Hey, I'm no big fan of megacorps, based in Redmond or elsewhere. But blaming the capitalist system for the problems of the Muslim world just won't wash, [link|http://www.thenewrepublic.com/111201/lindsey111201.html|and here's why].

Excerpt:

But where the argument falls apart is in blaming globalization for Muslim countries' economic woes. For the sad fact is that, while newly liberated market forces have indeed fomented dramatic changes around the planet (mostly for the better), one place they haven't fomented dramatic--or even substantial--change is in the Islamic world. With a few notable exceptions--Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, some of the Gulf states--most Muslim countries have kept international economic integration at bay. Highly restrictive barriers to trade and investment choke off the international flows of goods, services, and capital. Nor has globalization reordered these countries internally. Pervasive economic controls stifle competition, while the institutional infrastructure on which markets depend remains pathetically underdeveloped. Most Muslim countries are more or less immune from globalization's creative destruction. They live in self-imposed exile from the new global economy. In other words, it is not globalization that fuels Al Qaeda--but its opposite. For if the challenges of adapting to global economic integration are daunting, they pale in comparison to the frustrations of living in the defunct and discredited collectivist past.