If you look at ressource-rich countries in Africa, you will actually see a somewhat similar structure: Equatorial Guinea, for example, is one of the world’s most expensive places to live and has a large ruling elite syphoning up the spoils of the county’s wealth in oil.

The difference is only the far larger populations of these countries. In that regard, it’s a model comparable to tax havens, in that it doesn’t work once the population grows too large. FWIW, Saudi Arabia also has a large underclass of what are essentially slaves building the country’s tacky infrastructure. But because they are immigrants, Saudi Arabia, as a country, is commonly seen as the perpetrator and not the victim in this scheme.

Edit: thriftwy’s criticism of this theory below is probably right. An index of <revenue from resources>/<population> would be helpful.

Saudi Arabia population is 30M actually (much higher than I guessed before checking, and on par with many African countries). And it is NOT dominated by immigrants, unlike UAE.