In Kuwait, the citizen’s attack on the expatriate has recently become increasingly visible. We now find widespread public praise for any economic decision that restricts the expatriate’s consumption of state resources, and fierce public opposition to any other decision that seeks to improve his standard of living or reduce the restrictions imposed upon him. These popular views are the product of failures in organizational and administrative behavior within state institutions — failures that created hostility and entrenched the principle that “the citizen is more entitled to the country’s blessings,” as though those blessings were a sovereign fund whose billions are distributed among the public, rather than the economic and political performance of an entire state. Administrative and organizational behavior is merely a tool for achieving an economic objective, such as raising gross domestic product. That tool must adapt flexibly to serve the objective, not the other way around.

Your honorable family establishes a family company and appoints you as its chief executive officer. You hire many individuals to carry out management and supervisory duties. Some are members of your family, while others belong to different families, and the only distinction among them is job performance. The competencies of the employees vary. Some members of your family outperform certain cousins or employees from other families, and the reverse is also true. The working mechanism is clear within the scope of organizational and administrative behavior: an employee’s compensation and bonuses are determined solely on the basis of job performance. Accordingly, you find many employees from other families receiving entitlements greater than those of some members of your own family because of differences in competence, and vice versa. Based on these mechanisms, among many others, the company achieves an acceptable profit in its first year.

Every employee has an ambition he seeks to fulfill “at the organizational and administrative level,” such as obtaining the highest possible salary. Some work hard to improve their job performance. Others work hard to replace an existing company policy with another that better suits their own circumstances, such as increasing employee compensation if the employee belongs to the family, under the justification that “a family member is more entitled to the blessings of the family company.” A company’s submission to such policies undoubtedly raises its operating costs and reduces its productive efficiency. Employees “with higher competence” from other families then face a discouraging policy that favors other employees “with lower competence” merely because they are family members. The increase in costs and decline in productive efficiency become a primary reason for reducing the company’s profits in the second year, causing failures “at the economic level.” The decline in profit, which affects all family investors, is the cost of such policies.

Gross domestic product, the most important economic benchmark, should not be made subordinate to issues involving the tools used to improve it. Rather, those tools should adapt to serve it. The question is this: through economic decisions, should we favor “a citizen with lower competence” over “an expatriate with higher competence” at the expense of “all citizens”? Or should we reform those tools alongside decisions aimed at transforming the market from a closed one into an open one — a market that does not discriminate between expatriate and citizen, and through which fierce competition emerges in support of a sustainable economy?

How does expatriate labor, competence, and open competition affect Kuwait?

Its effect appears in how costs, incentives, and resources are managed, and in Kuwait's ability to turn decisions into sustainable value. The direct context is anti-expatriate economic sentiment in Kuwait, arguing that competence and open competition better serve citizens and sustainability.

How do expatriate policies affect economic competitiveness?

These policies affect business costs, skill quality, and efficiency incentives. If handled through fees alone, costs may shift to consumers instead of improving productivity.

Does protecting citizens from competition strengthen the economy?

Protection may create a temporary feeling of fairness, but it weakens productivity if income is separated from competence. A stronger economy lifts citizens through skills and opportunity, not by closing competition.

When do expatriate fees become a burden on citizens?

They become a burden when businesses can pass the cost into prices. Citizens then pay the final cost, while the market may not become more efficient.