The Oil Curse

Saudi Arabia is a major oil-based economy and oil is the most important element of its country's rapid economic development since the Second World War. American geologists discovered the oil in this area in the 1930s, and exports increased drastically in the 1960s, so production and abundant income seemed infinite. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are equivalent to a quarter of the world's oil resources, and today's Nissan's oil production is about 10,000 barrels. As a result valuable resources now account for 90% of the export value, accounting for 75% of government revenue each year.

"Cruelty" is not just a big country and citizens indifferent. Petroleum states are not merely major powers, but because the wealth of oil is accumulated in the central government, they are very concentrated. In large-scale and aggressive establishment of national security institutions there is a large amount of funds, so regulation is often strict in many cases. They are also severely affected by corruption. In these systems, the country is big and repressive. Since the de facto work plan is designed to purchase political peace by government salary, there is the possibility of supporting a huge number of bureaucratic mechanisms. Civil society is weakly selected

Oil and gas reserves are cursed like this. From Russia to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela it has long been pointed out that oil-rich countries tend to be more autocratic than the oil-poor countries. When citizens get income through oil rental rather than tax, there is no reason to expect citizens to respond to the existing administration, so these countries have the idea that these countries have not developed a fair political system . Instead, the state government gives "bribes" to citizens through a luxurious social welfare program. Professor Noah Feldman of Harvard University School of Law said, "There is no financial relationship between the government and the people, the government tightens civilians and starts collecting oil."

Oil is a curse. Natural gas, copper and diamond are also harmful to the health of the country. Therefore, powerful insight as well is contrary to intuition. Poor but resource-rich countries are often undeveloped because of their abundance of resources even though they have hydrocarbons and mineral resources. Anyway, oil, gold and zinc make you poor. This fact is unbelievable and exceptions like Norway and the United States are often used to insist that oil and everyone's prosperity can really be together.