The legendary King Midas was the first Near Eastern ruler to cherish the belief that untold mineral wealth would enable him to realize all his dreams and ambitions. But just because all he touched turned into gold, he soon discovered he could no longer eat. The moral of this legend may be coming home to various regimes in oil-rich countries, which are encountering problems of agricultural decline, overrapid rural-urban migration, inflation, increased income distribution gaps, and so forth. Nowhere have the expected achievements to result from oil income been more touted than in Iran, where the “White Revolution” (later the “Shah-People Revolution”) and the “Great Civilization” proclaimed from the throne since the early 1960s were not only to provide social and economic well-being for all, but also to put Iran among the world's top industrial powers before the end of the century (whether it was seriously going to be among the five top world powers varied from statement to statement, but this was said at one time).

In any program of land reform, the method of determining compensation for the land to the former landlord and the cost to the peasant can be of great social and economic significance. This possibility arises from the fact that the officially determined value of redistributed land—whether it is below, equal to, or above the true market value—could have a considerable direct effect on the distribution of wealth among the various socioeconomic classes. Especially in more traditional societies, where the tax system is not well developed, such a one-time redistribution of wealth may be the most dramatic option open to the policy maker who wishes to mitigate income inequalities. Furthermore, such a change in income distribution, in turn, will influence many other economic variables. For instance, an increase in rural incomes, ceteris paribus, would tend to slow down rural-urban migration; this would then lower urban unemployment and raise urban incomes.

Although contemporary Persian folk poetry does not receive much scientific attention presently, this is not necessarily a sign that it is of little importance among renown arts in Iran. In fact, folk poetry seems to be quite alive and thriving in tents and behind mud walls—still alive, one probably has to caution, in spite of the rapidly changing channels of creativity in Iran. The ephemeral folk songs and poems can, indeed, be found everywhere, in cities as well as in camps and villages. However, it is in the countryside where they often take on special significance as the only truly “popular” art, the only means for many people to be, as we say, artistically expressive.

In Boir Ahmad, a tribal area in the Southwest, for example, a student of folk art finds himself in a void, after his initial rapture over spectacular tribal rugs has calmed. The Boir Ahmadi do not paint, do not draw, do not carve, do not play musical instruments, do not mold pots, do not embellish their tools, and rarely dance.