Work on ruling coalitions of the Gulf over the past two decades has produced two strands of theorizing on the role of business elites: either as a powerful coalition brought into being by state largess and able to impose sharp limits on or even direct state policy-making (Chaudhry, Hanieh) or as wholly dependent clients able to delay some change but incapable of initiating it on their own (Hertog). Drawing on material gathered this summer in discussions with business owners and economic advisers in Saudi Arabia, I draw on the work of Pete Moore to provide a framework the tradeoffs Gulf leaders face in dealing with the private sector - cultivating the kind of independent-minded "captains of industry" who can serve as partner to the state in economic reform risks granting such groups meaningful political leverage in bargaining over state policies. In some countries, such as Kuwait or Bahrain, institutionalized channels of influence grant organized business interests a good deal of political voice; in Saudi Arabia, however, the neglect of the private sector as an organized group has lead to policies that run roughshod over economic common sense even as they seek to avoid red-lines that might provoke a backlash from key stakeholders. My paper will highlight why we fail to see the development of a corporatist political economy - with state-sanctioned, institutionalized forums for bargaining between public officials and the private sector - across much of the Gulf despite the political and economic benefits of such a system emphasized by scholars of East Asian development.