What the jihadists who bought “Islam for Dummies” tell us about radicalisation
10 Sep 2014 1 Comment
in economics, economics of crime, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: economics of oppositional identities, Jihadists, Terrorism is an occupational choice
Sarwar and Ahmed, who pleaded guilty to terrorism offences, purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies. MI5’s behavioural science unit found that
“far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could . . . be regarded as religious novices.” The analysts concluded that “a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation”
Most evidence point to moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, the search for a new identity, for a sense of belonging and purpose as drivers of radicalisation. Anthropologist Scott Atran pointed out in testimony to the US Senate in March 2010:
“. . . what inspires the most lethal terrorists in the world today is not so much the Quran or religious teachings as a thrilling cause and call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends, and through friends, eternal respect and remembrance in the wider world”. He described wannabe jihadists as “bored, underemployed, overqualified and underwhelmed” young men for whom “jihad is an egalitarian, equal-opportunity employer . . . thrilling, glorious and cool”.
Chris Morris, the writer and director of the 2010 black comedy Four Lions – which satirised the ignorance, incompetence and sheer banality of British Muslim jihadists – said:
Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.
If Scotland votes yes
07 Sep 2014 4 Comments
in constitutional political economy, international economic law, International law, law and economics Tags: English nationalism, Scottish independence
Does the lower crime rate in the USA have something to do with harsher penalties and three strikes laws?
04 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of crime, law and economics Tags: crime and punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, three strikes laws, transatlantic crime rates
Oh my, the violent crime rate in Europe is higher than the US (and growing). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.… HT: @danarchism http://t.co/B8PH9xtIVE—
David Skarbek (@DavidSkarbek) August 29, 2014
Source: DavidSkarbek
Film review – Elysium
03 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, law and economics, liberalism, P.T. Bauer, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick, technological progress Tags: democracies, movies, rule of law, The Great Enrichment
Elysium was on TV. When I saw it on the big screen, no one told me it was a depiction of contemporary capitalism and the class war.
I read it as a contrast between third world countries lacking the rule of law and capitalist democracies.
The ships shooting up to the space station reminded me of Cubans trying to cross into the USA by boat to Florida.
Sorry, but I am just a simple country boy from the back blocks of Tasmania.
Why does government fail?
31 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, Ronald Coase Tags: comparative institutional analysis, government failure, market failure, Ronald Coase
The World’s Most Corrupt Diplomats, As Told Through Parking Tickets
30 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of crime, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, liberalism Tags: crime and punishment, diplomatic corruption, diplomatic parking tickets, official corruption
Kuwait tops the list, with 246 violations per diplomat, followed by Egypt (under Mubarack), Chad, Sudan and Bulgaria. At the bottom, with no violations, are 21 diverse countries including not just the ever-polite U.K., Japan and Canada.
Most U.N. diplomats have improved their parking behaviour since 2002 when the U.S. began withholding parking fines from foreign aid payments: violations fell by 90% immediately after the measure was passed.
The British High Commissioner to New Zealand, plate DC1, nearly ran me over at pedestrian crossing yesterday outside the Wellington library, so this is not an unbiased post.
He was travelling too fast to stop in the central business district, where the speed limit is 30 kilometres per hour. You should not speed near pedestrian crossings because people are trying to walk out onto it.
Canada, U.S. to tighten security between ‘cross-border’ library
29 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in law and economics, politics - USA Tags: borders
The line is the border. People can cross border inside buildings without reporting to customs.
Via http://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Canada,U.S._to_tighten_security_between‘cross-border’_library
Too few good men – rational behaviour and the causes of teen pregnancies
21 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of love and marriage, labour economics, labour supply, population economics Tags: teen pregnancies
Teenage pregnancy rates have been cut in half in the past 20 years. buff.ly/1PnIpdN http://t.co/1SIJeTeZjj—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) August 14, 2015
The causes of teen pregnancies are well described in Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas’s Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage and Jason DeParle’s American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare. See Amy Wax’s superb book review Too few good men.
Women on a low social trajectory see no reason to wait before having a baby and they look down upon those women that wait.
People now regard marriage as a luxury good rather than as a necessity. They refuse to tie the knot unless they have first achieved economic success. A house, a well-paying job, and enough money for a nice wedding are now needed before considering a trip to the altar.
These young women put motherhood first and have no intention of marrying the layabouts that often father their children, most of all, because of repeated and open infidelity.
The women do not complain of men’s failure to earn enough, but rather of their unwillingness to grasp opportunities, work steadily, and spend wisely. The objection is not to modest earning power, but to financial profligacy, defiant attitudes, and lack of work discipline…
The most vociferous complaints are reserved for men’s chronic criminal behaviour, drug use, violence, and, above all, repeated and flagrant sexual infidelity.
Most men made no effort to hide their frequent liaisons, which were often carried on simultaneously. More often than not, those relationships produced babies
Having a baby changes these young women from extras on the stage of life to a mother and all the community respect and social standing that commands.
Babies need not await the achievement of an elevated position in life, because childbearing is a fundamental hallmark of female adulthood that is central to poor women’s dignity and identity.
In the authors’ words, “women rely on their children to bring validation, purpose, companionship, and order to their often chaotic lives — things they find hard to come by in other ways.” In a perverse inversion of old values, these woman have come to regard lone motherhood as the ultimate heroic act, the proving ground of their responsible devotion to others.
These new mothers try and clean up their act. They stop drinking and taking drugs. For the first time in their lives they have a purpose, which is to raise a child.
Far too many social commentators see a teen pregnancy through their own lens as a middle class parent and the despair they would fell because their daughter will not go to university and all that brings including a better class of husband.
University educated couples are not called power couples for nothing – their earning power is this stunning compared to going it on your own. The emergence of power couples means that less educated women may prefer to stay single and raise children on their own rather than marry what is left in the marriage pool.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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