The “resource curse” is typically referred to in cases where a fatal, quasi-lawful connection between resource wealth and economic, political and social undesirable developments happens – something mostly attributed to the resource-rich countries of the Global South. The other side of the coin, however, is usually left out of the discussion – namely, that the postulated connection would not even be conceivable without the hunger for resources of the rich industrial societies of the Global North. It was not until the Ukraine war and the looming energy crisis that it became publicly known in our latitudes that the exorbitant – and especially in the context of “energy transition” – demand for raw materials of the central economies is the smooth-running, never stuttering engine of most global distortions. In other words, one man’s compulsion is another man’s curse. Thus, this lecture argues that anyone who wants to get to grips with the structural problems of a socio-ecological transformation must face up to the relationality of globally unequal modes of production, work and life.