The idea that strong currency, due to oil exports, kills a manufacturing sector is named the "Dutch Disease" after the Netherlands experience post 1977.
So a country without colonial intervention was still severely harmed. I'd argue similar dynamics apply to resource intensive US states - e.g. West Virginia. The article is largely about how an Iraqi helped Norway avoid the same fate which is really cool.
Certainly over-throwing the Iranian government was terrible. But the key point is that the core economic problem of a resource sector 'crowding out' productive investment is a completely separate issue that occurs frequently in western countries that feature near zero political interference.
I was less trying to make a bumpersticker point and more fishing for interesting perspectives like these to broaden my understanding of complex political/economic issues.
The obvious difference is that Norway fairly compensated the very few assets on the ground owned by foreign parties at the time.
Whereas Iran had massive assets on the ground mostly owned by foreign parties, that were ‘compensated’ at fire sale prices?
Why were foreign assets on-ground in the first place? When is the last time you heard of a Western country having foreign assets extracting value/resources from within their borders?
France state companies suck their Belgian subsidiaries dry. Energy, banks are the two big ones.
They tried the same with KLM, the Dutch airline, with less success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
So a country without colonial intervention was still severely harmed. I'd argue similar dynamics apply to resource intensive US states - e.g. West Virginia. The article is largely about how an Iraqi helped Norway avoid the same fate which is really cool.
Certainly over-throwing the Iranian government was terrible. But the key point is that the core economic problem of a resource sector 'crowding out' productive investment is a completely separate issue that occurs frequently in western countries that feature near zero political interference.