When a Group Succeeds, Some People Assume It Cheated
Ben Shapiro argues that envy turns standout achievement into suspicion, for Jewish Americans and for Israel alike.
Uncommon Knowledge · Ben Shapiro and The Battle For The Soul of Conservatism | Peter Robinson | Hoover InstitutionAsk why some Americans resent Jews, and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro starts not with religion or foreign policy but with report cards and paychecks.
The explanation, presented as his own view, runs like this. Once people decide that hidden forces run their lives, and that personal setbacks are the system's fault, they start scanning for who is doing unusually well. Success stops looking like the result of work and starts looking like evidence of rigging.
In this account, Jews in America are disproportionately highly educated and high earning, with generally stable families, and are heavily represented in banking, Hollywood, the legal industry, and tech. The broader point about envy, associated with the philosopher Karl Popper, is that this kind of visibility turns quickly into suspicion.
The work part matters here. Jewish families have for generations placed extraordinary emphasis on schooling their children and on valuing effort itself, a pressure compared to strict parenting often described in some Asian American households. The same pattern appears among Indian Americans and Nigerian Americans.
That is where the economist Thomas Sowell comes in. Sowell used the term middleman minority for groups that rise into in-between economic roles, as traders, professionals, lenders, or entrepreneurs, and then stand out because they prosper. Because Jews were visible across Europe for so long, they became the clearest example.
The lens then widens to countries. There is only one highly prosperous country in that region, Israel, a country of about 10 million people in a region of about 400 million. About 2 million Israelis are Arabs and about 2 million more are ultra-Orthodox Jews who largely stand outside the workforce, leaving about 6 million people to power an economy with per capita output which Shapiro says he believes now exceeds every country in Europe, and with more young billion-dollar startups per person, known as unicorns, than any country on earth.
On the left, that success reads as exploitation, because success is assumed to come from exploiting others. On the right, it reads as manipulation, because believers in national decline ask who has had a good 80 years, and Shapiro says Jews in America "have had an amazing 80 years" and that Israel has had a stellar 80 years since its founding. Either way, standing out makes success look like wrongdoing.
Questions people ask
What exactly is a middleman minority?
A middleman minority is a group that concentrates in trade, small business, or professions between producers and customers, or between rich and poor. Economists use the term for groups like Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, and Jews in Europe. Because the work is visible and often profitable, the group can become a target during hard times.
Are Jews in America actually more educated and higher earning on average?
Yes, on average. Pew Research Center surveys consistently find American Jewish adults are among the most highly educated religious groups, with high rates of college and postgraduate degrees, and above-average household incomes. Scholars generally explain the gap through a mix of education, urban residence, professional occupations, and family emphasis on schooling, not a single cause.
What does more unicorns per capita mean?
A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at $1 billion or more. Per capita counts favor small countries with strong tech sectors, and Israel has one of the highest rates in the world because of its software, cybersecurity, and semiconductor firms. The number rises and falls as valuations and listings change.
Why does he talk about the last 80 years?
The 80 years likely points to the period since 1945, with Israel founded in 1948. For American Jews, those eight decades brought wider access to universities, professions, and suburbs after earlier quotas and discrimination. For Israel, they cover growth from a poor new state to a wealthy, high-tech economy.