Guyana has weak political institutions and high corruption & tribalism. It’s more likely to become a poor resource-cursed nation than a successful one.
I truly hope this isn’t the case, but if history teaches us a lesson..
Examples are most of Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada. There’s a clear correlation between low corruption and high economic development.
And I would love to hear from any non-westerners here as I suspect it's impossible to get a meaningful evaluation from the west.
Places with big corruption problems have people demanding bribes at every turn.
My country is a fitting example. Most citizens (of all classes) don’t pay taxes, people pay petty bribes to violate laws, government officers request for bribes to carry out mundane activities like getting a driver’s license or passport, and citizens are happy to oblige.
Everyone wants to bypass the law and feel smart, not realizing that it makes the whole system terrible and everyone poorer in the long run (people generally don’t want to make long-term capital investments in corrupt countries, so that’s why most of Africa struggles to get foreign investment).
This kind of petty corruption is hard to explain to a Westerner who hasn’t experienced it. And it’s no surprise that corruption is keeping African nations (and many nations from other continents) behind.
The U.S. and the West at large aren’t perfect, but it fairs much better than most of the world in preventing corruption.
Capital also purchases influence in developing/underdeveloped countries, but in a much worse way. It’s often very cheap because desperate locals are willing to sell out their country for any meager amount.
Here’s a fitting example: Benny Steinmetz (a mining tycoon) paid $8.5 million in bribes to the spouse of Guinea’s former President to obtain exploration permits for a mine [1].
Steinmetz sold 51% of the mine shortly after for $2.5 billion [2]. In other words, he extracted 300x the bribe, and the Guinean official never bothered to think her country was being robbed in broad daylight by the bribe she received.
Many similar cases occur in Africa, wherein foreign companies pay cheap bribes to rob countries of their resources.
The African leaders (and populace) are often willing to part with their resources for cash rather than harnessing it for internal development (this part is difficult, unlike the easy way of collecting cash and spending it foolishly).
Add in endless petty corruption, and the result is the mediocrity of many countries that we see.
1- https://www.reuters.com/business/swiss-court-upholds-corrupt...
GP says that looking at history, oil in a country soil seems correlated with more corruption.
I a way, you could see oil as a curse. I bet some locals does, I would if I’d face the political, societal and environmental drawbacks without much benefits.
It’s unfortunately not that simple for poor countries to benefit from resources