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no more anti-Semitic than the French, and probably less so. He was told to increase anti- Semitism in Germany. Obediently, Hippler produced movies that contained vivid scenes comparing Jews to rats—with their breeding threatening to infest the population.

Why was Hippler told to create hatred? Prejudice and discrimination were functional for the Nazis. Germany was on its knees at this time. It had been defeated in World War I and was being devastated by fines levied by the victors. The middle class was being destroyed by runaway inflation. The Jews provided a scapegoat, a common enemy against which the Nazis could unite Germany. In addition, the Jews owned businesses, bank accounts, fine art, and other property that the Nazis could confiscate. Jews also held key positions (as university professors, reporters, judges, and so on), which the Nazis could fill with their own flunkies. In the end, hatred also showed its dysfunctional side, as the Nazi officials hanged at Nuremberg discovered.

Prejudice becomes practically irresistible when state machinery is used to advance the cause of hatred. To produce prejudice, the Nazis harnessed government agencies, the schools, police, courts, and mass media. The results were devastating. Recall the identi- cal twins featured in the Down-to-Earth Sociology box on page 67. Jack and Oskar had been separated as babies. Jack was brought up as a Jew in Trinidad, while Oskar was reared as a Catholic in Czechoslovakia. Under the Nazi regime, Oskar learned to hate Jews, un- aware that he himself was a Jew.

That prejudice is functional and is shaped by the social environment was demonstrated by psychologists Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif (1953). In a boys’ summer camp, they as- signed friends to different cabins and then had the cabin groups compete in sports. In just a few days, strong in-groups had formed. Even lifelong friends began to taunt one another, calling each other “crybaby” and “sissy.” The Sherif study teaches us several important lessons about social life. Note how it is possible to arrange the social environment to gen- erate either positive or negative feelings about people, and how prejudice arises if we pit groups against one another in an “I win, you lose” situation. You can also see that preju- dice is functional, how it creates in-group solidarity. And, of course, it is obvious how dysfunctional prejudice is, when you observe the way it destroys human relationships.

Conflict Theory. Conflict theorists also analyze how groups are pitted against one an- other. Their focus, however, is on how this arrangement benefits those with power. They begin by noting that workers want better food, health care, housing, education, and leisure. To attain these goals, workers need jobs that pay well. If workers are united, they can demand higher wages and better working conditions. Divisions, in contrast, weaken them and prevent united action. To divide them and keep wages down, business owners use two main tactics.

The first tactic is to keep workers insecure. Fear of unemployment works especially well. The unemployed serve as a reserve labor force. Business owners draw on the unem- ployed to expand production during economic booms, and when the economy contracts, they release these workers to rejoin the ranks of the unemployed. The lesson is not lost on workers who have jobs. They fear eviction and worry about having their cars and fur- niture repossessed. Many know they are just one paycheck away from ending up “on the streets.” This helps to keep workers docile.

The second tactic to weaken labor is to exploit racial–ethnic divisions (Patterson 2007). In the 1800s, when white workers in California went on strike, owners of factories re- placed them with Chinese workers. When Japanese workers in Hawaii struck, owners of plantations hired Koreans (Jeong and You 2008). This division of workers along racial–ethnic and gender lines is known as a split labor market (Du Bois 1935/1992; Roediger 2002). Although today’s exploitation is more subtle, fear and suspicion con- tinue to split workers. Whites are aware that other racial–ethnic groups are ready to take their jobs, African Americans often perceive Latinos as competitors (Cose 2006), and men know that women are eager to get promoted. All of this helps to keep workers in line.

The consequences are devastating, say conflict theorists. Just like the boys in the Sherif experiment, African Americans, Latinos, whites, and others see themselves as able to make gains only at the expense of members of the other groups. Sometimes this rivalry shows up along very fine racial–ethnic lines, such as that in Miami between Haitians and African

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reserve labor force the un- employed; unemployed work- ers are thought of as being “in reserve”—capitalists take them “out of reserve” (put them back to work) during times of high production and then put them back “in reserve” (lay them off ) when they are no longer needed

split labor market workers split along racial, ethnic, gender, age, or any other lines; this split is exploited by owners to weaken the bargaining power of workers