Market Civilization and Its Clash with Terror

Clausewitz's dictum that war is politics by other means is a reminder that the primary goal of the war against terror is not to defeat and eliminate those who aim to attack the United States and its allies. Rather it is to enhance the security of the American people and their allies. These goals are the same only if terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda are isolated groups of criminals that need only be found and dealt with swiftly. But if al-Qaeda and its associated groups represent the values and beliefs of substantial numbers of people, and all signs indicate that this is the case, then defeating these groups will not end the struggle against terror. Only by changing the values and beliefs of supporters of terrorist groups can the United States and its allies expect to achieve this objective.

To win the war against terror, the United States and its allies must have both a military strategy and a political strategy. Achieving political victory requires an understanding of the social basis of terror—that is, the values and beliefs that legitimate the use of extreme and indiscriminate violence against the civilian populations of out-groups. Such understanding will not reveal much about terror groups that seem to lack social support, such as the Basque terrorists in Spain, but it will help to reduce the influence of those groups that appear to enjoy widespread support, such as al-Qaeda. Seeking to understand the motivations of terrorists, however, should not be confused with empathizing with them or acquiescing on issues that terrorists and their supporters claim motivate them.

Some scholars have sought to link poverty with terror. Poverty, they argue, fosters terror because it creates a sense of hopelessness, restricts educational opportunity, and produces frustration over inequality. ¹ The direct causal linkages between poverty and terror are more elusive than scholars suggest, however. Indeed I am unaware of any comprehensive explanation in print for how poverty causes terror. Nor has there been any demonstrated correlation between the two. ² Nevertheless, there has been a chorus of calls to increase foreign aid as a tool in the fight against terror. ³ Absent an understanding of the social origins of this phenomenon, however, there is little reason to believe that greater foreign aid will have any significant positive effect. It may even increase the terrorist threat.

In this article, I argue that the social origins of terror are rooted less in poverty—or in growing discontent with U.S. foreign policy—and more in the values and beliefs associated with the mixed economies of developing countries in a globalizing world. I show how liberal-democratic values and beliefs are embedded in the economic infrastructure that prevails in market democracies, and how collective-autocratic values and beliefs are embedded in clientalist economies. As a result of globalization, these values and beliefs are increasingly clashing in the mixed market-clientalist economies of the developing world, triggering intense antimarket resentment directed primarily against the epitome of market civilization: the United States. This study builds on several generations of research in anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology; it explains much of the historical record of sectarian terror around the globe and, most important, suggests how the United States and its allies can combat it.

The article is organized as follows. After reviewing the literature on rational and cultural explanations for terror, I show how market democracies constitute a global civilization based not on interstate trade but on common liberal values and beliefs that thrive in market economies. I then discuss the clash of these liberal values and beliefs with the values and beliefs embraced in many parts of the developing world. I next demonstrate how clientalist values are a necessary condition for the resort to terrorist violence. I conclude with recommendations for developing a political strategy to win the war on terror.

Rational and Cultural Explanations for Terror

The academic literature offers two explanations, one rational and the...