Many economists have written about the critical role that private-property rights play in building wealth in developing countries. But few if any have bothered to underscore the importance of private ownership of mineral rights. With oil prices now hovering near $100 per barrel, it’s long past time for economists to recognize that state control of mineral rights breeds corruption, enriches the kleptocratic regimes that rule most petrostates, and prevents enormous quantities of oil and natural gas from ever reaching the market.

When it comes to mineral rights, America is an anomaly. It is the only country on the planet that allows individuals to own mineral rights. And that ownership is one of the key, but overlooked, reasons the U.S. has become so prosperous, and why the American oil industry has led the world for decades when it comes to developing new technologies for exploiting oil and gas. Private ownership of mineral rights has meant that at least 12.5 percent of the revenue coming from most of the country’s onshore producing wells has gone to individuals, not the government. More than 1 million Americans own royalty interests and their aggregate revenue totals billions of dollars annually. Over the past century those royalty owners have worked to protect those interests, and in doing so employed an army of lawyers, geologists, accountants, title clerks, landmen, surveyors, and others. And they have also pumped untold billions in royalty payments into the U.S. economy by starting businesses, buying real estate, educating their children, and in myriad other investments. Those many billions have played a significant (but again, overlooked) role in the rise of the American middle class.

Now compare that with, say, Kuwait, where the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, owns all of the country’s minerals. Kuwait Petroleum Co., the national oil company, manages those minerals for the king, and decides who is allowed to drill and where. That situation provides the perfect Petri dish for corruption. Thus, it’s hardly surprising that over the past few years there have been numerous news stories regarding suspicious contracts KPC has granted to businessmen with connections to the Kuwaiti royal family.

Just for a moment, though, imagine that Kuwait’s huge oil reserves were subject to the regulatory regime in place in Oklahoma. Tens of billions of barrels of oil would be open to exploitation by whoever had the capital and the risk appetite to drill for it. A wildcatter would only need a drilling permit from the government and a lease deal with the mineral owners. Private ownership of its mineral rights could open Kuwait’s giant Rawdatain field to full development.

In places like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other petrostates, private mineral rights ownership would allow tens of billions of barrels of oil to be developed quickly by entrepreneurs freed of government intervention. And as those minerals were exploited, there would be a corresponding need for thousands of lawyers, accountants, geologists, landmen, and other personnel to manage that vast production and the wealth generated by it.

Now, recall that about 80 percent of the world’s known oil reserves are under the control of national oil companies and of the ten biggest reserve holders (Saudi Aramco, National Iranian Oil Co., the Iraqi national oil companies, Kuwait Petroleum, PDVSA, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., Libya National Oil Co., Nigerian National Petroleum Co., Lukoil, and Pemex.) Only one, Lukoil, allows individuals to own equity.

In November, the Independent Institute, an Oakland-based think tank that leans toward the libertarian, put out a book of essays titled Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development. The book’s overriding thesis, according to editor Benjamin Powell, an economics professor at Suffolk University, is that “Economic freedom and private-property rights are essential for promoting the productive entrepreneurship that leads to economic growth.”

That is surely true. But that statement’s seldom-spoken corollary is that when it comes to oil development and oil supply, government control of mineral rights leads to kleptocracy and underdevelopment of resources. Put another way, one of the main reasons we have $100 oil is not a lack of resources, but an overabundance of, call it what it is, socialism.

One of the world’s first billionaires, J. Paul Getty, once said that “…the meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.”  If the meek ever inherit those rights, widespread prosperity, and cheaper oil, will surely follow.