At the very least, one could see that the gap has not become smaller after the revolution, but in fact has grown multiple times wider.
The general economic gap started widening at an accelerated rate in the 1970's i.e. before the Islamic Revolution.
And as concerns the post-Revolution period, the same can be said about practically every other country on earth: their gap with south Korea has considerably increased over the last forty years. After all it's one of three or four most successful economies since the 1950's we're talking about.
This said, we should note that south Korea's economic development came at a staggering price in the broader picture. South Korean society is not exactly an environment where felicity reigns supreme, far from it. The forth highest suicide rate in the world as well as the worst demographic decline are expressions thereof. This is while contrary to the Iranian public, south Koreans have
not been subjected to a 24/7 propaganda and psy-ops barrage by the world's superpower and its cohort of vassals, specifically taking aim at people's morale. Food for thought.
I mean there are many different ways to compare the two countries, but I don't want to use economy as just one factor for a country's progress. But If we want to rely on that, Iran's GDP per capita in 1979, the same country where you claim people were dirt poor, was one-third more than that of South Korea's.
South Korea, GDP per capita (1979): $1,783.62
Iran, GDP per capita (1979): $2,427.47 USD
I didn't mention poverty but how do these figures imply that a large percentage of Iranians weren't struggling with poverty? GDP is one thing, distribution of wealth is another.
Speaking of the living standards of Iranians, they are significantly higher nowadays than they used to be in the late 1970's. Nominal GDP isn't everything indeed.
https://djavadsalehi.com/2018/03/21...ard-of-iranians-higher-before-the-revolution/
Add to this the drastic improvements in popular access to basic infrastructures such as running water, electricity, gas as well as to health care, education and public transports under the Islamic Republic - all of these progressing at a significantly faster pace than during the Pahlavi era.
Iran has not been selling that much oil after the revolution. Right after the revolution, Iraq-Iran war happened which reduced our oil production from 5 million barrels per day to less than 1.5 million barrels per day. And I don't have to tell you that since 2009, Iran's oil exports have been hit really hardly (except for a short period after the JCPOA) and yet Iran is nowhere near countries like South Korea. So, if oil holds a country back, we have had a lot of time to catch up without relying on oil but is the gap closing now?
Oil does slow down economic development. It's a strategic commodity that has advantages of its own, but accelerating industrial development isn't one of them.
This is not a subjective opinion of mine but a largely consensual finding among economists, with a vast literature dedicated to the topic. The following paper offers a good starting point into an understanding of the corresponding mechanism:
W. M. Corden, Booming Sector and Dutch Disease Economics: Survey and Consolidation, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Nov., 1984), pp. 359-380.
W. M. Corden, Booming Sector and Dutch Disease Economics: Survey and Consolidation, Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Nov., 1984), pp. 359-380
www.jstor.org
The appropriate conclusion is that other things being equal, the gap would have become larger had Iran continued to depend on oil to the same extent.
As a matter of fact, history suggests that war in itself stimulates rapid growth in technology and industry.
Depends on the war and its circumstances, as well as on the industrial sector considered. War can also cause irreversible damage to technology and industry and generate deep setbacks in this regard.
A lot of Iran's advances, and the self-reliance belief in most Iranians today, come from the fact that they have learned the hard way that when a country attacks you, you should rely only on yourself and nobody else.
This is why I observed that the groundwork for Iran's rapid advancement after the Imposed War was laid in the 1980's.
Fair enough. Neither was Turkey. Now compare Turkey's exports and Iran's.
Other than the fact that the Turkish industry has not had to grapple with the adverse effects of a bloated oil sector, it's a consequence of Turkey's trade agreement with the EU, which itself has political and strategic motivations as much as economic ones. And the other side of the coin is that Turkey's economy is far more dependent on short-term debt than Iran's, and more susceptible to international financial crises.