as chai on and jerry begin a discussion of the character of the western state, i thought i would raise the problem of what has been called the rentier state. This kind of state seems incapable of legitimating itself to its subjects. Fred Halliday points to its fundamental features: "the uniqueness of oil resides...in the peculiar form of payment resulting from it, a rent to producer states that does not entail the forward and backward linkages within the local economy that are characteristic of other primary production in the third world. The collection of this 'rent' enables the producer state, and those controlling it, to amass enormous sums of money without engaging in any form of production; it is this which has generated such major social tensions within the producer states. These tensions--growing income inequality, rampant corruption in the state, grandiose development projects, neglect of productive activity and skills, esp. in agriculture--have been seen as much in Lagos and Jakarta as in Tehran and Riyadh. Islam, the Palestine question, Arab unity and oil do not therefore define a sui generis Middle East." halliday also writes: "The middle east is characterized by what is peculiar to oil, the anomalous economic and osical consequences of its production. Less than half of the Middle Eastern states are oil producers, and the majority of those have small populations. The majority of the states with large populations do not have oil This asymmetry of population and oil resources has provoked substantial migration from oil-less t oil-producing states, while at the same time enabling the oil producers to use their wealth for individual political purposes in the region. That ability to focus their power has been compounded however by the the peculiar economies of oil roduction itself, which has a minimal linkage with the society in which it is taking place. In this context the main, indeed sole, significant effect of oil is that he producer state obstains a substantial rent from overseas sales. Inputs of labour, capital or agricultural goods are very small; hence oil production has an enclave character. Taken togehter, these two features of oil production--its asymmetrical distributin, its provision of rent rather than generation of national incomes--means that some of the states most marked by pre colonial continuities have been the very ones endowned with substantial quantities of surplus capital. This they have deployed to promote not only their particular political values but also their social values as well: forms of conservative "islam", whether in its Saudi or Qaddafi-ite form." Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, 1995. p. 40. I have mentioned here before what i consider to be a very important study of the manipulation of this surplus capital, aka petro dollars. David Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets. Cornell University press, 2000. there is also an old volume in a box somewhere which I am trying to find. Oil and Class Struggle, ed. Peter Nore (?). There is an article by Iranian scholar in that volume on the problem of rent. does anyone know cyrus bina; would it be possible for him to be asked to join this list? Rakesh
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