Rebels, Reformers and Empire: Alternative Economic Programs for Egypt and Tunisia

For 20 years leading up to the uprisings of 2010-2011, Egypt and Tunisia suffered the ill effects of neoliberal economic reform, even as the international financial institutions and most economists hailed them as beacons of progress in the Arab world. For the preceding ten years, workers and civil society organizations led a burgeoning protest movement against the liberalizing and privatizing trajectories of the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes. Then came the uprisings, which brokered the possibility of not only new political beginnings but also alternative economic programs that would put the needs of the struggling middle, working and poorer classes first and at least constrain, if not abolish, the privileges of a deposed ruling class. In Egypt, labor activists, journalists, NGO researchers and even a few government officials and capitalists eagerly shared their ideas for what should come next. 1 Their visions fell into four broad categories, from left to right: citizen-led social democracy, democratic state-led development, top-down state-led development and return to the status quo ante. The citizen-led proposals were not based on any particular ideology, but were thoughtful and became increasingly detailed even as the arena for frank public discussion shrank. These proposals could form an integrated people's program if there were a democratic elected government in Egypt committed to carrying them out. In Tunisia, democracy is muddling through with leadership inherited from the old regime, with many good ideas for economic change percolating upward, as in Egypt, but no coherent vision for how to construct a progressive alternative. In both cases, the default setting is the restoration of neoliberalism with an inclusive mask. Labor's resistance to privatization and liberalization had been surging over a decade prior to the Egyptian uprising of January 2011, coming in waves that rose to tsunami level just as the more middle-class, but equally militant, political movement came to a head with the occupation of Tahrir Square. But neither the military government that took over after Husni Mubarak's overthrow nor the government of elected President Muhammad Mursi was responsive to the needs of labor or the "occupy" movement, and street and workplace action resurged in 2012 and 2013. After a lull around the buildup of the Tamarrud movement and the military's ouster of Mursi, labor actions began to mount again. Amid 1,420 protests in the first three months of 2014, involving at least 100,000 workers across many services and industries, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab's government was at loggerheads with the labor movement. After another low ebb during the presidential election, the protest wave crested again when the new government refused to consider labor's demands. There were 94 labor protests in October and 111 in November of 2014. In response, the minister of manpower, Nahid al-'Ashri, backed by the prime minister, accused independent trade unions of being "the largest problem in the labor market, as they…hinder work, leading to the deterioration of the Egyptian economy."