There is a common misconception that most terrorists are driven by desperation; that poverty, oppression, and discrimination are the building blocks for terrorism. This line of thinking has long been en vogue and, while particularly popular with the Left, has also been invoked by conservatives. And not without reason.

It makes terrorism, or political violence, appear to be something that can be solved. All that is needed is to wage a war on poverty, or eliminate inequality, and terrorism itself will magically disappear. The appeal — particularly to those who are inclined to favor crusades, both abroad and at home — is obvious. 

It also, if implicitly, casts part of the blame on the victims. This, too, is convenient for some, not least the terrorists themselves.

But the truth is more alarming. 

Many terrorists aren’t poor or downtrodden. In fact, they are often highly educated, and many come from wealthy backgrounds. What motivates them isn’t dire straits. Rather, it’s ideology and utopian visions. 

Osama bin Laden is a case in point. Bin Laden came from one of the wealthiest families in the Middle East. His father founded the Saudi Binladin Group, which built most of Saudi Arabia. The family’s net worth was well into the billions. 

Bin Laden grew up a child of privilege, wanting for nothing. He earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979 from Saudi Arabia’s preeminent college. Yet less than a decade later, he formed al Qaeda. His co-commander and eventual successor, Ayman al Zawahiri, was a physician. 

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Both men became jihadists thanks to the literature that they read while attending school, in their case works by Muslim Brotherhood ideologues such as Sayyid Qutb, among others. Indeed, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, was himself a teacher and, as the son of a renowned watchmaker and cleric, was able to attend college — hardly a common occurrence in 1920s Egypt.

Yasser Arafat, the late head of the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization, is another example. Like Zawahiri, Arafat was born in Egypt. His father was a landowner who was related to the Husseinis, one of the more prominent clans in Jerusalem, whose members included mayors, chief religious officials, and others. Arafat and other young engineers and working professionals formed Fatah in 1959 in Kuwait. It would eventually become the preeminent Palestinian terrorist group for most of the 20th century.

In the 1960s and 1970s, numerous leftist terrorist groups came to prominence: the Baader-Meinhof Group, the Japanese Red Army, the Weather Underground, and others. All espoused some variation of a radical Marxist, anti-capitalist ideology. All believed in utilizing violence, whether it was via assassinations, hijacking airplanes, kidnappings, mass shootings, or a campaign of targeted bombings at places including the U.S. Capitol or U.S. State Department, to achieve their ends. 

One of the most notorious terrorists of the era, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, grew up the son of an extremely wealthy Venezuelan lawyer. He spent his formative years jet-setting abroad, including to London with his mother, who attended the London School of Economics and Political Science. Carlos nearly attended the Sorbonne University before opting for a life of Marxist terrorism.

Many of these future terrorists were radicalized at universities. Infamously, several members of the Weather Underground would later become professors themselves, teaching at institutions including Columbia University or the University of Illinois, moving in elite circles and befriending politicians, including a young Barack Obama.

Being highly educated certainly isn’t a barrier to choosing a life of terrorism. In fact, in numerous instances throughout history, universities themselves have served as breeding grounds for terrorists. 

Unification or Death, the Serbian group that helped spark World War I by murdering the Archduke of Austria-Hungary in 1914, was composed of high-ranking military officials, lawyers, and journalists, but many of its youngest operatives were recruited at schools and universities via societies. Some were poor. Many were not.

There are numerous other examples, including the 19th-century Russian group, People’s Will, whose members included Vladimir Lenin’s older brother, Aleksandr Ulyanov, the son of schoolteachers from a noble family. He became radicalized as a student and was later executed for his role in an 1886 attempt to murder Tsar Alexander III of Russia.

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And a stunning number of terrorists are engineers. The scholars Steffen Hertog and Diego Gambetta have conducted several studies, including a 2016 book, showing that engineers are “overrepresented” in the ranks of Islamist and far-right terrorist movements. Doctors also show up in “disproportionate numbers,” they note.

What is to be drawn from all of this? Political violence is a conscious act. It is not something that people turn to out of desperation. Rather, they do so because they are ideologues; true believers. And the well-off and privileged are just as likely — if not more so — to believe in utopian visions in which violence, and, not coincidentally, themselves, play a starring role.