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Throughout, Agnieszka Aleksy is careful to delineate concepts, variables, levels of analysis, and causation. For example, the book systematically distinguishes between the findings that account for behavior of consumer and citizen in the organizational literature and the findings that are explored here at the level of the state. Similarly, the book examines the psychological literature regarding individual motivation, and the sociological literature on the motivation of the collective, distinguishing between the effects. Finally, the book justifies the existence of the intervening variable, the right policy context, and tests it for reliability and direction of causation.
In short, the absence of citizenship laws that are inclusive, limits on high-skilled immigration, and negative citizen attitudes toward diversity drain political-cultural diversity of its benefits. Lack of a good business climate and lack of sufficient spending on research and development undermine the advantages of a diverse labor base. Failure to encourage labor mobility and the mixing of a diverse population, and the absence of democratic pluralism and a common language subvert the otherwise positive aspects of political cultural diversity for creativity and entrepreneurship.
Implications for Policy
Three policy implications follow from the findings of this book. First, the great heterogeneous, democratic societies of the 21st century are likely to be the workshops of creativity and entrepreneurship world-wide. Far from stagnating, or collapsing because of fragmentation, these great storehouses of political-cultural diversity are likely to be the generators of new commercial enterprise and technological idea for decades to come.
Second, immigration, a long way from threatening the identity of the nation-state, is likely instead to be one of the greatest sources of innovation, commercial impulse, and new idea that the world has yet seen. Movement of labor may be, by the end of the 21st century, a more important source of increasing per capita income than the movement of capital.