Pejvak Kokabian
If you place several crabs in a bucket and one of them tries to climb out, the rest will pull it back down. None of them escape because they constantly block one another. If there were only one crab, it could easily get out of the bucket and thrive. However, when there are many crabs, something strange happens. Every time a crab tries to climb toward freedom and elevation, the other crabs grab its legs and pull it back down. In the end, no one escapes, and they all die in the same bucket.
“Crab disease” is this attitude: “If I cannot have it, neither can you.”
This attitude describes people who, instead of celebrating the success of a friend, family member, or colleague, try to undermine or belittle them out of jealousy or fear of being left behind.
The concept of envy (destructive jealousy) is usually synonymous with the “evil eye.” Crab mentality is essentially envy in action. It is when someone sees their neighbor renovating their house, buying a better car, their cousin receiving a job promotion, or their friend starting a business, and instead of saying “Masha’Allah” (God has willed it) and being happy for them, they instead cause that person’s failure, gossip about them, criticize them, or discourage them.
The image of crabs in a bucket, where each crab pulls back those trying to move to a higher place, is a useful way to understand self-destructive intra-group behaviors in societies, including the Middle East. This pattern, called “crab mentality,” describes how individuals within a group undermine or sabotage each other’s success, even when that success could benefit everyone. Although crab mentality exists in many cultures, it is particularly conspicuous in Middle Eastern societies. Historical, institutional, and social factors have contributed to the deep entrenchment of this dynamic in the region.
The Middle East and North Africa region faces a striking paradox: the region possesses remarkable human talent, natural resources, and a rich cultural history, yet many of its societies have been grappling with profound economic, political, and social challenges. The Arab Human Development Reports by the United Nations Development Programme, which began in 2002, pointed to major gaps in knowledge, freedom, and women’s empowerment as key obstacles.¹ In one of the reports, it is demonstrated that the lack of women’s development in Islamic countries is directly linked to oil rents and the rentier economy, not to the hijab. While these reports focused on organizational issues, this author suggests that crab mentality—at the individual, organizational, and societal levels—is also a key, yet overlooked, factor in the developmental problems of this region.
This essay presents three major behavioral dimensions and one structural cause of crab behavior in Arab and Iranian societies.
Part One: Often, win-win thinking does not exist, and lose-lose outcomes are prevalent.
Part Two: Competition is usually of the “winner-takes-all” type, which hinders cooperation.
Part Three: People often lack a “stakeholder mentality” and a sense of shared benefit; therefore, they do not see collective success as beneficial for everyone.
Part Four: The form and structure of the state in these societies is unitary and monopolistic.
This research demonstrates how crab mentality intertwines with institutions, culture, and history to create perpetual cycles of decline and collapse.
Part One: The Absence of Win-Win Mentality
A key indicator of crab mentality in Middle Eastern societies is the persistent rejection of agreements that could benefit everyone, and the preference for zero-sum or even negative-sum outcomes. This pattern is found in politics, economics, and social life, creating situations in which personal success is perceived as a threat rather than an opportunity.
Political Deadlock and the Absence of Elite Rotation
Across the Arab world and Iran, political systems are characterized by the perpetual recycling of the same ruling families, parties, and elite networks, despite well-documented failures. In Iran, despite the 1979 revolution’s promise of creating new political possibilities, power has remained concentrated among a narrow circle of clerical elites and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who systematically suppress alternative leadership.² In Arab monarchies and republics alike, ruling families and parties have maintained power for decades, suppressing reformists who might offer innovative governance approaches. This phenomenon extends to opposition movements as well; dissident groups, rather than developing constructive alternative visions, have historically focused on delegitimizing their rivals instead of building inclusive coalitions. (“Democracy in the Arab World” 2024, 45–67)
In some societies where political party freedom exists (such as Egypt or the Kurdistan region of Iraq), they copy each other and their programs to such an extent that the concept of a political party becomes absurd and meaningless.
Economic Imitation, Idea Theft, and the Suppression of Innovation
In economics, Middle Eastern societies often copy business models rather than creating new ones. When a business succeeds, others quickly imitate it, leading to market saturation and reduced profits for everyone.³ Worse than copying is the active blocking of innovation. Entrepreneurs with new ideas often face regulations, social pressure, or even direct sabotage from those currently in power. Family businesses, which are prevalent in the region, typically resist the entry of talent from outside the family who might challenge their control, preferring familiar but mediocre performance over new and better ideas.
Academic and Professional Jealousy
Universities and research centers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are often characterized by rigid hierarchies and professional jealousy. Senior academics frequently hinder the advancement of younger researchers, avoid collaboration, and sometimes claim credit for others’ work under their own names. This leads to brain drain, low research output, and a minimal contribution to global knowledge. Although Iran and the Arab countries constitute approximately 6% of the world’s population, they produce less than 1% of the world’s peer-reviewed academic publications.⁴
Part Two: The Winner-Takes-All Paradigm
The political and economic systems of the Middle East predominantly operate under the logic of “winner-takes-all,” in which power and resources are monopolized rather than shared. This paradigm creates perpetual conflicts between big capital (the political circle) and small capital, obstructs sustainable institutional development, and ensures that competition remains destructive rather than constructive. The majority of these countries (I am informed about Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, and Bahrain) operate worse than the most capitalist and capital-leading countries in the world, due to ruling tribes and dynasties. In capitalist America, antitrust law prevents a single company from monopolizing more than 70 percent of a market, and, under congressional law, it is broken up into several smaller companies. In Europe, 50 percent is the red line.
Political Monopoly
In most countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, political power is regarded as indivisible. Ruling groups—including monarchies, single-party systems, and military establishments—view any form of power-sharing as an existential threat rather than a standard aspect of governance. The Assad regime’s response to the Syrian protests that began in 2011 illustrates this logic: rather than negotiating reforms, the regime chose civil war, which led to the destruction of the country.⁵ Ethnic, national, and sectarian divisions intensify the winner-takes-all dynamic. In Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain, political competition corresponds with other identities, transforming governance from a negotiation among interests into an existential struggle between nations and communities.
Essentially, a federal political structure (except in the United Arab Emirates and, in a half-hearted form, Pakistan) that could have transformed monopoly into healthy competition does not exist. The federal structure in Iraq has been partially successful in the Kurdistan region but has failed in Shiite Iraq due to the existence of 127 corrupt and rogue Shiite parties and Iranian interference, while Sunni Iraq has been stripped of power by the Shiites under the pretext of Ba’athism and collaboration with ISIS.
Power and the Quran
In the new political systems of the Middle East, power and the Quran are treated as equivalent, as though both were indivisible. In fact, political power derives its legitimacy from religious belief (the Book of the Quran), and since religious belief is based on a single book, power, like that Book, is considered indivisible. In other words, the tenure of political leaders, like that of religious leaders, is without expiration and indivisible. However, throughout the entire history of this region, from the Umayyads and Abbasids, and especially the Ayyubids and Mamluks, the periods of flourishing and golden ages are directly linked to federative and decentralized governance. Historically, the Caliph never interfered in economic and executive affairs, and the highest authority in each city was the Chief Judge (Qadi al-Qudat) of that city. The modern unitary/monopolistic state is an imported product and a political blight for the pluralistic societies of this region.
Economic Rent-Seeking
Economic competition in the region is disproportionately focused on capturing rents from the top down rather than on value creation. The dominance of oil revenues in many economies has created what economists call the “resource curse,” in which access to political power determines economic benefit more than productive activity does.⁶ Commercial success relies more on government connections (patronage/intermediaries) than on innovation or efficiency. Even in non-oil economies, rent-seeking remains prevalent, as regulatory capture enables established firms to erect barriers to competitors. This same rent-seeking is also a consequence of the centralized political structure. Before the 1979 fall in Iran, the structure of a thousand families connected to the Pahlavi dynasty and the court held ownership of over 70 percent of the factories. After that, the military structure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps assumed the same monopolistic rent-seeking role.
A federative structure and regional decision-making authority would make competition for the best decision-making possible, and in practice, political units with a competitive order built from the bottom up would be compelled to repair and reform by force from below (pressure from below, compulsion from above). The situation becomes even worse when, in countries in this region that contain several different nations and ethnicities, this political and economic system has completely transformed into a form of internal colonialism, in which one ethnic group rules over others in a colonial manner (the examples of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Pakistan are entirely evident).
Suppression of Creative Destruction
Joseph Schumpeter described “creative destruction” as the process by which new ideas replace old products, companies, and industries, a key driver of economic growth.⁷ In the Middle East, the winner-takes-all mentality often halts this process (for example, when Digikala succeeds, the leader’s son seizes it and does not allow a similar/competing company to enter). Those in power use their connections to block new and transformative ideas, preserving their own profits while obstructing progress for everyone. For instance, in telecommunications, state-owned companies and established operators have often delayed or blocked new mobile, internet, and digital services that could have challenged their control.
Part Three: The Absence of Stakeholder Mentality
One of the key differences between developed and less developed societies is whether people possess a “stakeholder mentality”—the idea that everyone benefits from shared success. In advanced societies, people see themselves as part of a team. When someone succeeds through new ideas, skills, or leadership, everyone benefits through more opportunities, higher tax revenue, better national reputation, and stronger social bonds. Success is celebrated because it benefits everyone.
Society as a Zero-Sum Game
In Middle Eastern societies afflicted with crab mentality, this thinking is inverted. People often view the government as something to take from, not as a shared project. Generally, the government is treated as a fat cow from which one must grab a piece. The government is the Bayt al-Mal (public treasury), and Bayt al-Mal means that extracting from it is permissible. Since citizens typically lack real political power, property rights, and the rule of law, they do not see others’ success as good for everyone. Instead, they may feel suspicion or jealousy (envy), thinking that whoever rises will simply be the next person to exploit the system. This causes people to obstruct new talents. Thinkers, reformers, and intellectuals are often sidelined or forced to leave the country because their efforts to improve conditions are seen as a threat to those in power.
Brain Drain as Disinvestment
The ultimate expression of the absence of stakeholder mentality is the massive brain drain. The clear sign of the lack of stakeholder mentality is the large number of skilled individuals who leave the region. The International Organization for Migration reports that approximately one-third of Arab university graduates emigrate, and this rate is even higher among the most talented.⁸ Iran has witnessed extremely high levels of educated emigration since the 1979 revolution.⁹ These individuals are like “crabs” who have managed to escape the bucket and often, as individuals, perform well in Western countries where the stakeholder mentality is prevalent. Their success demonstrates that the problem is not with the people, but with the social systems that held them back at home. To understand these patterns in the Middle East, it is necessary to draw upon foundational theories from sociology, economics, and political science.
The Crisis of Collective Trust
Francis Fukuyama’s analysis in the book Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity provides a critical perspective on the absence of a stakeholder mentality. Fukuyama distinguishes between “high-trust” and “low-trust” societies.¹⁰ In low-trust societies, which characterize a large portion of the Middle East, trust is largely confined to the family, monarchy, or close tribe. In contrast, high-trust societies exhibit “spontaneous sociability,” or the capacity of strangers to organize for common purposes without state coercion. In the Middle East, crab mentality flourishes in the absence of such sociability. Since individuals do not trust those outside their horizontal kinship network, the emergence of a “stranger” is perceived as a definite threat rather than a potential partner.¹¹ Vertical trust is almost entirely absent.
Vertical Association versus Horizontal Bonding
Ferdinand Tönnies’ idea of “Gemeinschaft” (community) and “Gesellschaft” (society) helps explain the challenges of modernization in the Middle East.¹² Gemeinschaft pertains to horizontal bonding based on shared history, family ties, and sentiments, while Gesellschaft pertains to the vertical association of individuals, contracts, and laws that form the foundation of business, modern society, and the modern state. The Middle East is caught between these two modes of social organization. Crab mentality often arises from the survival of old communal values within modern institutions. When development-oriented systems attempt to introduce measures such as fair hiring or transparent regulations, they challenge the close bonds that previously provided psychological security. Many people resist these changes, perceiving them as the loss of the personal bonds that helped them survive.
Creative Destruction and Rentier Resistance
Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction concerns how the economy is constantly transformed by new innovations that replace old ways with new ones.¹³ In the Middle East, the system is often configured to halt this type of change. In this context, crab mentality means that those in power resist being replaced. Innovation is seen as a threat. For example, if someone creates a new financial technology that bypasses state banks, or if a solar energy company challenges state-owned utilities, these individuals are like crabs trying to escape the bucket. The state often intervenes to block these efforts through regulations, business seizure, or security threats.¹⁴
Extractive Institutions
In ” Why Nations Fail, ” Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson states that institutions must be “inclusive,” meaning that they distribute power and wealth among all social strata (horizontally) and across society (vertically) and support innovation; otherwise, they will be “extractive,” keeping power and wealth in the hands of a limited few and obstructing new ideas.¹⁵ The economies of the Middle East are entirely extractive. Oil money (or the foreign aid to Egypt and Pakistan) allows governments to distribute rents among inner circles without building real economies, and these systems help the ruling elite remain in control and avoid change.¹⁶ Crab mentality is the cultural dimension of these extractive systems. When institutions plunder rather than serve, people learn that success comes through nepotism, connections, and plunder, not through creation or innovation.
As an example, in Baluchistan under Iranian control, administrative positions are in the hands of Shiite Sistanis; in the cities of Urmia, Naqadeh, and Miandoab (which administrative bureaucracy is monopolized by ethnic Turks via Tehran policies) , Kurds have been entirely expelled from administrative positions; and in the Sunni cities of Sirik, Minab, Ahvaz, or Bandar Abbas, the Sunni or Arab majority is entirely absent from the administrative apparatus. Acemoglu and Robinson note that discriminatory and extractive institutions expand: those in power use what they take to stay in power, and having power allows them to continue extracting (the companies controlled by the king in Morocco are entirely of this nature).¹⁷
Asabiyyah and Civilizational Cycles
Ibn Khaldun, the medieval Arab historian, provides analytical tools particularly relevant to understanding crab mentality in the Middle East. In the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun developed a theory about the rise and fall of civilizations centered on the concept of “Asabiyyah,” or group solidarity and social cohesion.¹⁸ The Asabiyyah that Ibn Khaldun describes is particularistic, emphasizing loyalty to the tribe, clan, or kinship group (horizontal bonding) rather than to the broader society (vertical association). This pattern is a norm in contemporary Middle Eastern societies, where strong in-group solidarity coexists with distrust of outsiders. Crab mentality emerges at the boundary between the in-group and the out-group, defined by intense competition for status within reference groups and an unwillingness to see the success of members outside the group.
The Long Divergence
The economist Timur Kuran, in his book The Long Divergence, provides the historical background for understanding the institutional dimensions of the Middle East’s developmental challenges.¹⁹ Kuran identifies specific institutional features that, although effective in their original context, became obstacles as financial conditions evolved. Traditional Islamic partnerships, based on blood ties, were dissolved upon the death of any partner, preventing multigenerational continuity. Islamic inheritance law mandated the division of estates among multiple heirs, thereby fragmenting accumulated capital. These laws, combined with the absence of a corporate form that would recognize organizations as legal entities, limited organizational scale and longevity. Crab mentality can be interpreted as a behavioral adaptation to an institutional form that penalizes trust and rewards vigilance against the advancement of others.
Part Four: The Absence of Federalism
Federalism, derived from the Latin word foedus, meaning covenant, pact, and agreement, in which the parties to a partnership enter into a binding commitment, is absent in the majority of Middle Eastern countries. The reason for this absence is twofold: one is the self-supremacist mentality (chosen and privileged race) of the ruling ethnicity and group, which has generally been empowered by a foreign country (colonial) possessing weapons and the power to print money; and the other is geographical poverty, whereby the ruling group is situated in a resource-rich geography that allows them to encroach upon the resources of others. In Iran, both causes are present.
The absence of rulers and administrators who belong to the very geography of those resources has caused distant rulers in capitals, through bribery and conspiracy (examples: the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Iraq’s SUMO), in collusion with foreign colonizers under secret and plundering contracts, to effectively block the development of these countries in exchange for remaining in political power.
Decentralization in these countries can produce a successful escapee crab and a successful political experience that is not produced in the capital, and this, for the centralized power, means political embarrassment and decision-making humiliation. For example, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has served as a better model (not optimal) in Iraq in terms of security, politics, and economics, and this is not at all agreeable to Baghdad under Iranian control (footnote). Federalism allows a smaller unit to escape the larger, corrupt bucket, and the collective crab mentality cannot tolerate this.
In a study, the city of Sanandaj, the capital of Iranian Kordestan Province, is highlighted as the city with the lowest rate of urban theft in Iran, despite the fact that this province is the most deprived and deliberately underdeveloped political unit in Iran, and logically, the rate of urban theft should be much higher. If economic, political, and security power were in the hands of the people themselves, the corruption and inefficiency of those who rule in capitals would be exposed more quickly, because the local unit would perform better.
This is precisely why meaningless elections and mass democracy are always preferred over federalism in these country-buckets, whereas federalism precedes democracy and freedom precedes the enslavement of the collective.
The countries of the Middle East are replete with elections, yielding 90 percent majority votes and ballot box farces.
Conclusion: Existential Threat and the Imperative of Transformation
The arguments of this essay point to a serious catastrophe: crab mentality, combined with extractive institutions and low trust, constitutes a real threat to the survival of Middle Eastern societies as independent and successful countries and civilizations of today. In the twenty-first century, societies that do not advance in step will not be able to hide from the consequences. Rapid technological changes, global competition, and economic pressures mean that only those who adapt, innovate, and build strong institutions will survive. Societies that cannot work together are not only at risk of falling behind but also of complete collapse.
As developed countries move forward, Middle Eastern societies are at risk of being left behind in a low-value work productivity trap. Brain drain will worsen as more talented individuals leave, leading to a demographic crisis of low intelligence. Institutions will weaken because government jobs become a bread basket for friends, legal systems are used for punishment, and schools issue credentials without real learning.²⁰
However, this analysis is not intended to create despair but rather to encourage action and change. Crab mentality can be seen, understood, and treated as a problem for society. Change begins with recognizing crab disease as something harmful, not as something natural. Institutions must reward teamwork and punish sabotage. Laws must protect those who bring new ideas. Schools must value and reward genuine talent. Politics must allow real competition and peaceful rotation and transitions of power. Culture, too, needs to change and must teach people to see shared success as good for everyone. Finally, it is important to engage the diaspora (emigrants) and, by making it easier for talented individuals to return home, transform brain drain into brain gain.
Ibn Khaldun viewed the rise and fall of civilizations as natural events beyond human control. But today’s social sciences show that institutions and culture, although shaped by history, can be changed by people who work together. Middle Eastern societies now stand at a turning point. The problems discussed in this article—crab mentality, zero-sum thinking, extractive systems, and lack of trust—are not immutable; rather, they are responses to past conditions that can be reformed. Moving forward requires awareness, determination, and teamwork. Without real change, these societies will continue moving toward further backwardness, disintegration, and collapse. In the end, the crabs inside the bucket are not merely stuck—they are left behind by those who learn to work together. The choice is clear: change or risk extinction; there is no time left.
Footnote
The Iranian government, in order to discourage local abilities to governance, deliberately appoints the worst and most corrupt from local administrators in ethnic cities and deliberately turns a blind eye to the corruption of local administrators so as to indirectly instill in the people the notion that administrators who speak their own language are the worst (in parallel, it constantly sows seeds of despair and resentment against those very same employees of its own in Telegram channels), while reputable and clean-handed local individuals are always exiled to other provinces to develop those areas instead.
Notes
1. United Nations Development Programme, Arab Human Development Report 2002: Creating Opportunities for Future Generations (New York: UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2002), 1–17.
2. Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 155–195.
3. Christopher Davidson, The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 106–138.
4. United Nations Development Programme, Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society (New York: UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2003), 67–78.
5. Raymond Hinnebusch, “Syria: From ‘Authoritarian Upgrading’ to Revolution?” International Affairs 88, no. 1 (2012): 95–113.
6. Michael Ross, The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 1–27.
7. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942), 81–86.
8. International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2020 (Geneva: IOM, 2019), 71–82.
9. Mohsen Mohebbi, “Brain Drain from Iran: Magnitude, Causes and Impacts,” Iranian Economic Review 22, no. 2 (2018): 315–342.
10. Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995), 26–28.
11. Fukuyama, Trust, 61–68.
12. Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft), trans. and ed. Charles P. Loomis (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957), 33–102.
13. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 82–85.
14. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 83.
15. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York: Crown Business, 2012), 73–95.
16. Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani, eds. The Rentier State (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 49–62.
17. Acemoglu and Robinson, Why Nations Fail, 74–77.
18. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, abridged and ed. N. J. Dawood (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 91–122.
19. Timur Kuran, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 71–96.
20. George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 193–232.
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