A market-dominant minority, a term coined by Amy Chua in her 2001 book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, is an ethnic minority (most often an immigrant minority, but sometimes an indigenous one) in a country that through means of facility, becomes disproportionately wealthy and powerful, as compared to the indigenous majority. Market-dominant minorities rule, through political, social, and economical means, in countries throughout the Global South (e.g. countries formerly known as Third World countries that are South of Richer Countries such as Europe and the U.S.). The minority does not, however, have disproportionate political power. The result of this partitioning is that class lines are then synonymous with ethnic lines, and class conflicts often become indistinguishable from ethnic conflicts.

Definitions are required to continue with this analysis, Chua explains. "Indigenous" and "immigrant" are relative terms—often the immigrant community has an established history in the country. Still, it is a 'newer' ethnicity than the local population. The local populations are often unconnected to the outside world, ill-educated, and otherwise rendered incapable of entering into the closed culture of the wealthy minority. It is worthy to note that this incapability, instead of being qualified in racist terms, as it traditionally had been, is maintained through varied cultural differences, such as language and religion. In this respect, it differs from the situation in countries such as South Africa where the dominant minority held direct political power and was able to erect a direct system of racial discrimination.

Some of examples of market-dominant minorities mentioned by Chua ^*:

• Chinese in Southeast Asia
• Indians in East Africa; Fiji
• Jews in the Middle East and Eastern Europe
• Croats in the former Yugoslavia
• Cubans in South Florida
• Igbo in Nigeria

Markets | Social groups | Stereotypes | Discrimination