from Hacker News

Paradox of Plenty

by nimzoLarsen on 4/15/24, 1:46 AM with 12 comments

• by nimzoLarsen on 4/15/24, 1:46 AM

  Paradox of plenty: Countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources.

• by YugyDugan on 4/15/24, 4:58 AM

  Is it not obvious that scarcity provides the harsh and unforgiving conditions for the natural selection of positive traits?

  Taking Europe, for example, our ancestors would not have survived without their adaptation to the climate and its consequences, breeding cooperation, empathy, industry, invention, efficiency, etc. A frivolous, impulsive, unintelligent people seeking immediate gratification would not have survived the winter.

• by southernplaces7 on 4/15/24, 7:26 PM

  Contrary examples: The United States and Canada are both countries with an insane abundance of many natural resources, yet developed quite robustly. Several European states had a similar experience though to a slightly lesser degree of natural resource diversity. Germany, Finland and the UK come to mind at least for specific resources like coal, and oil in the case of Finland.

  The Arab petro states are also economically well off despite their financial dependence on revenues from the world's most globally vital natural resource. (we can forego mentioning their state of political development though). One the other end, there are many countries with few natural resources worth a damn that also happen to be severely underdeveloped, and political basket cases.

• by from-nibly on 4/15/24, 3:39 AM

  I mean is that not because they get exploited by other countries?