Today, in American imperialism, the commodity has reached its most grandiose historical manifestation.
Growth without diversification, technological improvement, and increased productivity is easily reversed: all it takes is a dip in commodity prices.
Commodity exchanges have a lot of advantages. One, you are helping transparency. Two, they are not political. It’s institutional building. It can survive any environment, in theory.
Many other countries in the region also have money and oil, but they haven’t done much good with it – at least not enough to stop the Middle East’s disastrous wars. Saudi Arabia at least has something else: stability, a scarce commodity in the region.
