MENA Revolts: ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF MENA REVOLTS (1)

ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF MENA REVOLTS

We need to look at the economic indicators as they relate to the MENA revolts and revolutions. As we have said earlier, behind the rallying call of “the people want the fall of the regime”, is the economic undercurrent that has seen exclusion of wider layer of the populace especially the youth and the working class. But this has to be done within the framework of global capitalist economy, as the MENA economies are themselves subset of the complications of global capitalism. On this basis, we can determine the real forces behind these revolutionary movements in MENA; the relation of these forces and how to make the revolutions resolve the economic contradictions that is behind these revolutions. Indeed, the fundamental progress in these revolutions will be determined not only by the organizational strength and structures but on how it undermine and challenge capitalist economic foundations. This is why the analysis of economic system in these countries is vital. However, as a start, we need to expose the fundamental limitations of capitalism to move society forward as this will provide background to why we advocate socialism as the basis of change that these revolutions are clamoring for.

Suffering in the Midst of Superabundance

To start with, capitalism globally has shown that humanity has reached its peak with the system, which despite building the technological and material capacity to take humanity out of misery, want and poverty, still stands as a fetter to further progress of the society. Despite the huge wealth at the disposal of the world today, more than half of the world’s 7 billion people still live in one want or the other. In 2009, just 87, 000 millionaires out of population of over 6.5 billion (0.0013 percent), were created by the iniquitous capitalist system while hundreds of thousands are dying of curable diseases. According to the Guardian of London in 2006, just one percent of the world’s population controls over 40 percent of the world’s wealth while 50 percent poor own only 1 percent of the wealth. It indeed stated that just 10 percent of the world’s adults own 80 percents of the world’s wealth.

While the world has developed technology such as telemedicine, tissue transfer, etc which can, if not eradicate, at least seriously mitigate all the world’s diseases, common diseases like malaria and water borne diseases continue to destroy the future of millions of infants and youth. According to World Bank, more than 1 billion people, mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, have no access to clean water. In a world where information and communication technology has made development of society and dissemination of ideas and knowledge needed to make every youth a whiz kid,  half of the world’s youth are still illiterates and lack basic education tools, talk much less of information technology. Even those who are literate could hardly afford access to the wonders of technology no thanks to poverty; huge exploitation by capitalist multinationals corporations; lack of basic facilities like electricity, access road; etc. In Africa, less than 50 percent of the population’s children have access to education, and of those going to school just one out of three complete primaries and post primary education. In the whole world, less than 30 percent of the population has access to electricity while half of the world’s population lives on $2.5 dollars per day. Yet, in 2009 alone, the world's military budgets are worth more than a trillion dollars.

We go to these extents to show that the world is not in short supply of required wealth, resources and technical advancement, needed to put permanent smile and happiness on the face of every man and women in the world. Contrary to what capitalist apologists will want the world to believe that it is natural for majority of humanity to suffer in the midst of abundance, history has shown that indeed society’s resources if used in the interests of the majority can lift majority out of penury. In fact, at a period when capitalism itself is threatened by its own contradictions in the 1930’s (economic depression, world war and revolutions), it was compelled to adopt a pro-welfare of economic management. For instance, between 1960’s and 1980’s, the wealth gap between the richest 10 percent and poorest 10 percent was around 30 to 1, (though still very high) but today it is more than 500 to 1. Within the same period (1960s – early 80s), due to government investment in social and public services, and direct involvement in the economy, there was virtually job for more than 90 percent of the youthful population in the advanced economies, but today over 20 percent of the youthful and workable population are jobless in Europe, not because humanity does not need the service of another worker, but because the rule of profit which means that big business invest in “profitable ventures" (note that profitable means the one that can bring the quickest profit, not necessarily those that can bring food to the table of the ordinary people). This explains why just $6 billion needed to provide education to millions of young and poor people in the developing world is not available, yet hundreds of billions are lying fallow in the accounts of edge funds waiting to be invested in “profitable” investment such as speculative businesses and pure gambling which in the final analysis only redistribute the already made wealth and not create new ones. In 2009, while the world is still rattled by the economic recession, top US corporations are sitting on $2 trillion cash.

All of these have shown that capitalism globally, despite developing technological and scientific advancement, has served as fetters in translating these to socio-economic advancement of the people, due to its profit-motivated interests, which means that technological innovations which can develop humanity on a massive scale, will be patented and commercialized. It also means that newly developed medical and scientific advancement will not be available for millions of people in need of it, because profit will have to be made from it. Today, 24, 000 children are dying daily due to poverty and curable diseases, but you have pharmaceutical corporations and medical big businesses declaring billions in profit, which are not invested in people’s need but in further exploitative and speculative businesses.

The situations have been more aggravated since the middle 1980s when Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in US unleashed the neo-liberal dragon to recoup rapidly, the wealth lost by the capitalist classes throughout the world, during the Keynesian and welfare state eras when capitalist governments throughout the world had to encroach on the profits of the capitalist big business through state funded public and social services to stave off mass discontent arising from mass radicalization in these 1950s and 1970s.

Historical Rise of Neo-liberal Capitalism

Neo-liberalism means the return of the liberal capitalism of the 18th century when capitalists, then in their infant state were given freedom and power to expand their businesses having broken loose from feudalist/aristocratic states.[1] The post-revolt governments which comprised of the capitalists and their defenders (both in parliamentary and republican forms) only insured the interests of the capitalists against the downtrodden, majority of whom have been transformed to workers of factories and big farms. The scientific and technological breakthroughs like the steam engines and electricity, while consolidating the economic and political powers of the capitalists (who were becoming ever big factories and trusts and moving beyond the boundaries of their countries) was at the same time multiplying the ranks of the working class, who were seriously exploited in order for the multiplication of capital. This also led to organization among workers through unions and cooperatives.

As capitalism expanded its productive capability through combines and monopolies (aided by expansion of technology that deepened exploitation of workers, and threw millions of peasants and artisans to the heap of penury) it also accentuated the inherent contradictions of capitalism. Firstly, capitalists produce for markets for the society populated mostly by majority of the working class and the pauperized section of the population. as workers are exploited and peasants/artisans thrown to poverty, their share of social wealth reduced, which means that the huge products of capitalist factories are not consumed by majority of population. This will lead to reduction in demand, subsequently necessitating fall in prices, and consequently reduction in production capacity of industries. The initial attempt of capitalists to use cheap labour of slaves, while reducing the cost of labour for capitalist, only worsened the problem of demand for capitalists. The decision of the capitalists to expand markets by moving goods to the colonies, and seeking cheap resources and raw materials (by brutally subjugating colonial people), in order to reduce cost of production and subsequently, local demand, could only mean various capitalist governments protecting its markets and colonies. This meant that capitalists in some countries would have access to better markets and resources than other. This scramble for colonies and markets is the background to the First World War, which was unprecedented in its destruction of capacity and humanity. The horrors of the war on the least developed capitalist economies led to the Russian revolution of 1917, and massive revolutionary movements across Europe and other parts of the world (Germany, Italy, Britain – 1926, China, etc.) while other revolutions were derailed and could not lead to ouster of capitalism, Russian revolution led to the ouster of capitalism, and enthronement of a workers’ government. The Russian Revolution, though confronted with major challenges (civil war, isolation, underdevelopment of Russia and subsequently rise of monstrous bureaucratic clique of Stalinism), changed the political landscape of Europe and indeed the world.

While reconstruction and rearrangement of world economy through the War helped some of the countries including US, Europe (minus Germany and Italy) and Japan to expand their economy, it at the same time laid the foundation of bigger crises. Firstly, the economic expansion led to creation of huge wealth for capitalists, who having saturated the markets could not expand productive capacity. This led to massive speculation and financial gambling in these countries. This is compounded by the fact that the third world (or colonial) economies were at subsistent levels. The result is the global economic recession of 1929-1933, with its attendant problems: massive unemployment and worsening living conditions for the majority of the working class. This, while creating problems for capitalism globally, was crippling the German society, which is paying ever-multiplying war reparation to First World War victors. The practical inability of Germany to pay the reparation led, first to growing revolutionary movement, and subsequently, rise of fascism/Nazism and Second World War. The enormous waste that accompanied the Second World War meant that without immediate intervention of the state in rebuilding the economies, capitalism would fail permanently in Europe, and of course across the world. This is also coming at a time when many colonies have begun revolting against continual imperialist subjugation of their lands, as the War not only sapped the economies of the West, but also meant the colonies will also be ruined and their progress stunted[2]. Furthermore, the victory of Soviet Union, and the huge influence this gave it (as against the economic and political crises witnessed in the capitalist West), further emboldened the oppressed people in the colonies to seek for self-rule and independence from imperialism. In the western countries, mass movements are also breaking out (from uprisings and strikes to electoral rise of the left and socialist forces), against capitalism.

Consequently, the Keynesian proposals that sought a minimal state intervention, that were previously rejected, were not only implemented but also expanded. This was mostly carried out by social democratic and workers’ parties, which saved capitalism from total ruin by investing mass anger of workers and the oppressed, to effect surgical operation in capitalism, which guaranteed some benefits for the working class. However, the welfare state means that the government must encroach on the profits of capitalists through increased tax, increasing wages to merge rate of inflation, control of prices, direct involvement in production to provide full jobs and essential services. Although, part of the services provided by the state like mass education, healthcare, road and railways, etc helped the capitalists minimize cost of production; the capitalists ability to increase profit were restrained by the Keynesian state policies leading reduced investments and inflation. On the other hand, it led to rise in industrial unrest and militancy, as workers sought for increase in share of profits to cover cost of inflation. Attempts by governments to resolve this by increasing wages and more investments led to more state deficits and recession of mid-1970s[3].

In order to finally resolve the contradiction (of the state trying to play a balancing role between labour and capital, while placing the means of production in the hands of the capitalists) is either to side with the workers by taking away means of production from the capitalists or side with the capitalists, by handing over the means of production, exchange, wealth distribution and economic powers completely to them. Since the state in a capitalist economy is capitalist state, they sided with the capital meaning breaking all the barriers of maximizing profits both locally and internationally - thus the term NEO-LIBERALISM. This started more slowly in the late 1970s, but it gained political support and confidence with the rise of ultra-free market demagogues like Thatcher and Reagan in the eighties, with increased attacks on trade unions, which were the bulwark of workers against the capitalist class. This period coincided with the decline in Soviet economies, making capitalist class less fearful of the repercussions of return to liberalism. The collapse of the Stalinist Soviet system in the 1990s only provided more weapons for capitalist powers globally to attack workers and pursue more profits. This process, which started in the western advanced capitalist countries of North America, Europe and Japan, was pursued vigorously and forcefully by capitalist governments through front organizations like IMF/World Bank, in the third world in order to open up their economies to multinational corporations. Many third world economies were strangulated with odious debts and underdevelopment by the capitalist west. Even those that leaned on Soviet economy/state or implemented radical nationalist and Keynesian measures to develop their economies could not sustain this as a result of bureaucratic apparatus and the lack of genuine socialist revolutions. The collapse of Soviet state and east European economies meant their subservience to global capitalism, in its neo-liberal phase.

 The end result has been the concentration of wealth in the hands of few corporations and individuals[4] while governments sheepishly follow this process and in fact helped it through imperialist interventions to break barriers to profits in third world (through supports for undemocratic regimes, sponsored coups, economic strangulation, political disintegration, etc. which were the capitalist governments international order to prevent pro-Soviet Union third world states from breaking away from capitalist stranglehold during the Cold War era).[5]

The Global Failure of Neo-Liberalism

Introduction of neo-liberal phase of capitalism was made possible after attacks on and infiltration of working class organizations and parties were successful. It should be further underlined that the collapse of the Stalinist soviet system in the 1990s further gave full impetus for the complete unleashing of neo-liberalism. This was carried with all instruments of imperialism – economic sabotage; political strangulation and subjugation; and military interventions without any challenge. This allowed many multinational corporations from the advanced capitalist countries to have easy ride to the third world economies under various ludicrous policies[6] such as free trade, which undervalues the products from third world countries and make them to be dependent on primary products.

Third world economies were also compelled to undertake liberalization of their vital social and economic sector leading to opening up the third world economies to serious exploitation by the foreign multinationals. National government consequently devalued the currencies and removed protections for small/medium enterprises and state owned corporations, enterprises and social service organizations; all leading to death of local enterprises, collapse and subsequent privatization of state-owned enterprises, decay of public infrastructures and dwindling budget for social services in order to maintain weak local currencies and service mounting debts. On the other hand, introduction of neo-liberalism gave the little rats ruling over the mismanaged economies of the third opportunity to protect their little wealth, and even expand them. Readymade examples include Mobutu of Zaire, Marcos of Philippines, Babangida/Abacha of Nigeria, among several others around the world. But what these brutes stole in their countries pale to insignificance in comparison with several hundred billions of dollars extracted and looted from the economies of these third world countries by western multinational corporations, ably aided by the western imperialist governments, turning blind eyes to the atrocities of these brutal rats. According to Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce of Political Economic Research Institute (PERI), North Africa lost more than $450 billion (in constant 2010 dollars) to capital flight in the last 40 years.[7]

Prior to the introduction of neo-liberal capitalist policies, many of the third world economies were partly controlled by state, even those countries that were pro-capitalist were - a fall out of the Keynesian/welfare state ideology of the post-war period (1960s – 80s). But these state-controlled economies were run like private fiefdom of the ruling elements with nepotism, cronyism, looting, corruption and lack of democratic planning being the order of the day.

The introduction of neo-liberalism, was not to correct (and could not have been the correction to) the shortcomings of the bureaucratically and corruptly managed state controlled economies but to reverse all the positive gains of these economies and hand over the economies to the capitalist sharks to cream off these gains and use the state built infrastructures to get mega-profits. The collapse of the Stalinist Soviet system and the bankruptcy of the once militant trade unions and hitherto left-leaning workers’ parties only provided veritable environments for this to take place. The end result has been huge and unprecedented wealth disparity, attacks on social sectors like education, health, childcare, pension, old age care, etc., retrenchment  and unemployment.

According to UNDP in its 1990 HDR, “The growth of per capita income, one of the critical elements in improving human development, was 2.9% a year on average for all developing regions between 1965 and 1980. This trend broke sharply in the 1980s. Sub-Saharan Africa's per capita income grew by only 1.6% a year between 1965 and 1980, but it has since been declining by 2.4% a year. Latin America, because of persistent debt problems, moved sharply from 3.8% annual growth in per capita income in 1965 to an annual decline of 0.7% in the 1980s.” it stated further: The number of Africans below the poverty line rose by two-thirds in the first half of the 1980s - compared with an increase of about a fifth for the developing world as a whole - and is projected to rise rapidly in the next decade.

The average unemployment has been rising in the MENA countries since the eighties. According to Arab Labour Organization (ALO), average weighted unemployment has risen from 10.6 percent in the eighties to 14.5 per cent in the 1990, and by 2005, it has risen to 15.5 per cent, for a group of Arab countries: Morroco, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan and Syria. Unemployment growth rates in these countries range from 6.6 percent in Jordan to 0.8 per cent in Tunisia, between 1980 and 2002. Indeed, for high income (oil producing MENA countries), the picture, though less gruesome, is the same. Youth unemployment has been very high in these countries despite huge oil wealth: Algeria (46 percent); Saudi Arabia (26 percent); Kuwait (23 percent); Bahrain (21 percent); and, Qatar (17 percent).[8] These unemployment data mask the real terrible unemployment situation in these countries. For many of these countries, short-time (e.g. construction) and irregular employment are categorized as real employment, while several millions  of youths have been pushed to precarious informal jobs that can hardly guarantee them better living, while government’s policy or development of big industries can easily kill their businesses off. In the Middle East and North Africa informal sector of the economy account for 27 per cent of GDP, while non-agricultural informal sector employment range between 40 to 50 percent in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia as at 2003 while that of Syria is around 30 percent. That of Libya is low because, as at this time, despite growing neo-liberal influence in the economies, the states still controlled the major parts of the economies, which guarantee formal jobs. Indeed, since 1970s, the share of manufacturing sector has reduced in Northern Africa from about 13 to 11 per cent from 1990 to 2008.

According to the UNDP in its 2009 Arab Human Rights Report, “…the Arab countries were less industrialized in 2007 than in 1970, almost four decades ago. This includes MICs with a relatively diversified economic base in the 1960s, such as Algeria, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. True, Jordan, Oman, Tunisia, and UAE have made noticeable progress in industrial development. Nonetheless, in general, the contribution of manufacturing to GDP is anemic, even in Arab countries that have witnessed rapid industrial growth and especially when compared to the shares of other developing countries such as the East Asian economies. For the majority of Arab countries, manufactured goods made up less than 11 per cent of total commodity exports in for the year 2006/2007. Moreover, all country groups appear to be converging on the modest regional average, which was below 10 per cent in 2007, from an initially diverse sub-regional industrial base in 1970.” Income poverty rose in Arab countries from 17.6 percent in the 1990s to 18.3 percent in 2000-2005, while human poverty (which is broader in coverage) is around 22 percent. [9]  

Indeed, within 1960s through the late 1970s, Africa's economies grew by over 80 percent by average, with the growth in states' investments in industry, infrastructures and social services playing significant part of the growth. Although, some of the growth were funded by grants and aids (which made the African countries tied to the political and strategic interests of the major players in the Cold War politics, especially US and other western imperialist nations), and loans (mostly from western nations) which later become a rope to tie many countries to the burden of neo-liberal structural adjustments; these were used on industrial and infrastructural development , even if some of the funds were creamed off by the corrupt officials and multinational corporations  (through over bloating of contracts sums and capital flight), aside lack of democratic planning and control of state policies leading to waste, mismanagement and lack of priority.  But they are still an improvement over the current arrangement where the state insures private businesses, including multinational corporations rather than the citizens at public costs. Interestingly, the facilities provided with the borrowed funds and grants in the 'Golden' era of capitalism, are now been used by the capitalist class (both local and foreign) to gain huge profit in this neo-liberal era. Indeed, the so-called gains of governments' disengagement from economic control, is ephemeral as the state resources/wealth that would have been used to secure jobs are now used as overhead cost to ensure the survival of big capitalist corporations, who rely on state economic, political and military interventions to survive. So much for the ideology of lean government!  

All this shows the degeneration, and the background economic crisis that has faced not just the MENA countries, but indeed, the whole world economy (most especially the third world), since the adoption of neo-liberal ideology in the 1980s.

The working and oppressed people have always rose to resist these policies, but the bankruptcy of the leaderships of the pro-capitalist workers’ movements and former left-leaning social democratic and ‘communist’ parties have led to defeats for the working people, the poor and the youth. These resistances have not alone taken the forms of strikes and protests, but also open rebellions, like factory occupations and uprisings as seen in Argentina in 2004 (when five presidents succeeded each other within two weeks of massive protests across the country). Even, in the advanced capitalist countries, the working class has taken to open revolts (as in Miners' Strike in Britain in 1984, Seattle movement in US in 1999) or used electoral means to defeat anti-poor governments. Although, as a result of the absence of genuine alternative political platforms of the working and oppressed people, another neo-liberal, if not worse governments have only replaced the rejected ones (a reflection of the two- or three-party ‘democracy practiced in the capitalist world today), as seen in Britain, France, Ireland and the US.

In Africa, and specifically in Nigeria, between 1999 and 2007, the labour movement led seven general strikes that paralyzed the ruling class, showing the huge quest for alternative by the working people, but such diverted to safer channel on behalf of capitalism by labour leadership. In January 2012, the mass of workers, youth and the oppressed organized one of the most radical movements in the history of the country, in resistance to attempt at increasing pump prices of petroleum products by the Jonathan IMF/World Bank-controlled regime. The government was suspended in midair within the one week of revolutionary movement. If not for the treacherous compromise of the labour movement leadership, this movement, which gained inspiration from MENA revolts, could have led to the ouster of the regime. In fact, had there been a genuine working class revolutionary programme, capitalism would have been ousted.

In South Africa, the revolutionary movement of the black majority, led by the Africa National Congress (ANC) was diverted to only equal political and social rights (for blacks and whites) that saw the emergence a black majority government (since 1994), but left the economy under the stranglehold of imperialist capitalism, albeit with a layer of black capitalists incorporated into the apartheid capitalist economy. The minimal public ownership programme of the Nelson Mandela-led ANC was abandoned as soon as they formed government, with neo-liberal capitalist Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy replacing the Freedom Charter. Today, more than a quarter of the population is very poor with several millions of unemployed population, while the country’s image is blighted with pervasive slums and squatter lodges. The image of apartheid was brought back in 2012 when 34 miners were gunned down by the state police during a miners’ strike in Marikana, Rustenburg region; an action reminiscent of the Soweto massacre of 1976.

These examples shows that the working masses and the youths have not been passive in resisting anti-poor policies, but they have been held back or led to defeat by their pro-capitalist leaderships. Furthermore, the various capitalist ruling classes, especially in the third world countries, in a bid to continue to rule over the rottenness of capitalism and protect their privileges, have adopted divide-and-rule strategies to further weaken vibrant structures of resistance. This has led to germination of racism, ethno-religious strives, religious fundamentalism, and recently, war against terrorism, etc, which aside destroying the fabrics of a civil society, are now being used to further attacks the democratic rights of workers and the poor, and prevent them from challenging the status quo through the strengthening of repressive state apparatuses and capitalist laws e.g. various anti-terrorism laws that are mostly used to gag people and prevent them from challenging corrupt regimes. This has further given these third world regimes, both autocratic and pseudo-democratic, opportunity to divert huge resources for pecuniary interests/hand over the economy to the imperialist capitalist sharks. All this have been the features of the Middle Eastern and North African countries where general revolts are now taking shape. These political economic analyses are fully unraveled in these revolutions, and they explain the shortcomings and the fundamental limits of these revolutions.

Footprint of Global Capitalist Crisis

The footprint of global capitalist crisis are clear on the MENA revolts and revolutions as witnessed in the deeper integration of the region into capitalist orbit, and its dependence on global capitalism. While so-called economic growth are announced for the region, the reality is that from country to country, this economic growth, aside being concentrated in few hands, have actually furthered exploitation of the working people. While wages and income have increased, on the basis of global integration of capitalism, and neo-colonial nature of MENA economies, these increased incomes could actually buy fewer goods, while as a result of neo-liberal policies of privatization, commercialization and liberalization, working people have been forced to spend more of their income on paying for what are previously subsidized by the state. Added to this is the stagnation in society occasioned by the failure of capitalism to provide opportunity for new entrants into the middle class, thus condemning them into not just working class, but in many instance to the relics of the society. As a results of neo-liberal policies, public enterprises and utilities were privatized from one country to the other. In Egypt, this meant over 209 public companies (out of 314) by 2005 privatized wholly or partially, while workforce has been halved. Also neo-liberal privatization in Libya led to the retrenchment of over 200, 000 workers. Consequently, as global capital searches for more profits, the economy, through austerity for the majority but more wealth for the few, shrinks. This meant there are no new expansions for capitalist economies. Where new expansions are witnessed, like in the telecommunication sector, they are immediately offset by closure and contraction of many other sectors of the economy. Moreover, because of the predatory nature of neo-liberal economy, the so-called expansion actually translate to contraction, as lesser people with low wages are employed in relation to the revenue and profits being made. The summary is that there are no new expansions, which will accommodate new entrants into the economy especially educated youth. For instance, in North Africa, demand for employment has been increasing by 4% per year while number of new graduates increased by between 6 to 8% per year, between 1970 and 2010. Furthermore, those who are in the categories of middle class are finding it more difficult to maintain their hitherto status.

One of the drivers of the revolts and revolutions is the rise in cost of living occasioned especially by rise in cost of food. This in itself is traceable to global capitalist system. Main drivers for rise in cost of food have been climate change, increasing use of biofuel and rising crude oil prices[10]. Based on capitalist exploitation of the environment including increasing dependence on fossil fuel (which many MENA countries rely on for their income), without care for its sustenance, there has been rise in adverse weather conditions, which have affected many food-producing countries, especially in the South East Asia. This has also affected many MENA countries, which food production are hitherto on marginal levels (e.g. Egypt and Libya produce less than 30 percent of their food need). According to 2007/2008 Human Development Report Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, and the countries of North Africa are areas that could have been most affected by climate change[11]. Added to this is the growing use of foodstuffs for biofuel, which has affected the supply of foodstuff, and the cost. Moreover, rise in crude oil prices, aside leading to further encroachment on available food, has also necessitated rise in cost of living in food-producing countries, which has affected prices of foodstuffs sold in the international market. With the neo-liberal policies, introduced in these MENA countries, which has seen incomes effectively reduced (as privatization, commercialization and retrenchment eat deep into income), the rise in cost of food could only worsen the case for majority of the populace. The subsidies provided by some of these regimes have also been cut; and where they have been maintained, they have not matched the increase in global food prices.

Another international economic factor in the MENA revolts and revolutions is the impact of global economic maelstrom that started in 2008. This has led to drastic cut in foreign remittances in some MENA countries. Global economic crisis, leading to contraction in the economy also affected the MENA countries. For instance, for the whole of North Africa (comprising Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Algeria), export growth contracted from 37.2 percent in 2008 to -35.2 percent in 2009. It reduced from 62 percent to -12.1 percent in Egypt, 27.4 percent to -25.2 percent in Tunisia, 41.8 percent to  -40.0 percent in Libya, 32.6 percent to -30.9 percent in Morocco, 31.8 percent to -43.0 percent in Algeria and 31.4 percent to  -32.9 percent in Sudan. While the export growth rate picked up in 2010, (23.0 percent) for the region) the increases are mere marginal increase over 2009, and could not cover up for massive impact it has had on the working population. In other parts of MENA, the story is the same. For instance, in Syrian, the export growth rate reduced from 33.5 percent in 2008 to -29.6 in 2009; Yemen, from 20.4 percent to -17.5 percent, Bahrain, from 27.0 percent to -31.4 percent and Oman, from 56.3 percent to -25.6 percent. [12] It is worth noting that all of these countries rely on export for as source of national income. However, while global economic recession has effect on the economies of these MENA countries, and contributed to the heightened social anger, the real source of the mass revolts lie in the neo-liberal capitalism that has ensured the collapse of better living conditions for the majority of the population.

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[1] This victory was gained through revolts and revolutions carried out by the working people from new factories, journeymen, poor artisans, serfs, farm workers, downtrodden of the cities and unemployed, but led and directed under the guide of the emerging factory capitalists, who were also exploited, through state policies (in favour of landowners) of the aristocratic governments, controlled by big landowners and feudalists.

[2] This is at a time that imperialism, in a bid to build expanded markets, created a middle class in the colonies, to man western businesses.

[3] This was worsened by the oil strike of Arab states against Western governments’ support for Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israel war.

[4] Just one percent of the world population controls over 39 percent of world’s wealth (Huffington Post, May 31, 2013, www.huffpost.com, retrieved July 2013).

[5] a. Glyn, Andrew, Capitalism Unleashed, Oxford University Press, London, 2006

    b. Confession of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins

[6] John Perkins, Confession of an Economic Hit Man,

[7]  Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce, Capital Flight from North African Countries Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts, Amherst October 2012

[8] Quoted from Arab Human Development Report, 2009

[9] Ibid.

[10] Kola Ibrahim, World Food Crisis: the Role of Capitalism and

[11] Quoted from Arab Human Development Report, 2009, page 49

[12] All data from UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics, 2011.