u/ProblemImpossible712

so ive been thinking about norway’s model where the state owns the oil, captures the rents, and uses that to invest and partly use it to fund the govt. it seems to avoid a lot of the crony capitalism that happens when corporations just get to own finite natural resources nobody created.

like equinor doesn’t “deserve” the oil. theyre just the company good enough to extract it. the oil itself belongs to everyone. and it’s literally sitting in the sea nobody can claim they homesteaded it or built it. so if the state captures that value instead of just handing it to whoever has the capital to extract it first, you can have a genuinely competitive market without all the lobbying for subsidies and special deals.

but i also get the argument that having the state own and manage anything is a slippery slope, or that theyll just be inefficient about it.

so ive been thinking about norway’s model where the state owns the oil, captures the rents, and uses that to fund government. it seems to avoid a lot of the crony capitalism that happens when corporations just get to own finite natural resources nobody created.

like, equinor doesn’t “deserve” the oil. theyre just the company good enough to extract it. the oil itself belongs to everyone. and it’s literally sitting in the sea nobody can claim they homesteaded it or built it. so if the state captures that value instead of just handing it to whoever has the capital to extract it first, you can have a genuinely competitive market without all the lobbying for subsidies and special deals.

but i also get the argument that having the state own and manage anything is a slippery slope, or that theyll just be inefficient about it.