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Comment by Mediterraneo10 | Hacker News Reader

Obviously there is reluctance to support a ruler implicated in murder. Yet Saudi Arabia's oil-based economy has been recognized as a problem and risk for the country's own innocent people and there have long been hopes of diversification into other industries.

That these investment schemes are linked to the Saudi government should not be too much cause for upset, because the Saudi Arabian populace benefits from a strong welfare state; the money brought in by the government does go to benefit the average Saudi. Thus outright attempts to deny any Saudi government-led investment schemes end up impacting normal people, not just the rulers. There shoukd be carefully tailored actions to punish MBS and his circle, but if the USA wants to avoid alienating the Saudi people and creating lasting resentment, then it ought not to make their quality of life worse.

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> the money brought in by the government does go to benefit the average Saudi

Except the oppressed 33% of the population might not actually benefit:

https://aeon.co/essays/are-the-persian-gulf-city-states-slav...

> Thus attempts to deny Saudi government-led investment schemes ends up impacting normal people, not just the rulers.

This is a weak argument, as it could be extended to mean that any government should be supported as long as any fraction of the support benefits the average population.

The 33% of the population you talk about are foreign gastarbeiter, not Saudis. Certainly they deserve better treatment and an end to the controls compared to slavery. However, even if gastarbeiter were free, they would not necessarily be entitled to the welfare state that Saudis enjoy; it is common even in free countries that foreign workers have limited recourse to benefits.

And again, in solving the problem of exploited laborers in these countries, one must simultaneously avoid any drop in the local population's standard of living, because that will only breed resentment. I can see that my post above has offended some readers, but can't we learn lessons from the past and avoid e.g. another Iran?

While I mostly agree with the rest, this part:

> However, even if gastarbeiter were free, they would not necessarily be entitled to the welfare state that Saudis enjoy

is not the (only) alternative. The alternative is working under better conditions in general, not necessarily in Saudi Arabia. This shines some light on which countries (?) one should cooperate with, in order to make this cooperation benefit average people the most.

Opinion like yours must be heavily censured.

Saudi populace is begging the West to do something about its despotic regime of state terror.

It is this, and West's CYNICAL BETRAYAL of its own stated democratic principles what paints a target on US populace for Saudi radicals.

US is equated with the Saudi regime, and gets reprisals for that.

US government association with Saudi regime is dangerous for America, it's damaging to was majority of Saudi populace, it server no reason at all.

Private individuals choose who they want to do business with, including who they take money from.

Your argument really goes both ways. If the sovereign citizens of Saudi Arabia want their national wealth invested in private industry, maybe they need to first change their country to be the sort of place these investment seekers want to do business with. There's great examples of positive changes toward business and investment from liberalization across the globe, which the Saudi people could take as example for how to become a more attractive investment and funding partner.

Welfare states depend on economies of scale that only states can provide. Switching to a culture of totally private mode of investment would mean an end to the welfare state and the slipping of much of the population into precarity. So, the best thing for both Saudis and the world would be politically liberalizing moves that maintain all that state investment and high standard of living, but with authorities that aren't corrupt murderers.

However, as we have abundantly seen in the Middle East, making life worse for the populace tends to hinder those very moves towards more just government because of the resentment it breeds.

There's no need to make the question binary; plenty of liberal states have strong social systems, and yes changing federal state management structures though would be one change that could make Saudi Arabia more attractive an investment partner.

Going into business with the royal family strengthens its power globally and domestically and decreases the chance that the Saudi population could effect a change, whether they wanted to or not. It also legitimizes the actions of the Saudi royal family. That's a consideration that a private individual is under no greater political obligation to make one way or the other, and a consideration that should be made with deliberation (as should any decision of this kind be made).

We're missing I think a good argument for forcing private founders to be critical of how they run their business but to avoid due diligence on whether funding sources come from the Saudi monarchy. How the government of the US and other countries negotiate relations and sovereign trade with Saudi Arabia is a separate though indeed important topic.

Making the lives of civilian people utterly miserable in order to force them to topple unwanted governments has been a corner stone of US foreign policy for decades. It's why countries like Iran are facing so harsh sanctions; they punish the people severely into desperation. At least that's what the terribly flawed theory predicts. In reality, the rulers can easily circumvent sanctions through smuggling, foreign travel, sophisticated financial setups, etc.

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