All the glory they're proud of is ... just a rent

Revenues from natural resources exports prop up many an inept or corrupt regime. Often the money is nothing but a rent — foreign companies, imported equipment, and hired outside help pump the oil and gas or dig up the minerals, process them, and market them to the world, while the local rulers pocket their cut of the proceeds, buy off or repress rivals, and ignore or manipulate the citizenry from whom they do not even bother to collect tax revenues (for whose disposition they would never want to be held accountable anyway).