Saudization

Good news from the oil kingdom. Saudization is a program to replace departing westerners with Saudi workers. As the war on terror continues, many westerners leave the kingdom. The Saudi's in the past filled many of their labor needs with foriegn workers, westerners for the high skilled jobs, mideasterners for the unskilled work. Saudis themselves would sit back fat and happy on oil revenues, so it was thought. The shift from an oil-funded idleness, which has proved so ammenable to radical Islam and terrorism, to a bourgious society of skilled workers will inevitably bring liberalism.

Some commontators, notably Dennis Prager, miss this point. They reject the Friedman thesis because the 9-11 terrorists were not unemployed in the way Americans think about unemployment. In America, unemployment means poverty and is closely associated in its long term forms with low educational attainment. But in other parts of the world where industrial or commodity social welfare provide education and comfortable living standards without labor, its possible to be frustrated by a lack of opportunity without living under an overpass. Conservatives recognize the argument that dependence breeds resentment, which is why Americans are so cool towards generous social welfare policies, but by the same token, we should recognize that where the welfare is abundant, dependence will still be a source of frustration. Sitting around with nothing to do funded by oil wealth is not a recipie for the development of a liberal society. Let's flip that around, Prager and others will recognize that an ethic of work produces classical liberalism. Put Saudi's to work producing goods and services for decent incomes and liberalization and modernity will follow. We have seen it all over the globe. A middle class based on professional and commercial activity produces a middle class with the kinds of values that are a rocky soil to the seeds of fanaticism.