2 - Profiting from Fighting

Summary

In this chapter I explore the economic motivations for interpersonal violence. The spotlight is on the leading rationalist and instrumentalist approaches that attempt to explain willingness to fight through the prism of individual self-interest. The chapter analyses different strands of the economics-centred paradigm: (a) approaches that have been developed in the study of civil wars and other violent conflicts; and (b) criminological theories of homicide and other violent crimes. The chapter identifies strengths and weaknesses of the agency-centred strategic and instrumentalist approaches to close-range violence as well as the more structural approaches that focus on the collective motivations and social inequalities that foster violent responses. I argue that social inequalities and economic self-interest can tilt conflict towards violent episodes, but material reasons alone cannot adequately explain human motivation to fight or the social dynamics of close-range violence. The chapter concludes with a brief critical analysis of two empirical cases that show the limits of economic models of violence.