Response Paper 1
McJihad is an idea coined by Benjamin Barber to describe the situation of
the current oil economy. The general basis of this concept is that Barber believes
that in today's world, capitalism can only operate in maximum capacity and in
"critical instances" (Mitchell, pg.203), but taking some aspects of "conservative
Islamic movements".
The "oil curse" is the idea that the countries and/or states that produce oil
are significantly more likely to experience civil wars than the other non-producing
areas. Ross also mentions that there are some oil-producing states who are not
susceptible to the "oil curse", such as Canada and Norway (Ross, pg. 2). Based on
Ross' argument, it appears that the reason why these countries do not experience
these conflicts stems from having democratic ideals and a "diversified
[economy]" (Ross, pg. 2). Furthermore, he says that the countries that are faced
with the "oil curse" also have "violent conflict" because they are oil rich. A U.S.
based task force attempted to lessen the impact of the oil curse by finding new
suppliers for oil, but this only resulted in more countries becoming affected by
these problems. Based on the readings, it seems as though the oil curse has had a
negative impact on essentially every aspect of the countries that are part of it. The
only thing that could potentially be viewed as a positive outcome is the income
received because of having an abundance of these resources. Ross argues that this
