Sometimes Marxism just is the right start to an analysis. Of course, all that tosh about the workers' paradise if we just shoot all the bourgeois is nonsense -- and dangerous nonsense at that. However, pathways to understanding some questions do open up if we consider class as a cause of the original problem.
Take, for example, the strange preference for whiter, lighter, skin in Bangladeshi society. As described in this newspaper in fact. There's a possible error here: “This problem can't be solely blamed on colonialism” when this has nothing to do with colonialism at all. The preference for lighter skinned ladies existed long before my forefathers had even heard of the Indies, let alone tried to carve an empire out of them. The Marxist explanation, of class, does work though.
Well, it does work if we're willing to accept another of those appallingly white European ideas, Occam's Razor. When there are varied possible explanations for something, then we should prefer the simplest explanation which does indeed explain the phenomenon. Note that it is “prefer,” for sometimes (like when discussing “quantum” and probably complexion also) the more complex is actually true.
So, what's the simple explanation for a preference for lighter coloured skin? OK, my theory is that for nearly all of history us humans were living in societies where 90% of us worked in the fields and only 10% -- at maximum -- got to enjoy an indoor lifestyle. At which point an obvious marker of those who were the richer, the indoor type who had peasants to work the fields for them, is a lighter skin. For whatever your starting skin shade, yes, sunlight does darken it. Lighter skin is a marker of higher socioeconomic status. Not a cause of it, but a result of it.
Of course, humans being humans this then becomes reified into more desirable, socially more acceptable, the lighter skin becomes the thing itself, not the marker of the original, the being a rich kid who didn't have to work in the fields.
We can switch examples and recall those Jane Austen movies -- doesn't matter which generation of remakes of the stories of the novels. My having a wife means I've seen most of them and there's always the same scene. A fussing over bonnets, a worry that if a girl's face were ever exposed to sunlight she might then get freckles. That would show that at some point in her life she might -- might -- have been actually working for a living in those fields. Thus devaluing her social status.
The other bit of Marx to use here is his insistence that technological change determines social relations. Here, now that all Europeans work under internal lighting in indoor jobs, no heavy lifting, pale skin is a marker of low social status, not high. For richer people can go to where there is sunshine and gain a tan. This change took only a generation -- my grandmothers were of the freckle avoiding, my parents of the seeking. To the extent that now -- while we have skin lightening creams among sub-continentals in England today -- a thriving business is artificial skin darkening by either tanning salons or spray on darkeners.
It's a very, very, strong bet that Bangladeshi society will change in just the same way -- humans are humans after all. Once everyone's working indoors all the time then darker skin will become a desired attribute.
This might not help those alive and mating right now all that much of course. At which point we can bring in a serious economist, Gary Becker. Who pointed out that taste discrimination -- discriminating upon the basis of things like skin colour, not class or economic status which might be indicated by skin colour for example -- are costly to the people doing the discriminating.
For, if society in general does so discriminate then those with that thing are cheaper. Not in a monetary sense, that's not what is meant here. Those with the attribute are more lowly valued. That means that they are “cheaper” in that sense for all their other attributes. Or, if you're the buyer, then you're losing out by insisting on that expensive thing, the discrimination, rather than looking at all of the other measures of value.
Which means, gentlemen of Bangladesh, that the solution is in your hands. Of the things that you desire in a wife -- pleasant nature, good cooking, a sweet smile, pneumatics possibly (and as a long married man I'd suggest that it's one and three that really matter, number two can be learnt) -- then as the others around you obsess over skin tone you can gain much better by not doing so.
Do note what we've done here though. We've accepted Marx as possibly being interesting on the subject. While moving over to a proper liberal economist to explain what to do about it. Good advice for whatever cultural background we're worrying about.
Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.