<div dir="ltr">I don't know if I'd call it the MOST controversial theory about the origins of ISIS. I could come up with ten more controversial theories right now ("the Jews did it," etc). Piketty has inequality-colored glasses on - I'm pretty sure he's never seen something that he didn't think was either a cause of or a result of economic inequality - and I can't speak to the "inequality causes terrorism" question, but as to the "the West causes the inequality" issue, a good book to read with a bit more sophistication than Piketty brings to the table is Thomas Pogge's <i>World Poverty and Human Rights </i>(or, for a short summary, this article: <a href="http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3717">http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3717</a> ).</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 7:59 AM, Mark Kohut <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mark.kohut@gmail.com" target="_blank">mark.kohut@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/30/why-inequality-is-to-blame-for-the-rise-of-the-islamic-state/?tid=sm_fb" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/30/why-inequality-is-to-blame-for-the-rise-of-the-islamic-state/?tid=sm_fb</a><br>
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