The fulcrum of popular discontent in Egypt for years has been the fact that a small group of elites, enjoying the support of the US empire, has dominated the direction of country. FULL ARTICLE by David S. D’Amato
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15680/the-egyptian-crisis-and-libertarian-class-conflict-theory/
The Egyptian Crisis and Libertarian Class-Conflict Theory
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Economic change will have to come along with any political change for people to be satisfied. As Egypt’s government institutions and political personalities evolve over coming months and years, will the new faces respect and refine property rights and rule of law enough to bring the economic change people want and need?
I am curious what people think of Hernando de Soto’s take on the importance of property rights here in creating wealth: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=50953
“Too many technocrats have been trained not to expand the rule of law, but to defend it as they find it… as in most developing countries, Egypt’s legal institutions fail the majority of the people.”
People interested in learning about a concrete example of how the Egyptian State worked to destroy the market in favor of ‘business’ can read about how the existing institutions of garbage collection in Cairo were destroyed in favor of western style garbage businesses. Garbage collection broke down.
http://mises.org/daily/4288
The documentary Cairo: Garbage shows a lot of what went on.
Hopefully the Egyptians will get the opportunity to move further in the direction of Peace, Liberty, and Property. It is a hard road ahead.
Now what are the chances that the Arabic speaking masses of Egypt will ever have to be exposed to Rothbard’s libertarian understanding which is almost completely available in English? Google translate has its limitations.
Scratch a Misesian . . .
Please read his entire paper. The reasoning is appealing:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_5.pdf
Or hear the audio version of it:
http://mises.org/media/1237
It is very insightful. Thanks to Hoppe, I actually understood Marxism better.
More libertarian class analysis.
You’re not getting any better at this
Egypt has no industry. For the last 30 years Egypt has existed on tourism and bribes from the US. It will be interesting if the new government fails to continue to follow US foreign policy as dictated by Israel. Will the US continue to economically support its “friend?”
I find it amusing that the media is totally gone mad with “breaking news alerts” and trying to describe what they think is happening in Egypt. I hear that there is a revolution and the people have finally overthrown the evil ruler. So how has a mass of 300,000 people spoke for 80 million? What really has happened? Who really is the ruler in Egypt? Please read the following and see if it makes more sense than some liberal CNN reporter.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110213-egypt-distance-between-enthusiasm-and-reality
Joe,
I agree with your observation and have made a similar point previously on other threads.
As to where Egypt goes from here, we only need to look at our own country. Has the US changed dramatically through its democratic process? Has our government and its institutions changed in the last 20, 50, 100 years? They have gotten bigger and more powerful.
Is Zimbabwe, South Africa, Russia, etc, really that much better off since their revolutions? Sure, some constituencies have benefited but the institutions that existed before still remain (which was the main point of the article) Or as I like to remind myself when it comes to government…
Here comes the new boss…same as the old boss.
PS>The latent minarchist in me is always hopeful, but history reminds the anarchist in me not to expect much.
This whole thing is a farce. One guy steps don and now everyone is happy? It’s insane.
Remember that the reason Algeria has a military dictatorship today is because when Algeria tried to hold elections in the 1990′s the Muslim Brotherhood swept the parliament and would have taken power. The MB has only grown in popularity since then because it has disguised its true plans and pretends to be a peaceful, democratic party.
A recent Pew survey of the Egyptian people’s attitudes toward liberty indicate that they support essentially the same ideas as the MB in that they support a large role for Islam in determining laws. 85% said they favor execution for Muslims who convert to another religion. Without religious liberty (freedom of conscience), every other liberty is in danger.
“In Egypt, Islam’s role in politics was seen favorably by an overwhelming 85%-to-2% margin among Muslims” http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1874/egypt-protests-democracy-islam-influence-politics-islamic-extremism
“In contrast, Muslims in the other Middle Eastern countries polled are nearly evenly divided in their views of Hamas: 49% of Muslims in Egypt…” http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/
“About eight-in-ten Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan (82% each) endorse the stoning of people who commit adultery; 70% of Muslims in Jordan and 56% of Nigerian Muslims share this view. Muslims in Pakistan and Egypt are also the most supportive of whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery; 82% in Pakistan and 77% in Egypt favor making this type of punishment the law in their countries, as do 65% of Muslims in Nigeria and 58% in Jordan.
When asked about the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion, at least three-quarters of Muslims in Jordan (86%), Egypt (84%) and Pakistan (76%) say they would favor making it the law;” http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/
@fundamentalist: As a Christian, I must admit I do have a concern for those in Egypt. I hope that Voice of the Martyrs can keep an up-to-date account of Christian/Muslim relations in the country.
On a side note, Mises did a great analysis in Human Action which may shed some light on the dangers of getting overtly excited about what is going on in Egypt. His analysis of World view and Ideology was probably the most fascinating part of the book aside from the epistemology and economics. Basically, what is the path to happiness (or world view) that the Egyptians want for their country? Is this just backlash against American imperialism, a call for a “true Islamic State” or is this a real demand for a change in the way people there think of happiness (like economic growth and property rights)? This part encompasses what those in the Egyptian movement feel will be their path to happiness. If Fundamentalist is correct, then all that they were fighting for was an Islamic state and to throw off American imperialism embodied in Mubarak.
Then comes the ideology (or how to achieve the ends embodied in the world view). If its to create an Islamic state ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, then all libertarian hopes about “property rights” in Egypt should be thrown away. We should instead be talking about how the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to become the replacement “political class”. If they truly want economic growth and lower government intervention, then we will see some positive signs. Also, we don’t know if these groups were influenced by Marxism which will lead to the exact opposite result we wish for the Egyptian people and may, as another person pointed out, make Egypt worse off not better.
the key to discovering what going on is to look at the rhetoric of the leaders in the protest. Public opinion polls are not important ways to gage what is going on or occurring in the country. I believe it is the rhetoric that the people are being drawn into that is important.
On a last note, what is going on in Egypt is encouraging for the libertarian movement since it really shows that the strategy of non-violent resistance can work, even in a totalitarian state. But aside from that, I am with the skeptics on this one. Also, how many Austrian Economics books are in Arabic anyway? All this advice in the article may be falling on deaf ears. But, who knows, English is a pretty popular language, some one (God willing) may stumble upon something.
I subscribe to Voice of the Martyrs, too. It’s an invaluable resource for what is really happening in the world. As for the economics of the MB, they are highly socialist. Khomeini has had a great deal of influence on Sunni Muslims. He admired the Soviet Union and tried to pattern Iran after it. Iran at that time had a very influential philosopher who was a hard core Marxist and a Muslim who stripped Marxism of its anti-religion and melded it with Islam, much as the Catholic priests did in Latin America with Liberation Theology. Radical Muslim groups like the MB have all decided that socialism is Islamic economics. Islamonomics? And if you read papers like Al Ahram (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/index.htm), you’ll see nothing but socialism taught.
Fat chance anything remotely Libertarian takes shape in Egypt. I’ve seen interviews with people there and in the US in which the interviewed distinctly said they wanted a new democratically elected “ruler”. These are the times we live in.
This really makes me sad. I wonder how long will it take humanity to reject the concept of government altogether.
I have to agree with the pessimists in this thread. Revolutions that begin without a clear set of goals–and most of those that have had them–end badly. This seems to be to be the case in Egypt. From what I gather this is largely a youth driven reaction to the policies of an America friendly dictator. There does not seem to be a coherent set of ends in sight other than oft-repeated feel good buzz words like increased “freedom” and “democracy”. I seem to remember another revolution in 1979 that started out the same way. Provided that the military does indeed allow for free elections to take place–and possibly even if they don’t–I forsee a new system extremely unfriendly towards any liberty other than the liberty to obey or be shot or stoned or decapitated or whatever is culturally appropriate. History seems to show that the most despotic and despicable elements are those most poised to seize and subvert revolutionary situations for their own ends.
Last time I’ve checked, there were about 300 murdered in violent riots on the streets of the cities in Egypt. If anything, it is hard to call this peaceful interaction.
Many of those dead were protesters killed without justification by state security.
Still, “peaceful” isn’t the word I’d use either. If a riot cop hit them, the protesters would hit right back. They burned the ruling party headquarters, beat attacking police and state financed rent-a-thugs within an inch of their lives, and threw molotovs at police cars till they lit up. The protesters have taken the best attitude, let the enemy hit first to show the world the state is the aggressor, then hit back just as hard.
(Of course, having the military on your side helps. Abused and underpaid conscripts make for terrible enforcers. The USSR leaned that the hard way.)
I know I can’t see Americans (who have had their heads filled with pacifist mush) taking such action in the near future.
Actually, abused and underpaid conscripts make great enforcers – if used appropriately (e.g., see the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s discussion of just how the conscripts themselves were used to enforce mass conscription in revolutionary France). And the USSR knew those tricks quite well; the collapse there came from other things, things that affected how force was directed.
@ Michael Richards
Yes, Michael we have books on Austrian Economics and yes they are in English:)
Although I am pessimistic as you are guys, I concur with David’s opinion that Austrian Economics can somehow help Egypt on the long term to get rid of its demons (Oligopoly, class conflict, power elites, paternalistic rule of the state). At least I hope we can do it.
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