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by perl4ever 2400 days ago
"People don't get pissed when income from a shared resource (petroleum for instance) is divided among people living on the land or in the country"

I think that statement is worth considering a bit more. For instance, Alaska and Saudi Arabia fit that description, setting aside whatever "on the land" means.

I don't know if people "get pissed" about it, but it has been noticed that such a situation oftentimes doesn't seem to result in a healthy economy/society.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

1 comments

The resource curse mostly affects poor African countries with terrible governance. The revenue from the valuable resource usually goes straight into the pockets of whoever holds the most power, triggering a fierce competition for who can get away with the most corruption. I don't think any of these countries have tried the Alaskan model of just paying everyone an equal dividend, so that's a huge confounding variable.
Well, you're just asserting the causal relationship goes the other way.

And..just because Alaska isn't that bad doesn't mean it couldn't support the hypothesis. It's not California. Of course, California has a lot of resources too, so one could also say it's not New Jersey, or New York.

I suppose that Alaska does make a case that giving away a "citizens dividend" can be done without attracting the world to move there and making it unmanageable.