[p2p-research] Abundance Destroys Profit [was: Tick, tock, tick, tock… BING]

[Andy Robinson]

"In fact, there is a massive*outflow* of Federal taxes, ...
Nevada's economy is based on three things.  First, Nevada is one of
the richest mining regions in the world for heavy elements.  Second,
the arid volcanic soil is excellent for certain kinds of agriculture,
mostly onions, potatoes, and grass-fed beef.  Third is tourism, both
Las Vegas and alpine (Lake Tahoe/Reno); the latter is where people in
the San Francisco metro go for winter skiing and many summer outdoor
activities."

It's a standard internal periphery then.  Extractive industries,
agriculture, tourism are the there mainstays of peripheral economies.  I
wonder how many 'Third World' countries could be described in these terms -
Niger and CAR as rich in minerals, Honduras and Guatemala as good for
agriculture, Mauritius and the Maldives as funded by tourism - though it's
rare to find all three (most ex-colonies have a single major industry).
Normally the dispute with the centre would be about issues of debt and
transnational relations.  Seems like these are simply reproduced in Nevada
as intra-state issues of federal ownership/control and direct outflows.
Even the land-ownership issue is not unusual - I've heard of big companies
buying up all the land in countries like Guatemala, and controversies over
massive external ownership of the prime farming and mining areas, for
instance the French owning all the mines in CAR, or America owning all the
oil in Iran (pre-revolution).

It does raise the issue, though, of how come Nevada is economically stable
when similar peripheral regions are not, and how come the population are
better-off than the similar population in the likes of Niger and Mauritius.
Is it because the outflow of money is less, because the prices of primary
commodities and services are higher/fairer, because the prices of primary
commodities are subsidised or treated preferentially, because of the
indirect impact of the option of out-migration on wages, because of general
entitlements arising from being an American (such as access to jobs and
welfare), because there has never been a full-scale colonial plunder?  I'm
sure a lot of peripheral countries would love to be doing as well as Nevada,
outflows or not...
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