2005/07/10 - Jorge Valín - Libertad Digital

Poverty Does Not Cause Terrorism

A study by Alan Krueger, from Princeton University, and Jitka Malečková, from Charles University, reached empirical conclusions showing terrorism does not come from poverty.

It is a commonly accepted idea among left-wingers that terrorism is a sub-product of poverty. The host and invited guests of a Catalan television station were convinced terrorism stems from poverty. Along the same lines, Prime Minister Zapatero published an article in the Financial Times claiming “huge inequalities” trigger terrorism. As usual, the enlightened left is wrong.

There is a lot of evidence telling us the terrorists, for example, are not especially uncultured. Current Director for the United Nations Office in Vienna´s Information Service, Nasra Hassan, interviewed 250 participants at Palestine training camps between 1996 and 1999. She says they all had some level of formal education, most were middle class, lived off a salary and two were sons of millionaires.  

Another study by Alan Krueger, from Princeton University, and Jitka Malečková, from Charles University, reached empirical conclusions showing terrorism does not come from poverty: “Palestine suicide bombers belong to economically privileged families and have a relatively high level of education.” What is more, “the Jewish activists from the end of the 1970s and early 1980s had a very good educational background and well paid jobs.”

Moreover, terrorist leaders like Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, etc… are certainly not a bunch of illiterates. They studied at university, have enormous fortunes and speak, at least, two languages.

If poverty caused terrorism, countries like Mali, Mongolia, Haiti, etc… would have the most active and violent terrorist groups in the world. And if poverty is the cause of terrorism, it is just as difficult to understand why Spain, considered a rich country, has an active and internationally recognized terrorist group in one of its wealthiest regions!

Why does the left and the state insist on blaming terrorism on poverty?

The left has a slogan that never fails: “nobody is responsible for his or her actions.” The masochistic view that “I” am responsible for all the unpleasantness happening in the world carries the left to take absurd and incoherent positions. If someone is poor, it is not for his failure to sacrifice, work hard or strive to improve his personal future; no, it is society’s fault. And society is all of us, meaning, it is our fault. If some unbalanced person gets off on killing children, that’s not his fault, he is sick! The blames lies with society that made him that way –once again, for anyone keeping score, its our fault, your fault, my fault. And obviously, if a bunch of fanatics dedicate themselves to exterminating as many Christians as possible, it is not the fanatics fault, but yours. Look wherever you want, according to the left, the average white Judeo-Christian man is to blame for every bit of nastiness in the world.  

This worldview is pushed by states to allow them to take more control of individual lives and society and continue their coercive policies: more taxes, more police state, more banning books (according to some politician’s whimsy), newspapers, political parties, more jailing people not to the state’s liking regardless of whether they have committed any criminal act: and all this to finance political corruption, state transaction costs and bureaucratic inefficiency.

Poverty and terrorism have nothing to do with each other. If we want to eliminate poverty, let’s eliminate barriers to free trade, tariffs and start dismantling the welfare state. If we want to end terrorism, spread liberalization and end state inference in world affairs.