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The Roots of Arab Poverty

© Laurence B. Winn

Not long ago, Alan Schwartz, a professor of law and management at Yale, inked an op ed piece for The New York Times about the origins of terrorism.

"Many Arabs blame us for their poverty," he wrote, "But in fact they are not poor because we are rich; they are poor because of the policies their countries pursue." And he goes on to explain how the U.S. can urge, by financial and diplomatic means, the Muslim nations to see the truth of this.

Even if his main points were not debatable, and they are, Schwartz offers no path to success other than the usual circular logic about changing minds and hearts ... to get Arabs to be something other than they are, you have to make them something other than they are. It seems clear that the Muslim/Arab view is correct enough: they can't have what others own (except by forced redistribution). And Americans own a lot of what there is.

Try a thought experiment: A new continent appears as if by magic in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is so large, larger inside than outside, like Dr. Who's call box "Tardis", that it could hold, say, five times the earth's current population. It is also further away than it possibly can be, so far that even its nearer shore is three days transit time by ICBM. Moreover, it is not owned by anyone, and all of its natural resources are unowned as well, free for the taking, assuming the wilderness doesn't kill you.

What would happen?

The common sense expectation is that the old world powers would claim all of the new world for themselves and distribute the land and its resources among their favorites. But the expected strategy can't work because of the vastness of the domain and the great distances involved. We know this because it hasn't worked before, notably in America from the 15th century through the 19th. In these circumstances, the bosses may have a will, but they can't enforce it. The journey is too long, the land too vast and the way too hard.

This is what really happens: People, mostly poor, arrive by whatever means they can. They may promise to do the will of their masters to obtain transportation, then melt into the wilderness. Some of these are the same ones who, with education but with no prospects, would have joined any cause that offered to pay them and care for their families, even if it required their death.

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