaction from squalid proprietorshipsthat would not attract native-white wage earners. This is relative satisfaction.
A second, much-documented reaction is enhanced social solidarity attendantupon cultural minority status. Chain migrations create immigrant communitieswith extraordinarOy well-developed social networks. Numerous studies haveshown that these social networks create resources upon which immigrant
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200 Ivan Light
co-ethnics can draw for business purposes (Light, 1972; Bonacich, 1973,1975 ;Bonacich and Modell, 1980; Wilson and Portes, 1980). 'The cornerstoneof an ethnic subeconomy is the communal solidarity of a minority group'(Hraba, 1979: 374). Insofar as reactive solidarity encourages immigrantentrepreneurship, a situation has brought out a collective response which isnot cultural in the orthodox sense (Young, 1971). A concrete example isthe influence of immigrant Landsmannschaften upon business enterprise.Immigrant Landsmanner belong to a primary group which did not exist assuch in their country of origin. Thus, among the Japanese of Los AngelesHiroshimakenjin formed a solidaristic subgroup within the metropolitanpopulation — all the brothers hailed from Hiroshima. On the other hand,contemporaneous residents of Hiroshima did not share the sense of localsolidarity so the immigrants had obviously created a solidarity abroad thatdid not exist in Hiroshima, their city of origin (Modell, 1977: 99-117).This is a reactive solidarity which required alien status to liberate, and assuch is quite different from the practice of fortunetelling by immigrantGypsies.
The third endowment is sojourning (Siu, 1952). Sojourning arises whenimmigrants intend to repatriate, and derive from this intention a desire toamass as much money as possible as quickly as possible. As Bonacich (1973)has shown, sojourning implies a battery of entrepreneurial motivationswhich give middleman minorities an advantage in business competition overnonsojourners. Admittedly, the cultural status of sojourning is uncertain,and the phenomenon arguably arises liturgically as well as situationally(Light, 1979: 33-4). Nonetheless, sojourning is a frequent (but not invariant)accompaniment to international immigration, and its presence provides aneconomic edge to the foreign born in small business enterprise (Zenner,1982: 458; Portes, Clark and Lopez, 1981-2: 18).
Light's (1980: 34-6) distinction between reactive and orthodox culturalcontexts of entrepreneurship is a new one necessitated by the rapidly growingliterature on this topic, but anticipated by earlier writers (Young, 1971).Orthodox and reactive contexts in Light's rubric correspond closely towhat Turner and Bonacich (1980: 145, 148) elsewhere identified as culturaland situational variables. In both cases, authors responded to the tendencyof ethnic business researchers to 'talk past' real issues on the one hand or,on the other, to engage in 'unnecessary and wasteful polemics' about pseudo-issues (Turner and Bonacich, 1980: 145,147). Authorities agree that, howevernamed, the conceptual distinctions identified do not necessitate an empiricalrepugnance because different variables can contribute to the entrepreneurshipof the same ethnic groups. Old-fashioned cultural analysis (Belshaw, 1955)stressed only orthodox etiologies, thus creating the erroneous implicationthat only culturally intact transmission affected entrepreneurship (Freedman,1959). Conversely, Bonacich's (1973) model of 'middleman minorities'ignored orthodox contributions, focussing only upon reactivities. In Light's(1972) treatment of prewar blacks and Asians in the USA the overrepresen-tation of Asians in business proprietorships is credited to reactions arising
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North America 201
from relative satisfaction and immigrant solidarity as well as to rotatingcredit associations, culturally transmitted institutions fitting the orthodoxmodel (see also Woodrum, Rhodes and Feagin, 1980: 1245).
Orthodox, reactive, or mixed entrepreneurship arises when only-orthodox,only-reactive or mixed orthodox and reactive components of entrepreneurshipfigure in an empirical analysis. On the face of the available evidence, somegroups belong in one, other groups in another category. The crucial evidencearises from two comparisons. On the one hand, the foreign-born in generalhave been overrepresented in American small business since at least 1880and are still overrepresented. On the other hand some foreign-born groupshave higher rates of business self-employment than do others. For example,Jews have been and remain extraordinarily entrepreneurial whereas Irishhave been lower than the foreign-born average (Goldscheider and Kobrin,1980). The general overrepresentation of the foreign-born betokens asituationally-induced responsiveness to self-employment. This responsivenessis prima facie evidence for a reactive model. On the other hand, the higherthan average rates of selected foreign-born groups suggest unique culturalendowments. Unique endowments imply cultural heritages transmitted intact,the orthodox cultural model. The best fit of theory and evidence occurswhen theory acknowledges the additive possibilities of orthodox and reactivecomponents. On this view, the foreign-born in general experience the reactiveentrepreneurship arising from their alien situation, but middleman minorities(Jews, Chinese, Greeks,' etc.) add to this reaction their culturally intactheritages of sojourning entrepreneurship (Bonacich and Modell, 1980: Ch. 2).As a result, rates of entrepreneurship are higher among middleman minoritiesthan among the foreign-born in general, and higher among the foreign-bornthan among the native-born whites.
Ethnic and class resources
Efforts to explain ethnic and immigrant entrepreneurship invariably turn upbatteries of special causes. That is, the immigrants developed higher thanaverage rates of entrepreneurship because they drew upon special resourceswhich native groups lacked. In Barth's (1962) terminology these facilitiesconstitute entrepreneurial 'assets,' but the term resources is more generaland does not lend itself to confusion with financial assets (light, 1980:35). Ethnic resources are any and all features of the whole group whichcoethnic business owners can utilize in business or from which their businessbenefits (Reitz, 1982; Wallman, 1979a: ix; 1979b: 10). Thus, ethnic resourcesinclude orthodox cultural endowments, relative satisfaction, reactive solidar-ities, sojourning orientation, and these four encompass all types of ethnicresources empircally described in the existing literature (cf. Turner andBonacich, 1980: 152). As such, ethnic resources should be distinguishedfrom class resources. Class resources are cultural and material. On the materialside, class resources are private property in the means of production anddistribution, human capital, and money to invest. On the cultural side,
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202 Ivan Light
class resources are bourgeois values, attitudes, knowledge and skills trans-mitted intergenerationally in the course of primary socialization (Di Maggio,1982: 190—1). An established bourgeoisie equips its youth with appropriateclass resources, and, having them, the youth are well endowed to prosperin a market economy. Class resources exist, and sociological theory hasamply and basically acknowledged their importance. An analytical disputehas arisen, however, when studies of ethnic entrepreneurship have soughtto distinguish ethnic resources from class resources. The mainstream viewignored ethnic resources, assuming that only class resources do or even canexist. On this view, an ethnic bourgeoisie is just a bourgeoisie rather than abourgeoisie which has unique access to ethnic resources.
In principle, class and ethnic resources might occur singly or in combination.This compatibility yields four basic etiologies: class-only, ethnic-only, class-ethnic mixed, and no resources. A class-only etiology explains ethnic minorityor immigrant entrepreneurship strictly on the basis of class origins, property,money, and human capital. Class-only explanation is Type 1 in Table 2.Ethnic-only analysis omits the above, focussing explanation wholly uponethnic resources such as cultural heritages, reactive solidarities, sojourning,and relative satisfaction. Ethnic-only explanation is Type 2 in Table 2. Mixedanalysis combines elements of ethnic and class analysis to suit empiricalcases of entrepreneurship. Mixed explanation is Type 3 in Table 2. Sinceclass-only analysis is most compatible with a macro-theory of the economy,the mixed and ethnic-anly analytic possibilities signal a newly discoveredfrontier of theoretical controversy. If the latter types exist, class macro-Table 2. Ethnic and class resources of entrepreneurship
1. Class-only
2. Ethnic-only
3. Mixed
4. Mixed: classpredominant
5. Mixed: ethnicpredominant
6. No resources
EthnicOrthodox
0
X
X
X
X
0
Resource
Reactive
0
X
X
X
X
0
Basis
Material
X0
X
X
X
0
ClassCultural
X
0
X
X
X
0
0 = nonex = someX = much
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North A merica 203
theory needs adjustment to take into account complexities currently ignored.The North American literature contains no examples of class-only or
ethnic-only resource-mobilizing entrepreneurial subgroups. All the empiricalcases are mixed. The evidence thus reduces the theoretical polarities to idealtypes. Admittedly some cases of ethnic minority or immigrant entrepreneur-ship weigh more heavily on one side or the other of this class/ethnic balance.Especially in the past, immigrant entrepreneurship seems to have dependedmore heavily upon ethnic resources than it currently does. Turn-of-the-centuryChinese and Japanese immigrants in California are the best-documentedillustrations. Disadvantaged in the general labor market, they turned inextraordinary proportion to self-employment, apparently mobilizing ethnicresources very effectively to this end (Light, 1972; Modell, 1977; Bonacichand Modell, 1980). Post-1970 Asian immigrants in North America continueto mobilize ethnic resources to support business ownership, but the balancehas shifted toward money, human capital, and bourgeois culture. Thus, allcases of Asian entrepreneurship have been mixed, but in the last half-centurythe balance has appreciably swung from ethnic toward class resources(Thompson, 1979).
In contemporary American and Canadian society, immigrant entrepreneur-ship still combines ethnic and class resources, thus creating an empiricalproblem of sorting out each contributor and assessing its contribution.Thorny as is this measurement problem, the empirical dualism is clear especi-ally in the important cases of political refugees from the Third World. To asubstantial extent, Korean, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Cuban, andIranian immigrants now in the United States derived from property-owningupper classes in their countries of origin.2 Fearing or experiencing socio-political turmoil in their homelands, these refugees entered the UnitedStates with human capital, money to invest, and bourgeois cultural values.Accordingly, it is no surprise that their involvement in small business hasbeen extensive, their success in it remarkable, and their achievements muchcelebrated in popular media (Ramirez, 1980). On a class-only model thesmall business success of these refugees reflects only the class resourcesthey brought with them, and any group of wealthy refugees would havecreated as many small businesses. Ethnicity conferred nothing: this is thenull hypothesis.
Class resources indisputably help, but empirical research suggests that aclass-only explanation is inadequate. An' immigrant bourgeoisie utilizesethnic resources in supplementation of class resources. The two best-studiedexamples are Cubans in Miami, and Koreans in Los Angeles.3 Wilson andPortes (1980; Portes, 1981; Wilson and Martin, 1982) found that about one-third of Cubans in Miami were employed in Cuban-owned business andanother fragment were self-employed. For the Cubans returns on humancapital were more favorable among the self-employed than among thoseemployed for wages in the competitive sector. Indeed, returns on humancapital were equivalent to those in the primary sector. Explaining this success,Wilson and Portes (1980: 315) conclude:
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Immigrant entrepreneurs make use of language and cultural barriersand of ethnic affinities to gain privileged access to markets and sourcesof labor The necessary counterpart to these ethnic ties of solidarityis the principle of ethnic preference in hiring and of support of otherimmigrants in their economic ventures.
Since these resources would be unavailable in Cuba, the Cuban immigrantbourgeoisie acquires access to ethnic resources in Miami where they aremembers of a cultural minority. To a substantial extent, these reactiveresources permit the Cubans to thrive in small business and even to out-perform the native whites in this sphere despite the material advantagesof the latter.
Bonacich, Light and Wong (1977, 1980; see also light, 1980; Bonacichand Jung, 1982) have looked into the entrepreneurial success of 60,000Koreans in Los Angeles. In 1980, approximately 40 per cent of employedKorean men headed small firms (Yu, 1982: 54).4 An additional 40 per centof Koreans worked in these firms so only about 20 per cent of the Koreanimmigrants found employment in non-Korean-owned firms or governmentagencies. Admittedly, the Korean immigrants were highly educated: on oneaccount nearly 70 per cent of men had college degrees compared with only15 per cent of Los Angeles County residents in general. Additionally, theKoreans brought with them sums of capital rarely less than $25,000 andsometimes millions. On the other hand, these class resources supplementedethnic resources; they did not exclude them. As among the Cubans in Miami,Koreans in Los Angeles made effective business use of language and culturalbarriers distinguishing co-ethnics from the general population, reactive socialsolidarity, nepotistic hiring, and formal and informal mutual support networks.Additionally, Koreans made some use of rotating credit associations,5
nationalistic appeals for labor peace, vertical and horizontal integration offirms, informal and formal restraints of trade,6 and political connectionswith City Hall developed by leading Korean business organizations. In allthese respects, Korean entrepreneurship drew upon ethnic resources notmerely upon class resources.
Collectivist and individualist styles of entrepreneurship
Textbook treatments of entrepreneurship have long begun with the econom-istic assumption that small business owners are individualists. Indeed, theterm 'entrepreneurial individualism' remains in general currency as a reflectionof this persisting assumption. Underlying the microeconomic theory of thefirm are the class resources of the bourgeoisie which provide facilities forindividual business owners. In Schumpeter's famous image, these entrepren-eurs behave like spectators in a crowded stadium during a rainstorm. Feelingrain, each spectator independently decides to raise his umbrella, and decidesto put it away when the sun once again comes out. In this analogy, thematerial resource is the umbrella, and the cultural resource is the trained
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Immigrant and ethnic enterprise in North America 205
wisdom to utilize it properly. But each entrepreneur thinks and acts indepen-dently albeit in utilization of class-linked resources.
Accepting Schumpeter's (1934: 81, n.l, 2) class-only model of entrepren-eurship,7 sociology has, however, parted company with neoclassical economicson the issue of consciousness. Insofar as a resource-transmitting bourgeoisiedevelops self-consciousness, this consciousness becomes a class resourcecapable of affecting the economic success of members. Thus, elitist studiesof the American upper class have long claimed that debutante cotillions,preparatory schools, swank vacation resorts, exclusive suburbs, and stuffydowntown clubs reflect and forge upper-class consciousness (Useem, 1980:53-8). Group consciousness enhances the chances of individual bourgeoisto monopolize access to material and status rewards. For instance, clubsprovide a private place to concoct business and political deals or to arrangemarriages. Admittedly the importance of bourgeois group consciousnesshas not been so systematically examined in its economic as in its politicalramifications. However, class-only theories of the bourgeoisie have acknowl-edged the development of an entrepreneurial collectivism which enhancesthe competitive chances of the individual members of the bourgeoisie.Evaluating two generations of social research on the American businesselite, Useem (1980: 58) finds 'internal cohesion' strikingly in evidence.'Unity is far more extensively developed at the top than anywhere else inthe class structure.'
A similar evolution has characterized sociological studies of ethnic business(Jenkins, 1984). Classical sociologists called attention to cultural endowmentswhich governed the style of business ownership, and explained in historicalcontext the transition from merchant to bourgeois. The prototype was, ofcourse, Weber's (1958a) Protestant sectarians whose economic style reflectedreligio-cultural values. Their disciplined lifestyle caused them to prosperin business, but they were expected to do so as noncooperating individualsstanding or falling on individual merits. Of course, there is no denying thatunder some cultural or situational conditions, small business owners canbe individualistic nor that introjected values of hard work, thrift, and economicrationality encourage business survival and success.8 Bechofer et aVs (1974)study of Scottish business owners in Edinburgh depicts individualistic businessconduct. Jarvenpa and Zenner (1979) reported the same individualismamong Scots in the Canadian fur trade. On the other hand, even Weberoverstated the extent of individualism among Protestant sectarians and,aware of this error, was more careful (1958b) in some writings. Historicalresearch among Puritan business owners in seventeenth-century New Englandhas not disclosed the expected individualism. On the contrary, Bailyn (1955),Hall (1977), and Griffen and Griffen (1977: 150) concluded that observantlyCalvinist business owners in New England were active participants in commer-cial networks knit together on the basis of extended kinship and friendship,these networks actually Unking ports of origin in the British Isles and NewEngland cities.
In the same sense, cultural treatments of middlemen minorities in North
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America began with the assumption that cultural subgroups acted out theirvalues in enterprising individualism based upon hard work, thrift, rationality,and self-denial (Auster and Aldrich, 1983). In this model, immigrant entre-preneurs drew upon a cultural tradition, then fanned out into the economyin individualistic search for profitable opportunities. Equipped with culturalresources, co-ethnics knew how to make the most out of such businessopportunities as they encountered — but each did so as an isolated individual.
There is, of course, no question that ethnic values and motivations doaffect individual behavior. However, ethnic research has shown there existsa largely ignored dimension of collective action which goes beyond individual-istic value or motivational effects, important as those are (Leff, 1979). Thisis the dimension of entrepreneurial collectivism in the ethnic minority(Young, 1971: 140-1 ;Cummings, 1980). Collective styles of entrepreneurshipdepend upon group resources in which business owners only participateinsofar as they maintain active, adult participation in community life (Herman,1979: 84). For example, a rotating credit association requires cooperatorsto establish a reputation for trustworthiness in the ethnic community, andthis reputation depends in turn upon active involvement (light, 1972: Ch. 2).Similarly, an immigrant or ethnic informational network confers benefitsupon business owners, but to obtain these benefits an owner needs to belongto the network. Isolates cannot share network information so this ethnicresource only benefits participants in ethnic community networks. Finally,trade guilds may regulate and control internal competition, but the benefitsof collusion in restraint of trade accrue to members. Isolates suffer theconsequences of collusion by others.
In principle, class and ethnic resources both confer potentialities forindividualist or collectivistic styles of business managment. As before, however,all empirical cases in the literature have been mixed. For instance, Koreansin Los Angeles have utilized both class and ethnic resources, and these resourceshave here supported individualistic and there collectivistic entrepreneurship.Taken together, Korean entrepreneurship in Los Angeles is a pastiche ofethnic and class resources and individualist and collectivist styles. On theother hand, the balance of individualism and collectivism in immigrantentrepreneurship appears to have shifted in three generations. Chinese andJapanese immigrants in California at the turn of the century utilized entre-preneurial strategies which were more collectivistic than those currentlyutilized by Chinese immigrants in Toronto (Chan and Cheung, 1982). In thesame manner, Polish, Finnish, Irish, Mormon, and Jewish entrepreneurshipappears to have undergone a shift in this century away from an immigrant-generation dependence upon collective resources toward a native-borngeneration dependence upon individual resources.9
Two related changes explain this shifting balance. On the one hand, thecompetitive sector has become smaller in size and the price of admissionhigher in response to capitalist concentration. Ethnic collectivism may be lessadequate than in the past. On the other hand, upward social mobility hasconferred class resources upon native-born ethnics whose progenitors did
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not have them. Specifically, native-born descendants of immigrant businessowners enter the business sector with money, education, and skills theirforebears lacked. Possessing class resources, immigrant and ethnic minorityentrepreneurs become more individualistic in style. Thus, impoverishedimmigrants needed to combine their small amounts of capital in rotatingcredit associations in order to assemble a sum large enough to finance smallbusiness. Dependent upon kinsmen and landsmen for initial capital, immigrantbusiness owners could not thereafter operate their businesses as if they wereisolated individualists. With personal money to invest, the descendants ofthese immigrants and contemporary 'new' immigrants no longer need toborrow from kin and friends (Kim, 1977). Therefore, they establish theirbusiness enterprises without rotating credit associations, and operate themin a more individualistic manner.10 Similarly, poor immigrants did notunderstand inventories or balance sheets so they turned to kin and friendsfor advice in business management. Equipped with MBAs, their descendantsand North America's new immigrants possess the business skills they need asclass resources. Therefore, they do not need to turn for management adviceto informal, ethnically linked agencies, and they are free to operate theirbusiness enterprises as if they were isolated individuals. In this manner,access to class resources may obviate collectivism in ethnic enterprise — butnot exclude it altogether. In Toronto, Thompson (1979) reports, a bipolarbusiness class has actually emerged as a result of these processes. On theone side are the old-fashioned, ethnic-dependent Mom and Pop store owners;on the other, Hong Kong millionaires operating investment corporations.'The new stratum of entrepreneurial elites differ in both origin and lifestylefrom the traditional merchant elites who for years controlled the [Chinese]ethnic community' (Thompson, 1979: 311).
In principle, ethnic and immigrant small business ought to run out ofsolidarity to exploit because cultural assimilation and higher educationundercut the ascriptive solidarities from which immigrant-generation businessowners derived the resources to power their business network (Turner andBonacich, 1980: 157). Much evidence suggests that over generations ethnicresources do decay for this reason (Bonacich and Modell, 1980: Chs 6, 9;Borhek, 1970; Goldscheider and Kobrin, 1980; Montero, 1981). 'Over thelong run,' Reitz (1980: 231) observes, 'there is a progressive trend towardabandonment of ethnic group ties for all groups in which long-term experiencecan be measured.' However, the rate of deterioration has been much slowerthan sociologists once expected (Wilensky and Lawrence, 1979). The indis-putable profitability of ethnic capitalism is an apparent cause of this retar-dation. Especially relative to equally qualified members of the same ethnicgroup in the general labor market, owners of ethnic sector business enterprisesearn high incomes in business. Big profits make ethnic business attractive(Wilson and Portes, 1980: 314; Sway, 1983; Reitz, 1982; Bonacich andModell, 1981: 257). Ethnic business owners identify with their ethniccommunity and participate actively in it. They provide the leadership forethnic institutions. Ethnic attachments also persist more strongly among
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wage workers whose workplace is a co-ethnic firm whose language is that ofthe homeland, not English (Bonacich and Modell, 1980; Reitz, 1980; Wobdrum,Rhodes and Feagin, 1980: 1240-52). These two classes often account forbetween 40 and 80 per cent of the total ethnic population. Ethnic-ownedbusinesses 'help prop up other institutions which recruit and maintain ethnicmembership' (Reitz, 1980: 223). Ethnicity supports the ethnic economy,and the ethnic economy supports ethnic perpetuation (Bonacich and Modell,1981:257).
No resources entrepreneurship
The preceding analysis offers a satisfactory account of why equally dis-advantaged ethnic and immigrant minorities display unequal rates of entre-preneurship: survival and success depend upon group resources. Groups withmore resources outperform groups with less; and groups with class resourcesare individualistic whereas groups with ethnic resources are collectivistic.On this view, entrepreneurship is highest when disadvantaged immigrantminorities are well endowed with class and ethnic resources; endowment withone or the other is intermediate; and neglible endowment in both class andethnic resources implies correspondingly low rates of entrepreneurship.
Behind this conclusion lies the assumption that immigrant minorities'rate of business ownership is a fair measure of their entrepreneurship. Therate of business ownership has been operationally defined as self-employedper 1000 in the urban labor force.11 A major objection to this definition,it is increasingly clear, arises from the inadequacy of published statistics(Karsh, 1977; light, 1979: 39-40; US Small Business, 1980). 'The Censushas a completely nonsociological way of defining "self-employment"' (Wrightetal, 1982: 712n). US statistics routinely exclude petty traders without fixedbusiness premises, no-employee firms, illegally operated firms in legitimateindustries, and firms producing unlawful goods or services. Since minoritiesand immigrants bulk very large in such firms, their exclusion from officialtabulations results in undercounts of minority-owned business enterpriseas well as theoretical misperception of the whole phenomenon of ethnicentrepreneurship. No one knows how many untabulated firms exist nor whatis their distribution among various sectors of the labor force.
The case of native-born black Americans is instructive because blacks aredisadvantaged but native-born. All statistical and ethnographic sources haveuniformly reported that rates of business self-employment among urbanblacks have been and remain lower than among even native-white, let alonethe foreign-born (Light, 1972, 1979, 1980). At the same time, ethnographicsources have stressed the importance of 'hustling' as an economic activityamong underclass urban blacks (Valentine, 1978; Glasgow, 1980: 9, 90;light, 1977b). Hustling involves piecing together a livelihood by operatinga variety of legal, semi-legal, and sometimes illegal business activities. Legalenterprises of urban blacks include street corner and door-to-door peddlingof trinkets, objets d'art, junk, salvage, and fire-damaged merchandise. Unlaw-
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fully conducted legal enterprises include unlicensed taxicabs, unlicensedpharmacies, unlicensed medical services, welfare cheating, tax-evading laborservices and so forth. Illegal enterprise includes gambling administration,pimping, prostitution, narcotics vending, and other victimless crimes (light1977a, 1977b). Predatory crimes include armed robbery, burglary, shop-lifting,and all similar activities. All these self-employed activities are entrepreneurialin that they involve risk and uncertain return (Harbison, 1956: 365). Althoughcomprehensive statistics are lacking, there seems little doubt that urbanblacks are as overrepresented in marginal legal and unlawfully operated self-employment as crime statistics indicate they are in illegal enterprise andpredatory crime. Taken together, this package suggests much higher thanaverage self-employment among economically marginal blacks in unmeasuredbusiness at the same time that official statistics reveal much lower than averageself-employment in measured business.
Given the presumptively high rates of black self-employment in theseundocumented industries, it is improper to conclude that native blacks areless entrepreneurial than other economically disadvantaged immigrants andethnic minorities. It rather appears that native-born blacks have elaboratedan alternative, heavily illegal, highly individualistic style of coping withprotracted economic marginality. Compared to the foreign-born in general,and middleman minorities in particular, native-born blacks are low in ethnicresources of entrepreneurship, but share economic disadvantage (Wong,1977; Light 1972; Chs 2, 6-8; Venable, 1972: 30). Compared to nativewhites, native blacks are high in economic disadvantage, low in class resourcesof entrepreneurship, but similar in respect to ethnic resources of entrepreneur-ship. Table 3 documents these contrasts. Low on ethnic resources of entre-preneurship but high in economic disadvantage, native-born blacks werecompelled to depend upon class resources in which they have been under-endowed for centuries. As an overall result, marginal black enterprises havenot broken into the circle of legal, officially enumerated small businessenterprises. Their problem has been nonpromotion of their very large classof petty but invisible enterprises such that a visible minority enjoy upwardsocial mobility within the legitimate, competitive sector (Glasgow, 1980:189). It is in the assistance of upward mobility that ethnic and class resourcesmake themselves appreciably manifest (Gelfand, 1981: 185, 190). Givenlabor force disadvantage, chronic unemployment or both, any ethnic orimmigrant minority resorts to self-employment, but only resources makepossible the promotion of marginal enterprises into small businesses whoselong-term profitability brings along the social mobility of proprietors, theirkin, and their heirs (Wilson and Martin, 1982: 155-7).
Summary and conclusion
Uneven development has created economic enclaves within which smallbusiness can still be profitable. Success in small business requires, however,a combination of class and ethnic resources with some evidence indicating
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Table 3. Profiles ofentrepreneurship
Comparison groups
Middleman Foreign- Native Nativeminorities born blacks whites
Rotating creditassociations
Precapitalist commercialbackground
Landsmannschaften
Extended kinship
Relative satisfaction
Sojourning
Unpaid family labor
Labor forcedisadvantage
Ineligible for publicwelfare
Language barrier
Special consumerdemands
the former have increased their importance in the last generation. Nonetheless,ethnic resources persist, and immigrant and ethnic minority groups areoverrepresented in small business in large part because their access to ethnicresources permits them to outcompete native workers. In this comparativerespect native whites and blacks are similar but the native blacks lack classresources and additionally suffer labor market disadvantage which gives thema motive to seek self-employment income.Underclass blacks do find this incomein the form of hustling, but hustling has by and large failed to create firmsthat are large and legal enough to achieve visibility in government statistics.
Ethnic resources of entrepreneurship often depend upon premodernvalues and solidarities. So long as these survive in the ethnic community,co-ethnic business owners are able to utilize them in business, achievingadvantage over fully proletarianized, native-born workers among whomblacks are conspicuous. In theory, ethnic capitalism and cultural assimilationshould first undercut and then demolish precapitalist solidarities, thus elimin-ating an ethnic group's competitive edge in small business. In the perspectiveof history, this self-destruction probably occurs. However, its rate should not
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be exaggerated. Ethnic enterprises still earn handsome financial returns, andthese substantial rewards prop up the ethnicity upon which owners dependfor resources. Profitability brakes the rate of deterioration of ethnic solidarity,supports the persistence of ethnic-owned firms in the competitive sector,and perpetuates the whole competitive sector.
Notes
*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 10th World Congress of the Inter-national Sociological Association, Mexico City, August 19, 1982.
1. See Gelfand, 1981; Chs 4, 5; Goldscheider and Kobrin, 1980; Light, 1972: Ch. 5;Light and Wong, 1975; Wong, 1977; Sassen-Koob, 1981:30-1; Modell, 1977;Bonacichand Modell, 1981;Lovell-Troy, 1980, 1981;Chock, 1981; Sway, 1983;Sengstock, 1967;Bonacich, Light, and Wong, 1977, 1979; Blackistone, 1981;Herman, 1979: 90;Zenner,1982; Waldinger, 1982; Yu, 1982; Bonacich and Jung, 1982.2. 'Most of the refugees are ethnic Chinese, most of whom were shopkeepers orbusinessmen who had little future under a communist system.' 'Bleak outlook forVietnam refugees,' East/West (San Francisco), June 20, 1979: 1. See also: McMillan,1982; Rogg, 1971: 480; Chan and Cheung, 1982; Thompson, 1979; Wilson and Portes,1980.3. But two recent studies have produced important new documentation. In NewYork City's garment industry, Waldinger (1982) reported extensive and critically impor-tant utilization of ethnic networks among Dominican entrepreneurs. In Los Angeles'staxi industry, Russell (1982) documented the mutual assistance common among SovietJews seeking to break into the occupation.4. A similar situation apparently exists in New York City, site of the second largestKorean settlement in the United States. See Illsoo Kim, 1981: 110; see also 'Faced withprejudice and language difficulties, New York Koreans turn to private business,' Korea-town (Los Angeles), December 14, 1981: 8-9.5. $400,000 kye broke,' Joong-ang Daily News (Los Angeles: in Korean), February20, 1979; Kim, 1981: 210-11.6. 'Markets agree to cut down on competition,' Korea Times English Section (LosAngeles), November 23, 1981: 1. 'KCCI asks bizmen for more cooperation,' KoreaTimes English Section, February 6, 1980; 'Fifteen Korean chambers unite,' Koreatown,November 17, 1980; 'Prosperity of shops leads community development,' Korea TimesEnglish Section, November 22, 1976.7. Schumpeter's (1934) views are endorsed in Beveridge and Oberschall, 1979: 207,225, 229; criticized in Jones and Sakong, 1980: 211;reviewed in Hagen, 1968: 221-7.8. 'When individuals go into business they must be prepared to lower standards ofliving and make personal sacrifices until their firms begin to prosper,' Cingolani, 1972.9. See Chas 4-10 in Cummings (ed.), 1980.10. In the wake of extremely high interest rates, white Californians began to utilizethe Pandero, a Brazilian rotating credit association, for purposes of home purchase.In this situation, a class-based, individualistic style reverted to old-fashioned collectivismas class resources became inadequate because of high interest rates. See DeWolfe, 1982.11. Gerry and Birkbeck (1981) and Portes (1981) argue that marginal self-employedof the Third World are 'thinly disguised wage workers' because of their indirect economicdependencies upon big firms. However, Aldrich and Weiss (1981) have shown that alinear relationship exists between employment size and business owners' incomes, andlinearity persists in the USA when non-employer firms are introduced. 'Owners withoutemployees are simply the "poorest of the poor" among small capitalists. This group. . . should be assigned to the owner class in future research.'
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