Iran/Resource Based Socialism

The hope internationally is that the crackdown by the government of Iran on their own people will give them another reason, aside from the nuclear issue which lacks Russian and Chinese will, to change the regime by any means.

The first is of course sanctions. The economic weapon once most potent for the reliance on America by the world for any measurable economic success. Yet, as globalization moves forward and sanctions are ignored by nations seeking any buyer at any price for their own survival, the supporters of sanctions will find that while removing one source of funds works short term the long term ability for sanctions to truly isolate and alter a nation's political course is minute.

Yet the oppression (in the form of limiting freedom of speech, assembly, ect.) is inspiring the world to investigate the brutal crimes an entrenching regime employs to not eliminate, but force into hiding the dissenters (imprisonment, torture, rape, execution, ect.) Recent sanctions called for by our US Congress targeted the security apparatus in the Revolutionary Guard; not for connections to the nuclear program, but for their compliance with orders to commit horrendous crimes against their own people's freedom. A UN investigation, urged by the US, will soon take place. Perhaps Israel can be the nation to bring legitimate scorn on its Arab opponents instead of the inventive delusions the War in Gaza brought onto Israel from its neighbors.

One can also see the failure of an attempt to create a Socialist Theocracy in recent years contributing to the uprising against the Iranian regime. The smaller nations of Qatar and Kuwait succeeded due to the luck of vast amounts of oil compared to population. The external influx of wealth allowed their mixture of Socialism and Capitalism to thrive due to the massive amount of prosperity injection. With no limit of resources this system has worked yet it requires an almost eternal resource base (in this case oil) to continue indefinitely in a status quo form. Some with limits on that resource diversified before crashing.

Dubai has made the efforts to diversify but did so in a limited fashion by going directly for two sectors (banking and real estate). Dubai is standing on the edge of a cliff now as the international market loses its value in real estate and banking. Not even their diversity of location (worldwide ports, Las Vegas, ect.) has spared them from the debt crash.

Other attempts to build resource based Socialism are failing elsewhere. Venezuela attempted to use its oil, and still does (rationing power to cities but not to oil fields), to support the Socialist revolution. However the people are finding the same problem Iran has found which is that it will not succeed. The leadership can't accept its failure because then they are no longer legitimate.

In Iran they lost their legitimacy. The promises made to the poor that got Ahmadinejad elected in 2005 resulted in gas rationing in an oil producing nation. His goal of helping the poor resulted in real estate becoming more expensive by factors of two or three in some areas. The enemy chosen by Iran was not capitalism directly but the west; not due to a lack of hatred of capitalism but since a cultural hatred of the west included more than just capitalism. Such a connection allowed greater political points to be scored in the Islamic nation. For those unaware about Ahmadinejad's connection to Socialism: "[o]ne of his goals is "putting the petroleum income on people's tables"." [1]

Oil hasn't been the only resource nation's have based their Socialist promises on. Green technology and industries were promised by Spain to produce jobs and make electricity cheaper while making the carbon output lower. Lets examine the results as known in December 2009:

"For the last ten years, Spain has said all the right things about controlling its carbon emissions in the face of the looming climate crisis. It has even taken concrete action: A new law demands every new house in Spain must have a solar water heater. The country also has made massive investments in solar power plants, wind farms and public transport. However in the last ten years Spain's carbon footprint has increased by more than 30 percent."

Excerpt over. So the country isn't cleaner, how about those jobs and cheaper electricity? Well, in 2008 Spain reached 37% unemployment. Right now 4 million of a workforce of 27 million are unemployed. As for prices I tried to find real value but due to the feed-in tariff policy every industry has an artificial price meant to encourage greener energy. That means it isn't cheaper and they have to subsidize it. Resource based Socialism doesn't work in large scale, just like all the other kinds of Socialism.

Conclusion:
Not only should we support the Iranian people's demand of freedom and help them attain it by all means possible but we need to prevent our own nation's leaders' promised reliance on green technology to try to create a resource based socialist nation.


[1]: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA19Ak03.html
[2]: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121274675