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by gambiting 1225 days ago
>>They should belong to the people.

I mean, that sounds like a nice slogan that doesn't really mean anything. Can you give an example of what that would mean in practice?

3 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

The Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. It has over US$1.19 trillion in assets,[1] and holds 1.4% of all of the world’s listed companies, making it among the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.[2][3] In December 2021, it was worth about $250,000 per Norwegian citizen.

Simply gifting the finite stuff in the ground to a corporation to dig up and sell for nothing is an act of corruption at best and out and out treason at worst.

Also: these some of these https://www.arabianbusiness.com/industries/banking-finance/t...

Ideally the state should be hired managers of the wealth of the people that is, the citizens of a country. Kind of like the board of a public corporation, effectively hired by shareholders.

But here comes the agency problem.

Then, the state is, equally importantly, a self-defence agency, which protect citizens from threats external (army) and internal (police). Hence the state controls the tools of violence.

The agency problem intensifies.

A carefully built system of checks and balances can sort of keep it at bay. Less carefully built systems turned into tyrannical regimes many, many times in recent history, all across the world.

Take all the profits from those resources and finance part of the country with it.