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Why do you think Saudi Arabia is slowly allowing women to participate? They need them in the workforce for an economically sustainable future. They know they ar

Why do you think Saudi Arabia is slowly allowing women to participate? They need them in the workforce for an economically sustainable future. They know they are heading for crisis rapidly and investing hard to get out of there. However, they are ridiculously dependent on oil. Oil money is basically the whole country's sugar daddy (not for the slaves and foreign workers...). People don't really work there, they all just live off the oil money. Literally every aspect of their lives need to change. I really doubt the rest of the world needs to be too concerned about them. They are pretty uniquely fucked and not that many people anyway.

tomp 6y ago
> Why do you think Saudi Arabia is slowly allowing women to participate? They need them in the workforce for an economically sustainable future. Do they? Has doubling the work-force helped Western economies? I think that Elizabeth Warren & others have questioned that idea - i.e. that the wages were reduced to compensate for the increased labour supply - although even if not beneficial for individual families it could still be beneficial for the economy as a whole (and especially for the capitalist class).
- gvfdabgea 6y ago
  You make a good point. More workers are just good for the capitalists, unless there is actual work to be done.
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
As someone who lived in Saudi and has relatives there, most of these comments are far far off the mark (Saudi has been diversifying for years, they won't be reliant on oil when it stops being as profitable, and that's also decades and decades away). But this one takes the cake. Haha, they are allowing women to participate for money? Women already participated in Saudi economically from a long time back. They make up a large part of the Aramco workforce. Don't confuse allowing women to drive and repealing qawwam system with "allowing women to participate economically". Women didn't need to drive to participate they could just have their drivers drive them around (as is common anyways). Also, Saudi is a conservative society, and the royals are more liberal than the populace (like everywhere in the world). Most people in Saudi dislike these reforms. The royals embark on them to please their allies in Europe and America and Israel as they hope to connect their economies more (they've already invested lots into these places with their sovereign wealth fund and want to protect their investments). HN gets things surprisingly wrong when it comes to non Western places, but this is far off even for those standards!

tomp 6y ago

> Why do you think Saudi Arabia is slowly allowing women to participate? They need them in the workforce for an economically sustainable future. Do they? Has doubling the work-force helped Western economies? I think that Elizabeth Warren & others have questioned that idea - i.e. that the wages were reduced to compensate for the increased labour supply - although even if not beneficial for individual families it could still be beneficial for the economy as a whole (and especially for the capitalist class).

gvfdabgea 6y ago
You make a good point. More workers are just good for the capitalists, unless there is actual work to be done.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

As someone who lived in Saudi and has relatives there, most of these comments are far far off the mark (Saudi has been diversifying for years, they won't be reliant on oil when it stops being as profitable, and that's also decades and decades away). But this one takes the cake. Haha, they are allowing women to participate for money? Women already participated in Saudi economically from a long time back. They make up a large part of the Aramco workforce. Don't confuse allowing women to drive and repealing qawwam system with "allowing women to participate economically". Women didn't need to drive to participate they could just have their drivers drive them around (as is common anyways). Also, Saudi is a conservative society, and the royals are more liberal than the populace (like everywhere in the world). Most people in Saudi dislike these reforms. The royals embark on them to please their allies in Europe and America and Israel as they hope to connect their economies more (they've already invested lots into these places with their sovereign wealth fund and want to protect their investments). HN gets things surprisingly wrong when it comes to non Western places, but this is far off even for those standards!