The returns of AI will accrue to holders of social capital: in every historical example of an economic windfall, the gains always go to holders of social capital, and only incidentally to landowners, skilled labor, capital holders, or any other group, because they have social capital.
More specifically, in most societies social capital flows from family: the family is the load bearing institution for trust, cooperation, and business. The exceptions are WEIRD countries: countries where people trust strangers and social capital is vested in impersonal officeholders or broad classes of people with abstract rights.
In every example where a windfall went well, it was either:
In fact this was so strong that it went the other way: in every WEIRD country or country with an expansive definition of “family”, a windfall went well.
At first, it's hard to believe that the AI windfall depends on marriage patterns. But "The leader enriching his family" is 90% of failed windfalls. Family is important. Besides, Heinrich made a convincing case that family structure is the primary determiner of national productivity; windfall distribution is an even more plausible case, and maybe even a special case.
I expected exceptions. There aren't any. Every non-WEIRD "success" was WEIRD-administered when the windfall hit or kept on the WEIRD administration: Botswana was British and kept the British civil service still in place after independence; Kuwait Oil Company spun out of Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
In cases that went bad, the violent dysfunction—kleptocracy, coup, civil war—started after independence from a WEIRD country, often immediately after. So they were good while WEIRD, and bad when non-WEIRD. The causality is made even clearer by the historical record: it was often explicitly the loss of stabilizing WEIRD impersonal institutions that caused a breakdown.
More than that, the ones that survived independence had family structure unusual enough that the "extended family" capturing the windfall happened to be the citizenry. Qatar's ~300,000 citizens come from a handful of intermarried tribal groups, all literally intermarried family in recent history. Saudis can name their family branch ("nasab") and branches trace back to legendary ancestors Adnan and Qahtan. So they weren't breaking the rule that the windfall ends up in the hands of the leader and his family: the leader simply saw all his citizens as family.
The implications for AI are obvious. Most of us live in WEIRD countries. No WEIRD country has had an economic windfall that did not lead to some kind of politically mediated settlement to balance spreading the wealth and incentivizing the profitable activity. But "the president enriching his family" is a very non-WEIRD phenomenon and the failure case of countries that had bad windfalls.
Even if you disagree with my conclusion, I hope these examples start discussion. I found 74 failures, 32 successes (26 WEIRD, 6 non-WEIRD), and 10 borderline cases that show the mechanism. In addition, there were 6 small countries that look like exceptions but aren't, usually because the small country is influenced heavily by international forces and doesn't control its windfall.
The pattern is stronger than a correlation: it's a specific mechanism. So I hope you scrutinize these examples not just to see whether the attributes of family and success happened to line up, but whether this was the underlying mechanism. The theory, “If you keep your head under water too long you won’t be able to breathe”, is made stronger by seeing a person with a snorkel.
| Norway | Success | Extremely WEIRD; the Government Pension Fund Global is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund and the gold standard that economists fawn over and other countries try to copy. |
| Netherlands | Success | The 1960s Groningen gas boom raised the guilder and hurt manufacturing exports — gave its name to "Dutch disease". Policy adjusted voluntarily for the benefit of the whole country. |
| UK | Success | North Sea oil; revenues flowed into the general budget rather than being captured by a faction. |
| Australia | Success | Iron ore, coal, ~10% of GDP from mining; well-distributed under WEIRD federal institutions via taxes and state equalisation. |
| Canada | Success | Oil sands, potash, ~8% of GDP nationally; revenues flow through provincial royalties and federal equalisation. |
| Alaska | Success | Alaska Permanent Fund pays an annual per-capita dividend to every resident, funded by oil royalties. |
| Alberta | Success | Oil; the Heritage Savings Trust Fund is less disciplined than Norway's but durable across many governments. |
| Texas | Success | Oil; the Permanent University Fund and Permanent School Fund are among the most successful subnational windfall vehicles in history, funding UT-Austin and Texas A&M. |
| North Dakota | Success | Shale; the Legacy Fund saved a meaningful share of the Bakken windfall by capturing 30% of oil and gas tax revenue. |
| Iceland | Success | Fish, then geothermal and tourism; the post-1980s ITQ (individual transferable quota) system stabilised the fishery. |
| Faroe Islands | Success | Fish (~50% of GDP), distributed via taxes and a cohesive Nordic welfare state. |
| Sweden | Success | Iron ore (state-owned LKAB at Kiruna pays dividends to the treasury) and forestry. |
| Finland | Success | Forest products and Nokia (peaked at ~25% of stock market value); the country absorbed Nokia's collapse without political crisis. |
| Denmark | Success | Small North Sea oil and Novo Nordisk (now ~10% of the stock market); WEIRD success with a modern pharma windfall layered on top. |
| Estonia | Success | Oil shale (~4% of GDP) and a tech sector built deliberately post-Soviet; the cleanest WEIRD post-Soviet windfall case. |
| Ireland | Success | "Corporate-friendly regulatory regime" (tax haven); pharma alone is ~36% of GDP and Apple was once >25% of measured GDP. The top 10 firms pay 56% of corporation tax (2023), so the windfall is institutionally absorbed. |
| Switzerland | Success | "Private banking" (tax haven); the 1934 banking secrecy act anchored the rent for decades. |
| Luxembourg | Success | "Wealth management" (tax haven); financial services and EU fund domiciling dominate the economy. |
| Gibraltar | Success | Shipping, online gaming, and "international trade" (tax haven); gambling alone is roughly a quarter of GDP. |
| Jersey | Success | Crown Dependency low-tax jurisdiction; financial services dominate the economy. |
| Monaco | Success | No personal income tax; the city-state runs on VAT, banking, casinos, and tourism. |
| Liechtenstein | Success | Low-tax financial center specialising in private wealth management. |
| Guernsey | Success | Crown Dependency tax haven; finance and insurance dominate the economy. |
| Isle of Man | Success | Crown Dependency low-tax jurisdiction; financial services and e-gaming. |
| Andorra | Success | Tax-friendly microstate; banking, tourism, and (until recently) no income tax. |
| San Marino | Success | Low-tax microstate; banking and tourism support a small population. |
"But Saudi Arabia isn't WEIRD and does fine." The exceptions actually make the rule stronger. They all have a family structure peculiar enough that the in-group is effectively the whole citizenry. They aren't breaking the rule "the leader's extended family captures the windfall" — they're defining "extended family" as the country. Additionally, the windfall was when the country was WEIRD or WEIRD-administered. See below borderline cases where countries tried to administer it themselves and failed.
| Saudi Arabia | Success | Saudis see themselves as one big family literally: most Saudis can name their family branch ("nasab") and branches all trace back to legendary ancestors Adnan and Qahtan. Those outside the family are rarely eligible for citizenship and oil dividends. |
| Qatar | Success | Even more than Saudi Arabia, the ~300,000 citizens come from a small set of family groups (Al Thani, Al-Attiyah, Al-Kuwari, Al-Misnad, Al-Mannai, and others), most of which migrated to the peninsula from Najd or eastern Arabia in the past few hundred years. Many tribes share Anazzah or other common Arabian tribal roots, so most citizens are connected within a few generations. |
| Kuwait | Success | Oil >40% of GDP; citizenship gated to lineages registered in the 1920s. The native Kuwaiti families are densely interconnected by marriage; non-citizen residents (the majority of the population, including Bidoon stateless people) are excluded from oil dividends. |
| UAE & other Gulf states | Success | Follow a similar pattern — a small set of tribal lineages forms the citizenry, with citizenship and rents tightly gated. Bahrain is the exception (see borderline), where a Sunni minority rules a Shia majority with recurring unrest. |
| Botswana | Success | 80% of Botswanans see themselves as part of the extended Tswana family, after whom the country is named, organised into eight major merafe (Bangwato, Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Batawana, Bakgatla, Balete, Barolong, Batlokwa). Each traces descent from a founding ancestor, and several share common origin myths going back to a single ancestor (Masilo or Malope) — genealogically "cousin" chiefdoms. Mixed record toward the 20% non-Tswanans, who are sometimes forced off their land. |
| Brunei | Success | Seven "puak jati" — Melayu Brunei, Kedayan, Tutong, Dusun, Murut, Bisaya, and Belait. People from these groups get automatic citizenship and access to a generous welfare system (free healthcare, free education, subsidised housing, no income tax). Non-puak-jati families, even ones in Brunei for generations, are often permanent residents rather than citizens. 80–90% of citizens are Melayu Brunei, and historically marriage was permitted only within the puak, so they have a high degree of relatedness. |
| Chilean copper | Borderline | Imperfectly but relatively well distributed (state-owned Codelco is a major fiscal contributor), and Chile is the #1 or #2 WEIRDest country in South America with a resource windfall. All other South American windfalls of more than 5% GDP failed, including mining in Peru, and oil in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana. (See "Note on Argentina" below.) |
| Indonesia | Borderline | Turned out well for a short period when run by economists (the "Berkeley Mafia") but failed when Suharto turned to corruption and patronage networks — textbook non-WEIRD distribution mechanisms. |
| Timor-Leste | Borderline | Historically endogamous marriage groups, but elite business and political families started marrying each other and forged a new marriage group; elite status now sorts more strongly than historical marriage-group. As expected, oil returns flow primarily to this new elite group through classic corruption: inflated procurement prices, family-owned firms, sole-source tenders, and long subcontractor patronage chains. Headed for trouble as the oil fund depletes and no other developed sectors exist — too much patronage on a shrinking windfall. |
| Malaysia | Borderline | Oil/gas/palm ~15% of GDP, with explicit Bumiputera redistribution within the Malay majority family. The 1MDB scandal showed how thin the institutional discipline is — when the in-group is the Malay majority but not Chinese or Indian Malaysians, returns can be captured by a faction within the in-group itself. |
| Paraguay | Borderline | Itaipu hydropower transfers ~5% of GDP — modest but durable; one of Paraguay's most stable revenue sources, distributed within a relatively cohesive Guaraní-Spanish mestizo population. |
| Cayman Islands | Borderline | Caymanian society is structured around a hard distinction between Caymanians and expats. Older residents speak of "Caymanian Protection Law" days when Caymanians were a clear majority; now indigenous Caymanians have become an increasing minority in their own home, and "New Super Caymanians" — affluent expats who have obtained Caymanian status — make up a growing share. They have economic power and wealth and circulate among their own, transitioning Cayman society from possible success to failure. |
| Bhutan | Borderline | Hydropower exports to India are ~14–20% of GDP, 26–45% of revenue, 63% of exports. The Drukpa see themselves as "One Nation, One People" and achieved that cohesion by expelling 100,000 non-Drukpa (mainly Nepalis) in the 1980s–90s; the king required all non-Drukpa to wear traditional Drukpa clothing. The hydropower windfall is managed in a way India broadly approves of — partly because Indian leverage prevents the worst forms of capture. |
| Uruguay | Borderline | Competes with Chile for the #1 WEIRDest country in South America, and is arguably a tax haven. Since both claims are less clear-cut than e.g. Luxembourg, listed as borderline — but stands out among South American countries as both WEIRD and prosperous. |
| British Virgin Islands | Borderline | A rare example of a tax haven failing to benefit its residents much at all. Generates a huge global windfall (roughly half of all the world's offshore companies are BVI-incorporated), but the local population has captured remarkably little institutional capacity, and the political class has repeatedly looted what does come through. Local population lacks the peculiar family patterns of a Botswana or Saudi Arabia. |
| Trinidad and Tobago | Borderline | Oil/gas ~40% of GDP — relatively functional because of foreign administration; they tried to run it themselves, failed, and handed back to foreign control. Intense job patronage after elections along family-group lines, and showing cracks as money dries up. |
Note on Argentina: Argentina may seem WEIRD, and in 1913 was richer than France or Germany and among the world's top 10 wealthiest nations per capita. But it never properly industrialized, and starting in 1910–1930 its government was plagued by corruption, infighting, nepotism, and mafias (the "Argentine paradox"). Mafias are textbook non-WEIRD institutions, and Argentina after 1910–1920 is better considered less WEIRD than Chile or Uruguay.
| Nauru | Failed | A rare failure that was not due to infighting. A population of 12,000 on a 21 km² island without any native institutions, technology, or governance beyond fishing, foraging, and chiefdoms tried to absorb a $5–10B phosphate windfall. When they invested it offshore, they were repeatedly scammed and lost most of it. I argue that losing your money due to bad investments is not a problem with the distribution of the windfall among residents. They simply lost the windfall. |
| Mauritius | Success | Unlike many post-colonial states, the Indo-Mauritian majority knew they did not have the competence to run the Franco-Mauritian sugar farms, and allowed the productive 2% Franco-Mauritian minority to continue running them at high taxes. The wealthiest Indo-Mauritian political elite also did not want to set a precedent of expropriation that could be used against them by poorer Indo-Mauritians. The EU Sugar Protocol was conditional on Mauritius being a credible market economy, as was the financial-services sector that took off in the 1990s. Expropriating Franco-Mauritian assets would have ended the protocol and killed offshore finance. Britain, France, and the EU were watching closely, and the Franco-Mauritian minority had relatives, capital, and political contacts in Paris, London, and Brussels. The same external-credibility constraint has stopped expropriation in many states that might otherwise have failed — it's not a simple windfall, it came with strings attached about fair distribution. |
| Bermuda | Success | A British overseas territory; the Bermudian government takes its cut via payroll tax and customs duties (no income or capital gains tax on residents), and that revenue funds a welfare state that distributes some of the windfall to the islanders. A failed independence vote in 1995 was attributed to fears of scaring away foreign firms — meaning the islanders voted to remain a colony because the alternative would have collapsed the windfall they partially benefit from. This is the cleaner expression of the "external-credibility constraint" than Mauritius: the windfall comes with strings attached, and the in-group cannot easily expropriate without destroying the rents. |
| Macau | Borderline | Political class dominated by pro-Beijing business elites. The actual in-group with decision-making power is maybe a few hundred people, not the citizenry. The citizenry receives transfers as a pacification dividend, not as members of a ruling lineage distributing among itself. The analogy in AI is "UBI": not enough to thrive — Macau's TFR is 0.47 — but enough not to revolt. Gambling revenue peaked at 63% of GDP in 2013. |
| Pacific compact & licensing states | Borderline | Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, FSM, Palau. Compact funds, tuna licensing, and the .tv domain (Tuvalu) generate 30–60% of GDP for several. Tonga remittances are 44% of GDP; Marshall Islands US Compact funds are ~50% of revenue. Generally cohesive small populations; outcomes vary. These windfalls also come with strings — they are quasi-aid arrangements with the US, Australia, or France and aren't true sovereign windfalls. |
| French Polynesia, New Caledonia | Borderline | French nuclear-test compensation and ongoing transfers are 30%+ of GDP. New Caledonia's nickel mining is 5–17% of GDP depending on the year. The Kanak/Caldoche split mapped directly onto the 2024 riots — the cleanest small case where two roughly comparable groups fight over the windfall, with French transfers as the ultimate backstop. |
Failures are all non-WEIRD countries that were either non-WEIRD when the windfall hit or had a sense of "family" that was not coterminus with the country. List includes source of windfall and its % of GDP.
| Nigeria | Failed | Oil ~30% of GDP — ~250 ethnic family groups; Niger Delta minorities crushed. |
| Venezuela | Failed | Oil >30% of GDP — captured by the Chavista faction via PDVSA. |
| Angola | Failed | Oil ~40% of GDP — the dos Santos family extracted billions; the Cabinda enclave produces most of the oil and sees almost none of it, with an active separatist insurgency. |
| Equatorial Guinea | Failed | Oil >70% of GDP — Obiang clan capture. |
| Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) | Failed | Oil ~50% of GDP — Sassou-Nguesso family. |
| Gabon | Failed | Oil ~40% of GDP — Bongo family, two generations. |
| Chad | Failed | Oil ~25% of GDP — Déby clan. |
| South Sudan | Failed | Oil ~60% of GDP — Dinka/Nuer civil war over the spoils. |
| Iraq | Failed | Oil ~40% of GDP — sectarian capture. |
| Iran | Failed | Oil ~25% of GDP. |
| Algeria | Failed | Oil/gas ~30% of GDP — captured by Le Pouvoir. |
| Libya | Failed | Oil ~60% of GDP — Gaddafi clan, then collapse. |
| DRC | Failed | Cobalt, copper, coltan ~20% of GDP — textbook resource curse. |
| Sierra Leone, Liberia | Failed | Diamonds — fueled civil wars. |
| Papua New Guinea | Failed | Gold, gas ~25% of GDP — clan-level fragmentation, Bougainville war (Panguna copper was 44% of PNG export revenue at peak). |
| Mongolia | Failed | Copper, coal ~20% of GDP — moderate dysfunction; Oyu Tolgoi disputes. |
| Mozambique | Failed | Gas, coal — "tuna bond" scandal, elite capture. |
| Azerbaijan | Failed | Oil ~35% of GDP — Aliyev family. |
| Turkmenistan | Failed | Gas ~50% of GDP — Berdimuhamedov family. |
| Kazakhstan | Failed | Oil ~20% of GDP — Nazarbayev family until 2022. |
| Russia | Failed | Oil/gas ~20% of GDP — siloviki capture. |
| Bolivia | Failed | Gas ~10% of GDP — partial redistribution under Morales, contested. |
| Ecuador | Failed | Oil ~15% of GDP — Correa-era boom and bust. |
| Peru | Failed | Mining ~15% of GDP — concentrated; indigenous regions excluded. |
| Guyana | Failed | Oil, suddenly ~40%+ of GDP — too early to tell, but already showing strain. |
| Sudan | Failed | Oil pre-2011 ~20% of GDP — fueled the war that split the country. |
| Yemen | Failed | Oil ~25% of GDP historically — collapsed into civil war. |
| Myanmar | Failed | Gas, jade ~15% of GDP — junta capture. |
| Mauritania | Failed | Iron ore ~19% of GDP, 76% of exports — persistent low income with stratification across Beydane, Haratine, and Halpulaar groups. |
| Niger | Failed | Uranium and oil; uranium 70% of exports historically — coups, French withdrawal in 2023. |
| Mali | Failed | Gold ~5–15% of GDP — jihadist insurgencies; the windfall is now fought over rather than distributed. |
| Burkina Faso | Failed | Gold; same pattern as Mali. |
| Guinea | Failed | Bauxite ~20% of GDP, plus the Simandou iron ore megaproject expected to add 3.4% of GDP/year from 2030 — worst recent record for a major bauxite producer; the Simandou-backed sovereign wealth fund launching in 2026 is a critical case. |
| Cameroon | Failed | Oil and cocoa, <10% of GDP each — long-ruling autocrats. |
| Côte d'Ivoire | Failed | Same pattern as Cameroon; civil war 2002–11. |
| Ghana | Failed | Gold, cocoa, oil ~20% combined — the most institutionally functional sub-Saharan oil case, but still drifting toward the failure pattern. |
| Tanzania | Failed | Gold ~5% of GDP, gas — forced Swahili-ization and resettlement created a weak partial "one big family" identity that has avoided significant violence, but surplus is captured by foreign multinationals (Acacia Mining tax dispute under Magufuli, 2017), smugglers, and Indian/Thai cutting houses. Gas is piped to Dar es Salaam without local benefit, causing riots; Maasai land disputes ongoing. |
| Madagascar | Failed | Vanilla global monopoly, Ambatovy nickel — captured by elite, chronic poverty. |
| Zambia | Failed | Copper, 25–50% of GDP in the 1970s, now 10–12% — boom-bust, debt distress in 2020. |
| Zimbabwe | Failed | Platinum, Marange diamonds, lithium — captured by ZANU-PF elite. |
| CAR | Failed | Diamonds — failed-state extraction. |
| Western Sahara / Morocco | Failed | Phosphates, ~70% of world reserves; ~3–5% of Moroccan GDP — politically contentious in the disputed territory. |
| Tunisia | Failed | Phosphates, potash, 3–5% of GDP each — modest, with phosphate basins as flashpoints of unrest. |
| Jordan | Failed | Same phosphates as Tunisia with the same pattern and results. |
| Solomon Islands | Failed | Logging, gold — resource conflicts. |
| Fiji | Failed | Gold, sugar, tourism — Indo-Fijian/iTaukei split, recurring coups. |
| Vanuatu | Failed | Citizenship-by-investment generated ~40% of govt revenue in 2020 — recent and risky. |
| Pakistan | Failed | Reko Diq Cu/Au, Sui gas, plus remittances and Cold War / post-9/11 aid — captured by the military-civilian elite. |
| Afghanistan | Failed | Lapis, lithium, opium; aid was 40–60% of GDP from 2002–2021 — aid windfall captured; collapse in 2021. |
| Uzbekistan | Failed | Gold, gas, cotton — slowly reforming after Karimov. |
| Armenia | Failed | Zangezur, Teghut copper, ~5–10% of GDP — small windfall, concentrated. |
| Belarus | Failed | Belaruskali potash, Russian oil refining margins, ~5–10% of GDP — Lukashenko regime capture. |
| Ukraine | Failed | Iron ore, agricultural exports, metals 10–15% of GDP — oligarchic capture pre-2014, then war. |
| Kosovo, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Serbia | Failed | Lignite, lead-zinc, copper — modest individually, fragmented governance. |
| Albania | Failed | Chromium, oil — captured under Hoxha and post-communist oligarchs. |
| Lebanon | Failed | Banking ~25% of GDP at peak, remittances ~30% of GDP — sectarian elite capture, financial collapse 2019. |
| Tajikistan | Failed | TALCO aluminum, Kumtor gold via Kyrgyzstan, remittances 47.9% of GDP (highest in the world) — captured by ruling families. |
| Kyrgyzstan | Failed | Kumtor gold, remittances 30%+ of GDP — same pattern as Tajikistan. |
| Cuba | Failed | Soviet sugar subsidies 10–40% of GDP 1960–89, then Venezuelan oil 20% of GDP from 2012, plus medical exports — squandered; Special Period 1991–2001; ongoing collapse. |
| Haiti | Failed | Post-2010 earthquake aid >50% of GDP briefly — squandered, failed state. |
| Jamaica | Failed | Bauxite/alumina, 47% of exports / 10% of GDP in 1965, now <2% — historic mismanagement; the Manley-era bauxite levy triggered industry exit. |
| Colombia | Failed | Oil, coal, coffee, plus cocaine that peaked ~6% of GDP in the late 1980s — civil war funded by drug and oil rents. |
| Brazil | Failed | Pre-salt offshore oil, iron ore, soy ~10% combined — pre-salt has not delivered as hoped; Vale's Brumadinho disaster. |
| Historical: 19th-century Peru | Failed | Guano, then nitrates, 1840–1879 — ~60% of state revenue at peak; squandered on railways, foreign debt, and elite consumption; lost the War of the Pacific and the resource itself. |
| Historical: Belgian Congo Free State | Failed | Rubber and ivory, 1885–1908 — state revenue grew 120-fold; ~10M Congolese dead. CEPR research shows the legacy of labor coercion still depresses DRC development today. |
| Historical: Brazilian Amazon rubber boom | Failed | 1880–1912 — Manaus per capita income reached 2× São Paulo's; spectacular boom-bust when British Malayan plantations destroyed the market. Manaus was left with an opera house in the jungle. |
| Historical: Romania pre-WWII | Failed | Ploiești oil, ~5–10% of GDP — captured by elites and foreign companies, then nationalized by communists. |
| Goa iron ore boom | Failed | 2008–2012, ~20% of state GDP — captured by a small set of politically connected mining families and ended in scandal and a Supreme Court ban. |
| Karnataka's Bellary iron ore | Failed | 21% of national iron ore exports — went to the Reddy brothers, who turned the district into the "Republic of Bellary," ran a "zero-risk system" of bribes and intimidation, became state ministers, and were arrested only after Lokayukta and CBI investigations. |
| Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh coal/iron | Failed | ~10–15% of Jharkhand's state GDP, less in Chhattisgarh — captured by political-industrial nexuses, with adivasi populations displaced, including a long-running Maoist insurgency in the same belt. |
| Mexico | Failed | Oil ~8% of GDP. PEMEX functions as a patronage machine within the PRI and successor networks; the country survived because the windfall is small relative to GDP and there are other jobs, not because it was well-distributed. |
| Suriname | Failed | Bauxite, gold, oil, and now offshore oil; mining and extraction ~30% of GDP, >85% of exports. Multi-group population (Hindustani, Creole, Maroon, Javanese, Indigenous) with chronic boom-bust cycles, military coups, and pre-2020 hyperinflation. The "family" is too fragmented for the windfall to settle. |
| Cyprus | Failed | Some call it a "regulatory-friendly east-west gateway to Europe"; others call it a tax haven and passport mill. Relatively stable, but returns from these regulatory enterprises flow overwhelmingly to the southern, richer half of the island — textbook factionalism. |
| Bahrain | Failed | Oil ~20% of GDP historically, but the Sunni Al Khalifa rule a Shia majority. The "family" running the windfall is much smaller than the country, with recurring unrest as the predictable result. |
| Phillipines | Failed | Remittances, BPO 16% of GDP, massive state capture by Marcos and extended family of intermarried elite. |