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Tweeted twitter.com/#!/StackHistory/status/327737913926377472
Tilted the question away from the "opinion," and toward the surrounding scholarship
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Tom Au
Tom Au
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Is it true Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful?

@DVK seems to feel really strongly about this, but hasn't yet chosen to edit the question to meet their desires.
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Samuel Russell
Samuel Russell
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Is it true that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful?

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Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor
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Is it true that persecuted minorities have tended to be financially successful?

In this interview with Neal Stephenson, talking about the historical basis for his Baroque Cycle series of novels, he makes the remark that

... persecuted religious minorities, if they’re not persecuted out of existence, often manage to achieve disproportionate wealth. It happened with Jews, Armenians, Huguenots. Earlier in this project, I could have rattled off five more

Is there any evidence for this statement? What are other historical examples of persecuted religious minorities who have become financially successful as a result of their persecution?

If there is evidence that the statement is true, then what are the proposed explanations?