So for my New Year resolution, I decided to use my newfound (poor) skills in Excel.
This, in my opinion, is the relationship between poverty and political involvement (and my contribution to science ;-P): let's call it the Poverty-Politics Curve (PPC for insiders).
Richer societies are involved in politics; the people ensures that its rights are respected, and it sanctions any government that doesn’t in the next elections, in a well-oiled process of political participation and, more importantly, political change.
They, in a sense, ‘can afford it’. Those are in the second quadrant (on the left of the graph).
In reasonably poor societies, where the Average Joe (or the Average Ahmed, if you wish) strives to get by, where his income barely gets him to the 25th of each month and he has to scrape through the rest of it, well, our Average Ahmed is too busy to bother about politics, so long as things are stable. Egypt was there for quite a while: after the IMF plans in the early nineties (the ERSAPs: Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Programmes I and II), it had a fixed exchange rate (pegged to the US dollar, although its main trade partner is the EU) and things seemed rather okay. You know, Adel Imam was still doing cheap comedy, people got through.
Those are located around the centre of the graph (and the lower part of the U-shaped curve).
Then, you have the third phase, which is where people are getting so poor, that the pinch of hunger makes them wonder what the hell is going wrong with the country. And this is where, unless you have a Ghandi in town, things go ugly. This is what ‘bread riots’ are all about. This is when Revolutions occur, and this when ‘elite’ blood is shed, if you will. Think France 1789. Why go this far? Think Egypt 1952, when the Army (we later were taught ‘the People’) deposed the King.
Think the past 6 years. 2001, Egypt ends the peg with the dollar, which goes from 1$ = 3.42 LE (LE is Livre Egyptienne: Egyptian Pound. Yes, we loved our occupiers so much that we still name our currency after theirs) to 1$ = 7 LE in a matter of months. That’s a 100% depreciation. (it later appreciated a bit, to roughly a 1 to 5 exchange rate). And no real increase of competitiveness ensued, even; but it was the beginning of a beautiful imported inflation. Look at consumer goods. Meat was 60 LE a kg last week; it was 12 LE five years ago.
So we’re heading, beautifully, to havoc.
Happy new year.
This, in my opinion, is the relationship between poverty and political involvement (and my contribution to science ;-P): let's call it the Poverty-Politics Curve (PPC for insiders).
Richer societies are involved in politics; the people ensures that its rights are respected, and it sanctions any government that doesn’t in the next elections, in a well-oiled process of political participation and, more importantly, political change.
They, in a sense, ‘can afford it’. Those are in the second quadrant (on the left of the graph).
In reasonably poor societies, where the Average Joe (or the Average Ahmed, if you wish) strives to get by, where his income barely gets him to the 25th of each month and he has to scrape through the rest of it, well, our Average Ahmed is too busy to bother about politics, so long as things are stable. Egypt was there for quite a while: after the IMF plans in the early nineties (the ERSAPs: Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Programmes I and II), it had a fixed exchange rate (pegged to the US dollar, although its main trade partner is the EU) and things seemed rather okay. You know, Adel Imam was still doing cheap comedy, people got through.
Those are located around the centre of the graph (and the lower part of the U-shaped curve).
Then, you have the third phase, which is where people are getting so poor, that the pinch of hunger makes them wonder what the hell is going wrong with the country. And this is where, unless you have a Ghandi in town, things go ugly. This is what ‘bread riots’ are all about. This is when Revolutions occur, and this when ‘elite’ blood is shed, if you will. Think France 1789. Why go this far? Think Egypt 1952, when the Army (we later were taught ‘the People’) deposed the King.
Think the past 6 years. 2001, Egypt ends the peg with the dollar, which goes from 1$ = 3.42 LE (LE is Livre Egyptienne: Egyptian Pound. Yes, we loved our occupiers so much that we still name our currency after theirs) to 1$ = 7 LE in a matter of months. That’s a 100% depreciation. (it later appreciated a bit, to roughly a 1 to 5 exchange rate). And no real increase of competitiveness ensued, even; but it was the beginning of a beautiful imported inflation. Look at consumer goods. Meat was 60 LE a kg last week; it was 12 LE five years ago.
So we’re heading, beautifully, to havoc.
Happy new year.
3 comments:
Logic is very sound ya Mohamed and the argument holds.. as an eye observer here with each day the mounting tension screams "the revolution is coming" and it just may be. I love the mini-paper. Nobody mention Excel I have an overdose ;)
It is rather interesting for me to read that post. Thanx for it. I like such topics and everything connected to them. I would like to read more soon.
It was extremely interesting for me to read that article. Thank you for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I would like to read more soon.
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