Economic Causes of the Egyptian Revolution
futureofcapitalism.com

With the left already, believe it or not, rushing to blame the unrest in Egypt on the dastardly combination of income inequality — "Egypt's top quintile of earners has increased its share of income since the 1990s, while the country's bottom quintile has seen its portion of the pie get smaller" — and "commodity speculation by hedge funds," it's worth getting into the economic explanations from a free-market perspective. The more one looks into it, the more one finds that Egypt bears the scars of socialism.

This dispatch from Time magazine from 1962 tells the story aptly: "For most of the past decade, Gamal Abdel Nasser's one-man rule of Egypt has rested on a two-word slogan: 'Arab socialism.' Brandishing this vague concept, Nasser has expropriated private property..."

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Economic Causes of the Egyptian Revolution
futureofcapitalism.com

With the left already, believe it or not, rushing to blame the unrest in Egypt on the dastardly combination of income inequality — "Egypt's top quintile of earners has increased its share of income since the 1990s, while the country's bottom quintile has seen its portion of the pie get smaller" — and "commodity speculation by hedge funds," it's worth getting into the economic explanations from a free-market perspective. The more one looks into it, the more one finds that Egypt bears the scars of socialism.

This dispatch from Time magazine from 1962 tells the story aptly: "For most of the past decade, Gamal Abdel Nasser's one-man rule of Egypt has rested on a two-word slogan: 'Arab socialism.' Brandishing this vague concept, Nasser has expropriated private property..."

Read More...