How are income and wealth distributed among citizens and residents of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia? The US State Department says, "Only 15-20% of the total population of 4.041 million are U.A.E. citizens. The rest include significant numbers of other Arabs--Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Yemenis, Omanis--as well as many Iranians, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Afghanis, Filipinos, and west Europeans" (at <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5444.htm>); and "Saudi Arabia's 2004 population was estimated to be about 26.7 million, including about 7 million resident foreigners" (at <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm>). Presumably, non-citizens aren't entitled to the same rights, privileges, and therefore claims to the nation's income and wealth as citizens.
In any case, the Gulf states -- artificial states that should never have been established to begin with and have no right to exist -- are in a category of their own.
> While we are at that, the not so liberal United States ($37,562) is well
> above the ultra liberal Netherlands ($29,371) or Denmark ($31,465) or Sweden
> ($26,750).
Above a certain threshold, rises in per capita income, I hypothesize, bring diminishing returns, and if inequality is as big as in the USA -- the US GINI index in 2004 = 45 (at <https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html>) -- a high per capita income leaves large swathes of poverty and illiberalism*.
* Note that liberalism and democracy are not the same thing. IMHO, liberalism requires a certain level of living standard, whereas democracy doesn't. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>