Gist on the Resource Curse

Gist on the Resource Curse

Comment on watch?v=uiIg4tLTaT0 7/9/21

The most relevant concepts I know of relating to the issues in the middle east are that of Selectorate Theory and The Resource Curse.

Wikipedia explains Selectorate theory pretty well but it doesn't do a good job of connecting politics to the resource curse.

This book does a great job of explaining both: "The Dictators Handbook: why bad behavior is almost always good politics"

Summary by CGPgrey: "The Rules for Rulers" here on youtube.

The gist of it is that when a government relies on taxation for revenue, it will be greatly incentivized to invest in infrastructure so that the people can more easily get to and perform their work to earn more and pay more taxes. invest in education and healthcare, since healthy and educated people will earn more and pay more taxes. Allow basic freedoms like free press, assembly and ease of communication; the press to allow people to more easily learn market prices, assembly to get together to coordinate jobs and communicate to schedule meetings all allow people to earn more to pay more taxes.

all of these things; better roads, building codes, hospitals, schools, and basic freedoms both allow people to earn more for themselves (and pay more taxes) AND allow them to more easily protest and revolt.

If the government finds an alternative source of revenue that completely sidesteps the people then it can neglect these commodities relative to the value of the resources. The government can use the money they get from selling oil to other nations to pay the army or mercenaries to do the dirty work of suppressing the people. Suppressing people who are revolting because the government is no longer spending enough time and money on the upkeep of their infrastructure and institutions and is taking away their freedoms to avoid revolts.

Revolts are dangerous to a leader because it gives the leader's winning coalition an opportunity to replace their leader, using the people's revolt, with someone else that will spend more money them (them being the winning coalition).

Although religion is merely an after thought in all of this, it may still be a road block to progress once the resource curse is removed; Harris' criticisms of the fundamentals of Islam are on point. I hope that the worst we've seen of Islam are merely a symptom of the Resource Curse.

Probably the best way to help the conflicts in the middle east is to push policy for renewable energy and buy a fully electric car.