Choose Your Weapon

Education (especially math) is a weapon against poverty.
Violence is a weapon against prosperity.

The best educated families tend to be prosperous. The most prosperous families value education.

Violence scares off prosperity by discouraging investment. Violence is illegitimate as a strategy for obtaining value because violence destroys value. Violence is a strategy of the desperate that separates the desperate from resources.

Poverty-Desperation-Violence are a self-purpetuating cycle.
Education-Prosperity are also a self-purpetuating cycle.

Poverty and Prosperity: Each condition protects itself with a specific weapon.