The resource curse has always been
a very compelling argument for me. The most persuasive part of the argument is
when speaking about how the government is affected by the presence of
non-essential resources. Proponents of the resource curse argue that because of
resources like oil, diamonds and gold governments become corrupt, are no longer
accountable to their people and cannot provide adequate law enforcement. All of
these systems come out of the fact that the government does not need taxes (because
they get their money from the resource), they are unable to track a vast
resource and have a weakened bureaucracy when revenues come from oil and not
taxes.
In a developing nation, many of
these things are present without a resource like oil. However, when a state has
oil these challenges are augmented. I do not believe that resource curse is
destiny for developing countries with oil and diamond, but I do believe it
makes a destiny like this much more viable. Developing governments need to
focus on building up their people and the standard of living in their state.
They need to focus on providing a strong rule of law, education, health
services and fair and frequent elections. When governments are not accountable
to their people through taxes, these things no longer become a priority.
Ross explained how transparency is
an adequate fix for this type of curse, but transparency is only the beginning.
The government needs to shift its priorities and economy away from exporting the
resource to provide people the freedoms that must come before development. Resources
are not the reason for lack of development, but they are a barrier. They give
the governments an excuse to not develop and provide other sorts of rights to
the people – rights needed to move from a developing nation to a developed
nation.
Although Mitchell’s argument was an
interesting twit by coupling democracy and oil together, for many developing
nations it does not seem valid. For instance, he states “the transformation of
oil into large and unaccountable government incomes is not a cause of the problem
of democracy and oil, but the outcome of particular ways of engineering
political relations out of flows of energy” (5). This quote doesn't seem to adequately
describe the plight of developing countries in seeking democracy and
development. Failing to manage the oil well happens because there is a lack of
democracy. A lack of democracy comes from the refusal of the government to
provide certain freedoms to their people. One reason for this refusal can be because
of the resources that the state has. Although this is circular logic, there is
not a way to break this chain until the governments stop glorifying the
resources, and start working for the people. The resource curse in its simplest
form is governments valuing resources over their own people. Resources are not the problem in the resource curse, replace oil with anything -- but if the government favors that over its people, it could become the "puppy curse" or the "approval from stronger nations curse." Until this mindset
shifts, nothing will change.
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