Dubai is no different. Not blessed with the geological lottery of black gold reserves that enriched Saudi Arabia and Kuwait or even pre-oil Abu Dhabi’s fertile Liwa or Al Ain oases, the picturesque natural beauty of Oman and Lebanon, the population and military power of Syria and Egypt, Dubai still managed to storm the global village as the leading Arab hub for tourism, finance, trade and services, the quintessential corporate state of the new millennium.

The long reigns of Shaikh Saeed (1912 — 1958) and Shaikh Rashid (1958 — 1990) spanned almost the entire twentieth century and both Rulers of Dubai were consistent in their policies to attract foreign traders with minimal taxes, communication networks, stability and land gifts. Dubai relied on the security umbrella of the dominant Western superpower, Britain until Harold Wilson’s East of Suez withdrawal in the early 1970’s, the United States in our times. It created a culture of cosmopolitan social tolerance without the ethnic politics, predatory government, zero sum economics and religious bigotry that has doomed so many Islamic societies.

In Dubai the values of management, not politics, matter. Led by the Ruler-CEO, a meritocratic elite of merchants, financiers and technocrats created the desert El Dorado that has stunned the world with its succession of spectacular achievements.

When the world turned overnight bigot and paranoid after 9/11, Shaikh Mohammed positioned Dubai as the new Arabian safe haven for petrodollars, a hedge against the new open-ended political risk of investing in the United States. Pearl diving, gold and silver, spice markets, textiles, electronics, logistics, watches, property, banking and re-exports created the wealth of Dubai’s merchants since the 1960’s. Yet every one of these industries benefited from the welcome successive Al Maktoum rulers offered to foreign traders.

Two, Dubai understood cluster economics generations before the Harvard Business School profs coined the term. The Sindhis, Baluchis, Zanzibaris, Adeni Bohras, Lebanese, Iraqi, Afghan, Ajam Persians, Palestinians, all victims of geopolitical vicissitudes in their homelands, migrated to Dubai because it was their sole passport to a wider world, a new beginning. Now their sons and grandsons live in Emirates Hills.

Three, Dubai understood and exploited the power of its own Arabian hinterland excavations, not far from my boyhood home in Jumeirah unearthed the remains of trading caravans from the early Abbasid era. Ancestors of modern Emiratis fought in the Ummayed Caliphates wars against Byzantium, Sassanid Persia and Sind. Even now, 500,000 Saudis visit Dubai every year, Emaar is the partner for the $26 billion King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea and Kuwaiti banks are lining up for licenses at the DIFC. After all, in 1959, Shaikh Rashid dredged the Creek with a Kuwaiti loan.

Dubai merchants had blood relations everywhere from Muscat to Al-Hasa for centuries. Their family and clan networks preceded the GCC union.

Four, Dubai understood the power of global branding, marketing, sports and finance to promote the emirate. With miniscule crude oil or gas reserves, Dubai made its beaches, banks, gold souks, office towers, IPO’s, property deals, beachfront condos and hotel suites a haven for Arab Gulf petrodollars. It created facsimiles of Silicon Valley with the Internet City, Canary Wharf with the DIFC, replicated Singapore’s shopping centers and free zones, Antwerp’s diamond bazaars, Geneva’s private banks, Miami’s beach condos and Portofino’s yatch marina culture.

Five, Dubai risked untold billions to create the infrastructure necessary for economic takeoff. Jebel Ali was once derided as a white elephant but has now emerged as a container shipping port to rival Rotterdam and Hong Kong. DXB would never have attracted 5 million tourists without the sleekness of Changi or Narita, the scale of Heathrow and JFK, the duty free shopping of Schipol or Shannon. The sail of the Burj Al Arab brands Dubai, just as Gustave Eiffel’s tower once branded Paris the Empire State Building branded New York and the Gateway to India and Marine Drive branded Bombay.

Six, Dubai leveraged its laissez faire milieu to encourage lifestyle arbitrage. There are 100,000 UK expats residents here. Its schools, hotels, beaches, malls attracted a new breed of global citizen unwilling to tolerate cultural restrictions, high taxes or personal security threats. Saudis, Iranians, Pakistanis, Britons, Lebanese, Indians and Russians are all represented in Dubai’s roll call of expat millionaires. The emirate is now literally a global village.

This is the real reason Dubai captures so much of the value and windfall of the emerging global New Age economy and culture. Money talks here, as it does on Wall Street or Bishopsgate. Money, not race tribe or creed, is the currency of success in Arabia’s coolest corporate state.