Egypt is no longer my mother!

As the new year approached, Nora Younis, editor-in-chief of Al Manassa, asked us in an editorial meeting to plan for marking the anniversary of the January 2011 Revolution.

Some colleagues suggested examining the economic and social transformations over the past decade and a half, including the devaluation of the Egyptian pound, rising inflation, and growing poverty.

For me, the years since the revolution are not merely a sequence of events or economic and social shifts. Rather, the very framework of social justice has been redefined. The state no longer perceives itself as bearing the social responsibilities it once assumed, and citizens no longer expect from it what they once hoped for when they took to the streets chanting "bread, freedom, social justice".

In recent years, a sweeping commodification process has unfolded, dismantling the social contract that once shaped our political imagination during the revolution. Meanwhile, the pursuit of individual salvation gained momentum, while the collective vision for change that defined 2011 has faded.

I am far from suggesting abandoning the fight for social justice, this is rather a call for a reassessing the needed tools to achieve it within today’s realities.

Egypt, the mother

A scene from "The Yacoubian Building" film stuck with me since I watched it at the Odeon Cinema in 2006. Kamal El-Fouli/Khaled Saleh, a powerful leader in the ruling party, explains how the state manipulates public perception. He says, “The Egyptian people hold onto the government as if it were their mother who gave birth to them.”

This scene likely resonated with me because, as a young adult in my early twenties, I had recently read "The Strong Regime and the Weak State" by the late economist and academic Samer Soliman. His book and Wahid Hamed's scene were tackling a similar question: What subtle mechanisms does the state employ to manipulate public opinion, making it behave like an obedient child?

Soliman sought to answer this question by analyzing public budget data. Written after decades of entrenched Nasserite welfare policies, his book examined how public spending upheld the old social contract by trading social protection for democracy.

One of the key questions Soliman grappled with was why Egyptians reacted so strongly to the limited reduction in food subsidies during the 1977 Bread Riots, while they seemed to accept similar subsidy reductions in the 1990s under the economic reform program.

Soliman argued that the state maintained public approval by shifting its spending priorities, particularly through robust public sector wage increases—epitomized by the tradition of the annual May Day “grant,” a bonus equivalent to ten days’ base salary. This tradition, established during Nasser’s era, continued under Sadat and Mubarak.(*)

Before the January 25 Revolution, this dynamic mirrored Antonio Gramsci’s famous metaphor: “The old world is dying, , and the new world struggles to be born.” After the revolution, however, the old world truly died, but the new one was not what we dreamed of.

Neoliberalism’s grip

Studies on social policy transformations in Egypt after the January 2011 Revolution reveal that citizens, particularly marginalized groups, are worse off than before. Nearly a third of the population now lives in poverty, while unprecedented inflation has left the middle class feeling perpetually unstable.

This deterioration was accompanied by profound changes in the state’s social role. Over the years following the revolution, the state gradually abandoned its “maternal” role. While heavy-handed security measures and the closure of political spaces contributed to maintaining order, they were not the sole factors.

Since the 1990s, Egypt has pursued neoliberal policies, granting the private sector a greater role in the economy. This shift has accelerated in recent years, enabling the government to distance itself from responsibilities like providing jobs.

Now, the state can respond to demands like “We want jobs, boss!” by declaring that its role in employment is limited. It can also blame rising prices on IMF conditions, while claiming to protect citizens from worse outcomes.

The old welfare policies

During the early 20th century, welfare states around the world pursued decommodification, ensuring that goods like housing, transportation, and food were accessible either free of charge or at symbolic prices. The state emerged as the primary economic actor, regulating prices to guarantee universal access.

This model gained global prominence after World War II, but by the 1970s, it faced sharp criticism, especially in Western Europe, for contributing to budget deficits. 

By contrast, the rise of Ronald Reagan in Washington and Margaret Thatcher in London marked a turn towards re-commodification, driven by the belief that it would boost economic efficiency. Social support was to be limited to the poorest segments of society—preferably in cash form—allowing the state to fully withdraw from the business of price-setting, leaving it entirely to the private sector.

This global shift gave the Egyptian state cover to begin shedding its old welfare model in the 1990s—a process that gathered significant momentum after 2014.

Decades of commodification in Egypt

Egypt’s shift towards a market-driven model began in earnest during the 1990s, when privatization efforts extended beyond asset sales to include changes in how public sector entities operated.

These institutions were no longer required to price their goods according to social need (**). Instead, they were instructed to compete directly with the private sector, with no guarantees of state rescue in the event of failure.

Another key departure from the post-Nasserist welfare model came through the gradual rollback of the state’s employment guarantee for university graduates. Initiated in the 1980s, this retreat led to a steady decline in the share of government jobs, which now accounts for just 21% of total employment. The result has not only been a rise in informal jobs but a notable deterioration in employment conditions across the board.

A second, more aggressive phase of commodification took hold in 2014. The most visible aspect was a rapid reduction in energy subsidies. The government introduced a multi-year plan to raise fuel and electricity prices to reflect actual costs.

The policy shift—long considered politically untouchable—was enabled by Egypt’s transition to a net oil importer in 2006 and reinforced by IMF backing.

Food subsidies also underwent a significant transformation. In 1981, roughly 95% of Egyptians were enrolled in the ration card programme, which provided staple goods such as sugar, rice and oil at prices shielded from inflation.

By 2022, this figure had dropped to 62%, with the system gradually moving toward cash-based support that offers less protection against price volatility. French researcher Marie Vannetzel, who studied the system extensively, has noted the sharp decline in both coverage and effectiveness.

Meanwhile, state institutions increasingly adopted corporate operating models. This shift, often referred to as corporatization, is no longer limited to public sector enterprises producing goods and services. As anthropologist Noha Roushdy observes, even public education providers have entered into competition with private operators, particularly in the international school market.

Social justice in 2025

The successive waves of commodification have made Egypt’s political reality far more complex. I believe the prevailing perception among us during the January 2011 protests was that social justice could be achieved in one step—by compelling those in power to respond to us. In hindsight, this was a miscalculation.

I have not changed my conviction in the importance of democracy, accountability, and transparency. But any government genuinely committed to justice will inevitably confront difficult questions.

Chief among them is the question of how do we begin to recalibrate our unequal relationship with the dollar and the global financial system when our economy remains heavily dependent and incapable of balancing its external accounts without IMF assistance—even after a substantial influx of capital such as the Ras El-Hekma deal?

Also, how can we achieve fair wealth distribution when policies like the property tax face fierce resistance from property owners? How can we impose fair pricing in markets dominated by speculation, where subsidized goods are hoarded and resold on the black market?

How can we ensure justice in labor relations when the informal sector, which employs most workers, remains beyond the state’s control? How can we ask the private sector to provide affordable housing when the state itself competes with it by building luxury projects?

Undoubtedly, the absence of democracy has contributed to the current crisis—but it is far from being the only obstacle. Decades of market-driven reforms have turned the pursuit of social justice into a battle against a multi-headed beast, reminiscent of the mythical Hydra in Greek lore.

Perhaps it is this mounting sense of futility that explains the waning appeal of collective solutions once championed during the revolution, and the growing retreat into individualism. The economic reality reinforces this trend.

Many can only find work through precarious self-employment ventures, such as ride-hailing platforms funded by meagre personal savings. For others—particularly women—disillusionment with the prospects of decent work has led them to exit the labour market altogether.

This is not a call for despair but an invitation to rethink our approach. We may need to adopt more radical solutions such as redefining our relationship with the global financial system, fostering a democracy that engages workers and small businesses, and confronting economic inequality head-on.

True social justice requires challenging the dominance of market forces and building a political movement that sees market elites not as neutral actors, but as a ruling class that must be held accountable.

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 (*) On May 1, or Labor Day, ousted President Mubarak would often announce a bonus for public sector employees in his annual speech. This tradition, equivalent to ten days’ base salary, was inherited from the Nasser era and sustained under Sadat. See "The Strong Regime and the Weak State" (pp. 80–81).

(**) A 1990s law on public enterprises allowed state-owned companies to adopt private-sector practices, granting managers autonomy over pricing, investments, and operations. See "Stabilization and Adjustment in Egypt: Reform or Deindustrialization? "(p. 122).

A version of this article first appeared in Arabic on January 26, 2025.