Abstract
The legendary King Midas was the first Near Eastern ruler to cherish the belief that untold mineral wealth would enable him to realize all his dreams and ambitions. But just because all he touched turned into gold, he soon discovered he could no longer eat. The moral of this legend may be coming home to various regimes in oil-rich countries, which are encountering problems of agricultural decline, overrapid rural-urban migration, inflation, increased income distribution gaps, and so forth. Nowhere have the expected achievements to result from oil income been more touted than in Iran, where the “White Revolution” (later the “Shah-People Revolution”) and the “Great Civilization” proclaimed from the throne since the early 1960s were not only to provide social and economic well-being for all, but also to put Iran among the world's top industrial powers before the end of the century (whether it was seriously going to be among the five top world powers varied from statement to statement, but this was said at one time).
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