Crime does pay,a lot of people.
Discussion
Yes, poverty affords fertile ground for extremism and conflict. Of course, crappy ideas can take hold even when there is no poverty, and we have plenty of examples of terrorists coming from prosperous backgrounds (US and German radicals in the 60s and 70s, Osama Bin Laden, some recent UK terrorists and jihadis, etc), but it's easier to make whole populations hate their neighbours if they are all pissed off about being skint.
Poverty can certainly exacerbate extremism, but it has to be allied to the correct national characteristics.
If you look at Europe in the 30s, fascism took hold in Italy & Germany. Hitler and Mussolini blamed the nations woes an the jews, and the public lapped it up.
Britain was also poor, but when Moseley tried the same line, being British, our instinctive reaction was "he says the jews are to blame, and he's a politician, so he is obviously lying, so the jews can't be to blame."
The cynicism of the British public towards our leaders works in our favour and has for centuries kept us out of the grips of far left and far right wing crackpots.
If you look at Europe in the 30s, fascism took hold in Italy & Germany. Hitler and Mussolini blamed the nations woes an the jews, and the public lapped it up.
Britain was also poor, but when Moseley tried the same line, being British, our instinctive reaction was "he says the jews are to blame, and he's a politician, so he is obviously lying, so the jews can't be to blame."
The cynicism of the British public towards our leaders works in our favour and has for centuries kept us out of the grips of far left and far right wing crackpots.
That analysis is, I suggest, a touch over simplified. Mussolini adopted anti semitic policies, but did not rise on a wave of anti semitism in the same way as Hitler did, and the reasons for the embrace of dictatorship politics by Italy and Germany are, I suggest, far more complex than "national characteristics". The UK's experience of inter war depression was not the same as the experience of Germany after WW1. In addition, there was a fair bit of extremism in the UK, and sympathy for fascism amongst sections of the Establishment. The reasons why UK civil society was more robust than it was in parts of Europe had, I suggest, more to do with history since the C17 than with "national characteristics". France in 1940 was riven between left and right, which may be one reason why it fell quickly, having resisted tenaciously in the previous war.
PS: Contemporary UK politics suggest that perhaps up to ten percent (but probably fewer than that) of the electorate may think that the UK's problems are caused by foreigners, and many of them so believe because there's a politician who tells them so. Not very British, I grant you, although those types wrap themselves in the flag.
PS: Contemporary UK politics suggest that perhaps up to ten percent (but probably fewer than that) of the electorate may think that the UK's problems are caused by foreigners, and many of them so believe because there's a politician who tells them so. Not very British, I grant you, although those types wrap themselves in the flag.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 25th August 16:02
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