"Oil creates the illusion of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free…. The concept of oil expresses perfectly the eternal human dream of wealth achieved through lucky accident…. In this sense oil is a fairy tale and, like every fairy tale, a bit of a lie."
- Ryszard Kapuściński, Shah of Shahs
Yes, I really like this quote. In France, a really famous (probably just in France) economist uses to speak about "oil's tragedy". From the moment that a country has got oil, its economy, and the rest are going to decline progressively. And just a small part of the society "the elits" will profit of this wealth. The only one exception to this rule is Norway!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about that?
florent,
ReplyDeletei think that norway is very very lucky :)
we'll see how everyone else fares.
how are you? want to contribute to my blog?
besitos!
alena
It is very dangerous to blame a very human falsehood on a substance sitting in the ground.
ReplyDeletenot a bad point, david :P
ReplyDeleteit is all about people, not about things
It is, however, easier to blame it on the oil.
ReplyDeleteany change creates both loss and gain. when one side of the equation become overloaded with greed and personal gain versus community opportunity, equilibrium is lost and the slope is slippery in the downward direction.
ReplyDelete