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| The Market For Martyrs |
| 2004-04-20 |
| Hat tip Dissecting Leftism Abstract Despite its presence within all religious traditions, extreme self- sacrifice is by no means easy to explain. We rightly view most people who seek pain or death as mentally ill. Yet studies refute the seemingly obvious conclusion that religious self-sacrifice is likewise rooted in depression, obsession, or other forms of irrationality. Economic theory suggests ways in which many forms of sacrifice (such as restrictive diet, dress, and sexual conduct) can help groups produce collective goods and services otherwise lost to freeriding, but self-sacrifice aimed at injuring others has yet to be adequately explained. Injury-oriented sacrifice can be modeled as a market phenomenon grounded in exchanges between a relatively small supply of people willing to sacrifice themselves and a relatively large number of âdemandersâ who benefit from the sacrificersâ acts. Contrary to popular perception, it is on account of limited demand rather than limited supply that markets for âmartyrsâ so rarely flourish. Suicidal attacks almost never profit the groups best equipped to recruit, train, and direct the potential martyrs. Once established, however, a market for martyrs is hard to shut down. Supply-oriented deterrence has limited impact because: · In every time, place, and culture, many people are willing to die for causes they value. Extract "It is the contrast between violent Islamic militancy and non- violent Christian activism that deserves our attention, not the few strained similarities. And here again, demandside market factors hold the key. Among the evangelical Christians and orthodox Catholics in America, many millions view the act of abortion as murder, the acceptance of abortion as immoral, and the legality of abortion as grossly unjust. Anti-abortion theology is fully-developed and routinely preached in churches all over America. And tens of thousands of anti-abortion âtrue believersâ already devote substantial portions of their time and money to anti-abortion activities. Thus the potential supply of militant anti-abortion âmartyrsâ is vast. But the actual supply remains effectively zero, because no Christian organizations have entered the business of recruiting, training, and launching anti-abortion militants. The absence of effective demand is certainly not rooted in Christianityâs unshakable attachment to non-violence. Rather it reflects contemporary realities â social, legal, economic, and political â that make religiously-sponsored violence unprofitable for American religious âfirms.â Any church or preacher advocating anti-abortion killings, much less planning them, would suffer huge losses in reputation, influence, memb ership, and funding, not to mention criminal prosecution and probable imprisonment. Disaster would likewise befall religious firms seeking to profit from virtually any form of criminality or violence in America and, indeed, in much of the world. The âmarket conditionsâ insuring the non-profitability of religious militancy exceed the scope of this paper but merit careful study. Nevertheless, changing market conditions provides the only true solution to the problem of suicide bombing and militant religious radicalism. Other approaches (such as targeting firms, leaders, and recruits) raise operating costs and induce substitution but leave in place the underlying demand, and hence the underlying profit opportunities, associated with this line of business. This does not mean that the only effective policy goals are tantamount to turning the Middle East into a vast region of prosperity, democracy, capitalism, and liberty. After all, suicide bombing scarcely exists in numerous countries and regions that enjoy none of these blessings. Insights from economics and the sociology of religion help us understand why the âmartyrdomâ market can flourish only when numerous exceptional conditions combine. Moreover, they suggest that relatively small changes in those conditions may dramatically disrupt the market. The imperative is to understand the market well enough too identify the relatively small structural changes and activities most likely to reduce cooperation within terror firms, increase damaging competition between firms, and undercut the firmsâ ability to collect payment for services rendered, and above all diminish the underlying demand for those homicidal services." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #5 B - you beat me to it. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-04-20 8:44:29 PM |
| #4 Ptah...I believe the correct quote is more along the lines of... When the Arabs love their kids more than they hate Jews. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-20 1:49:49 PM |
| #3 Phat, I think that the point of the article was that suicide bombing should be looked at from a supply/demand perspective. The authors contention was that we should move from the supply side (suicide bombers) to the demand side (those who finance/pay for them) Target the consumers( hose who pay) rather than the supplier (suicide bomber) I agree with that analysis, and if you think about it, it will require a sea change (paradigm shift?) in how we handle terrorism. As in everything else, there is a need to do a cost benefit analysis. Imagine if you had $86 billion, and applied this strategy! I can't see how it would fail. I can see how applying it to a supply side might fail, though. |
| Posted by: tipper 2004-04-20 1:33:44 PM |
| #2 *shakes head* I respect "dissecting leftism", and link to it from my blog, but this article proves my contention that it is futile to try to understand what is fundamentally religiously motivated behavior through explicitly non-religious glasses. The talk of the society rewarding the suicide bomber with approval clearly misses the obvious fact that a SUICIDE bomber is DEAD, and cannot enjoy any verbal or monetary claps on the back. There IS the possiblity that benefits to SB's family post suicide plays a large factor, although it appears that supporting this idea implies the truth of the Golda Meir statement of peace coming when Arabs love their kids as much as the Jews do. Certainly, they need to love their kids more than money: EVERYONE condemns westeners who do so, but there is silence when it comes to palestinians who were paid off by Saddam for what their spawn did... The real reason? Get inside the religion's head to understand how they motivate their followers. It is no secret that there are Fatwas and clear statements in the Koran that those who die in battle defending and promoting Islam go straight to heaven. Additional myths and accretions, BTW, have added the 72 virgins. There are no Christian Abortion suicide bombers, because suicide is expressly forbidden, and most works-oriented religions state that suicide is clearly a murder from which the murderer cannot repent (being dead from killing themselves). Neither is there an incentive comparable to what exists in Islam, because 1) salvation comes by faith, not by works, so fighting the pagans doesn't give you credit, and 2) there is no indication that marriage, (and presumably sex as we know it now,) plays a part in the Christian afterlife. (C.S. Lewis argues that it will probably be replaced by something better, since there will always be a need for an act that two individuals deeply in love can indulge in for mutually bestowed pleasure.) No incentive==no market. It is the promise of the afterlife that is the market incentive for the suicide bomber. They may die for a mistaken belief, but even people when buying in the marketplace buy things that have no value in the mistaken belief that it does have value. Even then, there is always the seed of doubt, and the factories that produce the suicide bombers have mostly to work on breaking down the normal instinct of self-preservation through intense religious indoctrination: Many of those who chose to live instead of self-detonate appear to have not been given adequate preparation or indoctrination. The method of suicide being chosen not only maximises Israeli fatalities, but also benefits the Suicide bomber, since it is obvious that the suffering of the individual at the epicenter of the blast is extremely short. That is, if it is felt at all: I'd think the blast front would destroy the brain long before the pain signal gets to the spinal column. Perhaps we should target, in addition to the leaders, the instructors in charge of producing the suicide bombers. This would be analogous to the bombing during WWII of germany's factories to hinder the production of war materiel feeding their armies. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-04-20 12:34:44 PM |
| #1 Interesting analysis! Leads to kill all the Mullahs who advocate 'martyrdom' and destroy the property of families of 'martyrs' and ensure they do not materially benefit. So Israel should demolish homes of the Mullahs as well as the homes of the 'boomers'. Might as well demolish the mosques as well. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-04-20 1:15:27 AM |