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Comment by alexgartrell | Hacker News Reader

Why? Every industrialized country on the planet now has an interest in making Afghanistan an industrialized country so that they can get a piece of that sweet lithium pie. Granted, there are chances for folks to take advantage and Afghanistan to get some generally raw deals, but it's overwhelmingly better than being poor with an economy built primarily on the drug trade.

Afghanistan went from having no chance to a moderate chance. It's no cause for celebration, but it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world either.

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Why? Because of the Resource Curse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Most of the supposed reasons behind the "curse" assume that there's an already-functioning economy to wreck. Minerals in Afghanistan aren't going to wreck their nonexistent licit agriculture output. Further, Afghanistan is already in a state of chronic intense conflict, which neutralizes another arm of the "curse".

The presence of vast mineral wealth will encourage the continuation of chronic intense conflict. And as long as said conflict continues, foreign investment will be very limited, which means it will be very difficult to begin large scale mining operations.

If you were a mining engineer, would you want to travel to Afghanistan and spend a year or two setting up a new mine there?

Conflict in Afghanistan was going to continue until the West left. Would I want to live in Afghanistan to set up a new mine? Depends on how much you paid me. There are already many tens of thousands of private contractors in war zones.

the arabs do well, africans don't, who knows what will happen to the afghans?

the arabs do well

Do they? The Saudi Arabian ruling classes do very well indeed, but how does the average Saudi do? Hint: google "Saudi Arabia inequality" and "Saudi Arabia oppression". It's the resource curse at work.

How is the lack of resource curse working out in Yemen and Egypt? (nations fortunate enough to be without oil) They are doing even worse. Arab nations with oil do better than arab nations without oil. I'm only arguing against the notion that large mineral resources will always be a catastrophe. Yemen and egypt has about a tenth of Saudi Arabias gdp pr. capita. Saudi arabia, the emirates and kuwait all have welfare states for their citizens who are better off (materially) than egyptians or yemenites. Those (really) poor and oppressed people are guest workers. They were desperately poor before they went to Saudia Arabia, the Saudis merely gave them a marginally better option.

Nobody is claiming that the Resource Curse explains all possible development outcomes.

Those (really) poor and oppressed people are guest workers.

That's the official line, anyway. The whole issue of who is a citizen, and who has merely been there for years is part of it.

They were desperately poor before they went to Saudi Arabia, the Saudis merely gave them a marginally better option.

the Saudis gave them what looked like a marginally better option.

"That's the official line, anyway. The whole issue of who is a citizen, and who has merely been there for years is part of it."

It's not a difficult issue at all, you're a citizen if the law says so. No one promised guest workers citizenship and I doubt they expected it. Only westerners subscribe to the novel idea that anyone they let into their countries are also owed a part of it (citizenship, welfare etc.).

"the Saudis gave them what looked like a marginally better option."

There are five million guest workers, a lack of horror stories would be surprising. I'm not convinced coercion to stay is widespread before I see some statistics, if coercion to stay is not widespread then I trust that most of the five million guest workers know what is best for them.

"It's overwhelmingly better than being poor with an economy built primarily on the drug trade."

Not necessarily. The U.S. economy was built on drugs when it was starting out. Even today most of our famous colleges are named after drug families.

I have never heard this. Citation please?

Ah, yes, Notorious M.I.T.

Which famous colleges do you have in mind here?

The only obvious one I can think of is Duke.

Yale, Brown, Duke, Kennedy School, Georgetown, Stanford, etc. Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are at least another twenty.

They aren't "famous colleges" if you can't think of them off the top of your head.

Depends. By this metric -- applied to me -- there are no famous American-football players, either.

Stanford made his money in railroads, not necessarily in the most seemly way, but hardly a drug. He did own wineries in Northern CA, but I was under the impression that those came much later. Are they what you were referring to?

According to Wikipedia he owned the largest vineyard in the world.

LOL. What?? The Puritans were drug mules? What on earth are you talking about?

Tobacco, the triangle trade, opium, weed, etc. Several of the states actually had laws on the books that made it a criminal offense to not grow marijuana.

I was referring to "Even today most of our famous colleges are named after drug families"

Yes, but hemp was used in industry to make rope, not smoked. Easy to make sensationalist remarks; a little responsible research takes time and trouble.

Regardless of whether or not it was smoked, industrial hemp is still considered a drug today. IIRC you're actually eligible for the death penalty if you grow enough of it.

It would be interesting to see numbers on just how dependent the early American colonies were on tobacco exports. That's the sort of thing that would tend to be de-emphasized in low-level history textbooks.

i'm pretty sure the Afghans aren't crying

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