I confess to having a very limited interest in global politics and have usually relied on Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart for most of my news updates. Granted, neither one of them are terribly academic in nature. But when it comes to bad news I'll take mine with a little snark instead of the regular news, which makes me want to hide under my bed and never face the real world again.
Like many people if you want to get me interested in a subject that usually doesn't impact my daily living, get someone famous to shine a spotlight on it and then my interest may be sparked. Therefore, in my random thoughts I was thinking of Forest Whitaker, the critically acclaimed actor of many roles from the Crying Game to the Last King of Scotland. And while thinking of the Last King of Scotland I had been thinking of despots and dictators and how on earth do some of these guys get away with their iron fist-like rulings with nary a trace of a velvet glove? I suppose nukes and big scary guys with Uzis help one stay on top.
In my limited way I know that part of the problem we have with our oil crisis is because several of the countries that are plentiful in oil and also are our suppliers are not exactly run by Mr. Rogers.
These countries, also, ironically, also can have incredibly poor/unempowered populations despite rulers who sit on pillows made of virgin unicorns or whatever is outrageous these days at Dictator Decor. But why do the people let this happen?! I pondered this without a great desire to research it.
Luckily, Friedman, the astute foreign news correspondent supplied me with an answer as I was finishing the World is Flat. Now I don't have to get a degree in poli-sci just to get an answer to one question. I hope you find this interesting, if not vaguely troubling, too.
Again: all words are from Friedman, from his 2005 edition of the World is Flat.
"the Curse of Oil"
"Nothing has contributed more to retarding the emergence of a democratic context in places like Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran that the curse of oil.
As long as monarchs and dictators who run these oil states can get rich by drilling their natural resources- as opposed to drilling the natural talents and energy of their people- they can stay in office forever.
They can use oil money to monopolize all the instruments of power- army, policy, and intelligence- and never have to introduce real transparency or power sharing.
All they have to do is capture and hold the oil tap. They never have to tax their people, so the relationship between ruler and ruled is highly distorted.
Without taxation, there is no representation. The rulers don't really have to pay attention to the people or explain how they are spending their money- because they have not raised that money through taxes.
That is why countries focused on tapping their oil wells always have weak or nonexistent institutions. Countries focused on tapping their people have to focus on developing real institutions, property rights, rule of law, independent courts, modern education, foreign trade, foreign investment, freedom of thought, and scientific enquiry to get the most out of their men and women." (460-461)
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