Petro-Ambiguity: Environment, Energy, Culture

While researching trends in agriculture and agricultural technology in Brunei, I came across some threads and comments on Reddit that struck me.

There was obvious interest among the youth in farming as evidenced by posters asking “How is the agrotechnology in Brunei?” by, presumably, a student looking to pursue agrotech at university. I also came across an open discussion on youth perspectives on agriculture in Brunei by someone who seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out why farming wasn’t a more “popular career choice.” Farming even came up as one of the first answers to the question, “How can our youth advance our economy? Skill development in Brunei”.

The answers weren’t surprising:

These responses immediately brought up the idea of “rentier mentality” to me.

A little context: rentier mentality is a political economic concept born out of rentier state theory developed in the 1970s and 1980s. It argues that when a state derives most of its income from “rents” (unearned income like oil royalties rather than production), it creates a specific mentality among both rules are citizens:

• Citizens become politically passive and economically dependent.
• The state uses wealth to buy loyalty, not to build participation.
• Work, risk, and productivity lose social prestige.

Rentier mentality, in a sense, is the psychological and cultural counterpart of the rentier economy.

Let’s look back at the comments. Note the emphasis on “too much hard labour” and “practicals” over theory. Hands-on, physical work here takes on a negative connotation as it’s valued less than white-collar, office-based work. According to the rentier mentality concept, this is one of the effects of receiving oil income. It breaks the work-reward causation in people’s minds, leading people to prefer prestige, status, comfort, and low-risk symbolic work over tangible production, risk-taking, and intrinsic meaning.

Also noteworthy is the reliance on the government to promote agriculture as a viable industry to work in. In a rentier economy, the state funds the citizens (rather than the other way round through taxes and such). Over time, that structural dependence hardens into cultural expectation, or the rentier mentality:

• People internalize the idea that the government will provide jobs, benefits, and stability.
• Risk-taking, entrepreneurship, or dissent feel unnecessary (and even dangerous).
• Dependence on the state becomes a rational, normalized way to live.

So the mentality isn’t laziness. It’s learned adaptation to a system that rewards compliance and punishes uncertainty. What this leaves us with is a conditioned reliance on the state to provide rather than a sense of entrepreneurship.

I’ve come across two studies that suggest rentier mentality exists in Brunei. The first is by J.R. Minnis, who published his findings in a fantastic article called ‘Caught between Tradition and Modernity: Technical and Vocational Education in Brunei’ (2000). Granted, this study was done 25 years ago, but many of the deductions that he makes still holds relevance. He starts with the question, “why do so many citizens in oil-rich Brunei trained in technical-vocational education (TVE) reject employment in the industrial and private sectors of the economy?” and continues to explore the rentier economy and Malay-Islamic values (as espoused in the national philosophy, MIB) as contributing factors. He concludes:

The conservative and collectivist nature of the culture in conjunction with economic affluence conspires to create a “rentier mentality” resulting in an indifferent attitude toward education, training and work. Oil wealth has created an extreme confidence in the ability of the state to provide for all. – J. R. Minnis

From personal observations and anecdotes by educators in the vocational stream, the tide seems to be shifting in Brunei. More students seem to be opting for technical and vocational subjects in higher education rather than going down the traditional university route. Due to the increasingly tough job market and high rates of youth unemployment, many hope that gaining technical skills will result in faster employment. Again, through personal observation, that does seem to be the case.

The second, more recent study, was done by Siti Fatimahwati Pehin Dato Musa and Khairul Hidayatullah Basir in 2019, titled ‘Youth Unemployment and The Rentier Economy in Brunei: Lessons from Norway’. This study focused more specifically on Brunei’s high rate of youth unemployment, connecting it also to the rentier mentality that conditioned youths to go for more “prestigious” jobs.

What’s interesting is that they also compared Brunei to another oil economy, Norway, which had a low youth unemployment rate and therefore seemingly bypassing the rentier mentality curse. Their findings pointed to the advantage of early economic diversification, by way of emphasizing a varied education system that didn’t try to funnel students away from technical subjects. Undoubtedly, Norway had learnt from the mistakes of earlier oil economies.

But it seems that Brunei is hitting a turning point, led by a generation faced to deal with their predecessors’ mishaps or mismanagement of resources. While it may seem otherwise from the persistently high rate of unemployment, there are hopeful instances that showcase the rising entrepreneurial and productivist spirit of the youth. No doubt encouraged by the potential and promise of Generative AI, new government policies and initiatives supporting startups, we’re seeing more pivot towards entrepreneurship. These range from SMEs like cafes, food trucks and restaurants, to creative ventures like film production studios, marketing agencies, and labs and think tanks aiming to kick-start a subdued creative and culture economy.

The Reddit questions on agriculture and Bruneian youth, I’d like to add, were only posted a year ago, which can perhaps be seen as the start of a shift from a general rentier mentality to a productivist one. While responses were a little lacklustre, the fact that the questions were posed anyway indicates rising interest and a willingness to explore options beyond the traditional private and public sector jobs. This has been backed by research as recent as 2024 that found encouraging youth attitudes towards climate smart agricultural technology.

Amid all the discourse concerning the current challenging job market, I find solace in these stories. Perhaps I, too, focus too much on Brunei as an oil nation and forget that exciting advancements are being made beyond the fossil fuel industry. That signals hope for a thriving post-oil future.