Nature's Evil

Intercountry statistics show that a country’s export of oil and gas hinders its democratic development, prevents the growth of human capital, and destroys other sources of national income. Each 1 per cent increase in hydrocarbon revenue is associated with a 0.2 per cent decrease in other revenues. 21 But there are countries that have dealt with their oil more successfully than others. The main conclusion from the literature about the resource curse is that it is not necessarily fatal. Serious and concentrated effort, based on knowledge of the danger, can overcome it. The resource dependency can be seen not as a curse or predestination but, rather, as a free choice, a manifestation of political will. But this will depends on the changing conditions, prices, and much else. The higher the price of oil and the less productive the remaining part of the national economy, the more tempting is the trap of oiligarchy .

Yegor Gaidar, Russia’s deputy prime minister and minister of finances in the early 1990s, explained the very collapse of the Soviet Union by the instability of oil prices and the failure of diversification. 22 Nigeria, Iran, Libya and Venezuela are other historic examples of the oil curse. The figures speak of the flight of capital, the growth of inequality, patriarchy and inefficiency – typical features of petrostates.

Carbon and gender

Oil provides fuel and fuel gives speed – one of the core values of modern patriarchy. Ever since the invention of the assembly line, the car has been an exemplary object of male consumption. More and more workers are involved in their production, more and more cars roll off the assembly line, more and more workers buy them, they make more and more cars – and the cars burn more and more petrol.

Comparing the position of women in different Arab countries, Michael Ross has shown that women have more years of education and are more likely to have a job in countries without oil. The reason is that such countries develop other production industries – often textiles. While textile manufacturing produces less rent than oil, it allows for greater gender and class equality. All these countries are Muslim, but the difference is very significant: in some countries women make up a quarter of the workforce, in others they are less than 5 per cent. 23 According to United Nations statistics, throughout the world the extraction of mineral resources is a sector of the economy which, like the military-industrial complex, is characterised by extreme gender inequality. 24

It would be interesting to apply Ross’s comparative method to Russia vs. Ukraine, Azerbaijan vs. Armenia, or Kazakhstan vs. Kyrgyzstan. In Russia, only 1 per cent of the population is employed in the gas and oil industries, and they are mostly men. One should add the 5 per cent of the population who are employed in the security trade – guarding pipelines, protecting revenue streams and taking care of the oiligarchs and their assets. All these soldiers, watchmen and bodyguards are also men. There is also a large group of lawyers (in Russia, making up approximately 1 per cent of the population – much higher than in Germany), who are employed in resolving conflicts. Just as protection from pirates was one of the key tasks in the tobacco and sugar trade, so the work of security personnel ranks highly in oil-dependent economies. The weak point is not extraction but transportation, and especially its security. For this reason, people from the oil industry rarely become leaders in oil-extracting countries; time after time, their leaders turn out to be generals or former secret service agents – specialists in security. Since they serve the most – or even the only – viable part of the national economy, these men have the most attractive salaries and benefits. Whoever guards something, owns it. Protego ergo obligo – I protect, therefore I obligate – is how Carl Schmitt formulated this fundamental truth of political philosophy, the extractive counterpart of Cogito ergo sum . 25