South Africa has an interesting problem where illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe move there and immediately get jobs and start illegal small businesses that flourish while many locals seem to be utter failures in comparison. The Zimbabwean immigrants are the definition of resilient. While we were there the country was in a period of national soul-searching after a series of violent attacks and evictions took place when the jealousy and resentment of the locals boiled over.7Wannabe5 wrote: Anyways, I can't connect the dots very well but my point here being that it seems to me that the world of the future will be different in some not totally predictable way but this sort of mosaic model of succession will still hold true so if you are able to pick up your own little backpack of resources, skills etc. and just walk a few blocks over then you will have different opportunities and different results from the same behavior because you will be in a different phase of succession in a different environment.
Many of the staff at the places we stayed were from Zim. A few had been promoted to managers. Whenever I had an opportunity I would ask them about the conflicts and why they got ahead when the locals did not. They would usually mention that they were willing to do whatever needed to be done while the locals were too proud. One campsite owner, a Swiss guy who was equally perplexed and fascinated by the cultures told me they had tried to promote a few of the locals but they would decline the promotion. He explained that it was a common problem in South Africa where village life is very communal. If someone tries to get too far ahead others will bring him or her back down.
Jacob often mentions how it is interesting that the ER bloggers and writers are immigrants. I wonder how much of their success is due to the fact that they, like the Zimbabwean immigrants, are not fully bound by the stifling elements of their home culture nor their adopted culture. As you said, they packed their backpacks of skills and resources, and were not forced by the culture to remain in their homegrown phase of success.
