A Beautiful Mind’s Sylvia Nasar Analyzes the Arab Spring, and Why Oil-funded Handouts Don’t Work

Most know Sylvia Nasar from her book, A Beautiful Mind, which narrates the life story of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia for three decades only to recover and win the Nobel Prize in Economics. Nasar follows up with a second book called Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, in which she examines the work and lives of important economists whose ideas helped humanity gain control over its material circumstances. Speaking to Arabic Knowledge@Wharton, Nasar analyzes the Arab Spring, and discusses the harm of oil-funded handouts.

“I was interested in some of the interviews in Tahrir Square,” she says. “The first time around, the protestors were saying, “What we really want is economic opportunity.” I think it’s very comparable to the former Soviet Union. These regimes and how they’ve organized themselves, they can’t deliver. In today’s world, the political repression, economic backwardness, and heavy-handed state interference don’t work.”

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A Beautiful Mind’s John Forbes Nash, Jr., and ‘Father of the Euro’ Robert Mundell weigh in on a common Gulf currency and the Arab Spring

John Forbes Nash, Jr., Nobel Prize winner and subject of the film “A Beautiful Mind,” tells Arabic Knowledge@Wharton that there is no unified approach to supporting democracy efforts in the Middle East, while fellow Nobel Prize winner Robert Mundell says a common currency for the Arab Gulf nations is still a potent idea, and one that will eventually be instituted. “The zone is not just purely economical, it’s also social and defense as well,” he said.

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