Most terrorists are not motivated by the prospect of financial gain or the hopelessness of poverty, says economist Alan B. Krueger, least of all in the Middle East.
This evidence corroborates findings for other Middle Eastern and Latin American terrorist groups. Terrorists are drawn from society’s elites, not the dispossessed. As far back as 1958, political scientist Daniel Lerner argued, “The data obviate the conventional assumption that the extremists are simply the `have-nots.'”
Krueger analysed U.S. State Department data on significant international terrorist incidents. He found that more terrorists do come from poor countries than rich ones.
Thus economically well off countries that lack civil liberties have spawned relatively more terrorists. Poor countries with a tradition of protecting civil liberties are unlikely to spawn terrorists.
Evidently, the freedom to assemble and protest peacefully without interference from the government goes a long way to providing an alternative to terrorism.
Source: Alan B. Krueger, Poverty Doesn’t Create Terrorists, Economic Scene, New York Times, May 29, 2003.
For text http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/business/29SCEN.html
For more on Terrorism http://www.ncpa.org/iss/ter/
FMF Policy Bulletins/3 June 2003
