Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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his extended family's living depended. Usually, households of an influential craftsman or
trader lived side-by-side in the same locality.
Unlike a firm economy, which "is based on rationalized production and capital
accumulation for further investment and expansion," the traditional bazaar economy is said
to inhibit "capital accumulation and represents a way of life and means of absorbing surplus
labor; it is not conducive to development.. .and can hinder the expansion of the firm
economy." The bazaar economy refers to a large number of small, highly competitive
enterprises which rely on intensive use of labor. Due to its family orientation, the bazaar
economy is risk-minimizing rather than profit-seeking through increasing productivity. 23
Interestingly, we will come to see that the Saudi bureaucracy has grown resembling that of
the bazaar institution, in the sense that its growth was conditioned by the paternalistic
commitment to provide citizens with employment. Unlike the Western development model
in which the polity is either supporting as joint player in a developing, industrialized market
economy, in Saudi Arabia the bureaucracy has become the chief player in the national
economy and urban development.
Due to the country's harsh ecology and especially during its early formative decades
the country was plagued by problems of finance. Poverty was the overriding character of
society. In the opening decades of Saudi rule, Abdul-Aziz's resources were limited to his
realm, which then did not go beyond the borders of the middle region, Najd known for its
utter lack of resources. His amirate's annual revenue may well have amounted to no more
than $250,000. The conquest of the fertile A1 Hasa region in 1913 was estimated to double
Abdul-Aziz's annual income. During the early decades of the war campaign of unification,
King Abdul-Aziz survived on foreign subsidies and Islamic proscribed taxes (called zakat).
The expansion of Abdul-Aziz's realm to include Hijaz was both religious and economic.
Religiously, the inclusion of the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah was consistent
with the religious undertones of the two-century Wahhabi puritan movement.
Economically, the relatively active Hijazi economy looked highly attractive on material
grounds. Once Hijaz fell under Abdul-Aziz's control in 1924, annual revenues rose
considerably to an estimated $20 to $25 million, according to Philby. But revenues from
Hijaz always correlated with the success of the pilgrimage season. During the 1930s, the
Saudi revenues, including the annual income from the pilgrimage, amounted to less than
five million English pounds.