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It goes by various names: the Resource Curse, Paradox of Plenty, the Dutch Disease, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
by sdurkin 16y ago
It goes by various names: the Resource Curse, Paradox of Plenty, the Dutch Disease, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
Finding tremendous mineral resources usually encourages corruption, collapses immature democratic institutions, and hollows out the industrial sector of the economy.
Nigeria, Holland, Congo, Venezuela, the story is always the same. The only country which has managed to avoid this situation is Norway.
- DTrejo 16y agoIf anyone wants to read about how Norway avoided this: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabd...
- ananthrk 16y agoThanks. The article was very good. You should submit that as a separate entry.
- DTrejo 16y agoDone :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1434413 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1434413
- jessriedel 16y agoI've only skimmed the FT article, but isn't the simplest explanation that Norway was a westernized, relatively rich democracy unlike the other examples such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela? Yes, Norway wasn't as rich in 1968 is it is now, but the relative disparity between Norway and the outside countries which wanted to exploit the oil wasn't nearly as great as the other examples.
- binarycheese 16y agoThis is really a good read. You should definitely submit it separately here on HN
- eru 16y ago> The only country which has managed to avoid this situation is Norway. And perhaps Britain? But that was before any country had any industrial sector at all, and the Britons used their coal and iron ore to start the original industrial revolution.
- ojbyrne 16y agoCanada? Australia?
- patrickk 16y agoWhite Paper on plans to privatize Iraq's oil industry (dated but an interesting read): http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/185/40586.html http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/185/40...