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GeneralMayhemyesterday at 8:58 PM2 repliesview on HN

Norway is pretty much the only country with oil wealth that can reasonably be considered well run (unless you count Canada or the US, which, while resource-rich, have a lot of other things going on and aren't dependent on their petroleum resources).

Of the other countries where petroleum is >10% of the national economy, I think Norway might be the only one that isn't a brutal dictatorship, a failed state, or both?


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throwaway2037yesterday at 9:53 PM

    > Of the other countries where petroleum is >10% of the national economy, I think Norway might be the only one that isn't a brutal dictatorship, a failed state, or both?
You raise a great point. I wracked my brain trying to think of counterexamples: It is tough!

I found this graphic from CNBC that summarises data from the World Bank: https://assets.weforum.org/editor/0GAQbN2nVTxgIqOLjWpWSZYh-9...

One thing I want to point out: Kuwait is the most dependent upon oil and gas of any nation in the world (about 50% of its GDP). However, I think it would be a stretch to call them "a brutal dictatorship, a failed state, or both". Sure, it isn't a Western liberal democracy, but people live pretty good lives and the state does not have a strong reputation for suppressing its people. (I'm not here to apologize for their gov't... but I think it would be a bit harsh to put in your categories.) UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Brunei, and Qatar: I would put in the same category: Non-democracy or flawed democracy, but life is pretty good for the locals. I guess that we can call all of the countries that I mentioned before: "benevolent dictator" gov't model. Interestingly, Ecuador is about 20% of GDP, but I would call them a developing/emerging democracy. The rest of the list... sheesh: It does not look good!

What do you think about my analysis? Do you agree?

throwaway27448yesterday at 9:54 PM

?? Russia, the US, half the damn gulf states seem to be doing just fine (maybe excluding Bahrain and Iraq). Very much including Iran, despite our efforts to strangle it to death for fifty years straight.

> I think Norway might be the only one that isn't a brutal dictatorship

Just because you don't like a government doesn't mean it's doing a bad job at, well, holding a state together.

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