What is Neoliberalism?
A neoliberal state bases itself upon two logics: one, to guarantee the functioning of markets; two, to create markets where markets do not exist. The neoliberal state defends the economic order by use of force. The expansion of commodity markets means that public goods are converted into private commodities. The limit of the legitimate function of the neoliberal state is to guarantee the sanctity of markets.
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With Colonel Gaddafi holding the last strings to his long rule in Libya…and the spillover of the Tunisian revolution spreading we are left with a number of questions – a number of questions regarding the future that the youth of the world are articulating for themselves.
We make a very casual mistake when we think regime-chage (as revolt): we gloss over the intricate connection between politics and economics. Explained more specifically we gloss over the deep connection the State has to preserving and ensuring that a particular economic order remains in place.
Still taken as the foundational defination of the modern State’s face, Max Weber defined its specificity as, “the monopoly over physical violence over a territory.” Taken at face-value, the defination begs the question: a monopoly over physical violence to preserve what?
If your answer is regime then it is too simple an answer. Regime-change is a feature intrinsic to most political orders.
The answer, rather, is: the State’s monopoly over physical violence exists to preserve an economic order (…and, for more complicated souls, a symbolic order…but don’t think of this).
The question to ask:
The BBC defines what sparked the protests in Egypt as, “The main drivers of the unrest have been poverty, rising prices, social exclusion, anger over corruption and personal enrichment among the political elite, and a demographic bulge of young people unable to find work.” The question to ask is not who, but rather what is at fault?
What happened after Hosni Mubarak stepped down in Egypt?
I suppose relatively few of us would know, but the aftermath of the toppling of the regime has seen a number of massive labour strikes: public transport workers have protested, bank workers have protested, health, tourism, oil and textile workers have protested. All these protests are despite the ban on independent unions during the Hosni Mubarak era.
What produced these post-Mubarak labour protests?
The first task set in front of us is to open up the Egyptian economy (as a stereotype) – and understand the evolution of it to contextualise the material conditions which produced the current revolts. An article in Al-Jazeera makes two remarks about Egypt’s history as a neoliberal State: one, it was at the forefront of neoliberal policies in the Middle East (like Tunisia); two, the reality of the Egytian political economy very different from rhetoric (a constant feature amongst neoliberal states from Chile to Indonesia).
The Egyptian brand:
The Egyptian brand of neoliberalism was lauded by IFI’s such as the International Monetary Fund as a beacon of free-market success but a far starker picture emerged from behind the curtain of the blinds of statistics. In reality the marketization and privitization agenda was itself unevenly applied.
Applied to whom? The most vunerable classes of society – whose experience did not provide a pretty picture. Organised labour was suppressed, the public education and health care systems left neglected and privitised. Wage fell in real terms relative to inflation and unemployment spiralled. All of this while Egypt was being lauded as a successful neoliberal experiment.
The same Egypt, of course, was different for its’ wealthy. For them, the public sector did not shrink. Rather, it re-allocated public resources to the already affluent. The windfalls of privitization fell to already politically well-connected individuals who could purchase state-owned assets for much less than their market value, or monopolise rents from such diverse sources as tourism and foreign aid. Government contracts became a major source of the profits of construction companies. The State itself remained central – it only used neoliberal doctrine to re-shape the distribution of profits. The interconnection of business and government became stronger – not weaker.
The first task inside Egypt for the future is not to manage (IMF terminology) but to re-structure the Egyptian economy to a more pro-labour economy. Essential to that end is the displacement of the Egyptian military from control of major economic resources (much like our home army). The same task is required across the Middle East.
The real truth:
A revolt is against an order that oppresses a people - and rulers are only the visible sources of that order. The real truth of the order is hidden behind rulers - in the day to day operation of the State. In this sense, when the suicide that sparked the Tunisian protests occured - it was not Ben Ali that directly caused it. It was the police - that had displaced the fruit seller because he was, legally speaking, 'encroaching.' It was an operation by the police to enforce the legal norm of the day to day in Egypt that sparked the protests - a legal order predicated on the principles of neoliberalism.
...and the protests in the Middle East are categorically against this neoliberal order - a product of the post-Soviet union structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The rejection of the protestors is of the neoliberal world order to which these sultans and dictators of the Middle East were perfectly honest to.
...and if in the ensuing politics it's fundamentals are not questioned then the structural causation of the rage that is fueling the streets.
Politicians, policemen, oppressors are all symptoms - not causes. It is the system that is being rejected.
Shifting the gaze:
And before we conclude it is important to shift our gaze from the Middle East to ourselves for a single critical moment: Pakistan itself during the Musharraf era made a significant push towards neoliberalism. The privitization of public commodities began in the 1990’s to be exact – but the ‘commodification of everything’ is symptomatic more so of the Mush era in Pakistan. Pushed ahead by the IFI’s the same policy-set continues to be expaned upon – at the detriment of the people.
The Illegal Dispossession Act 2005 and the Sindh Public Property (Removal of Encroachment) Act 2010 are laws directed against the removal of ‘encroachments’. The laws themselves lie steeped in neoliberal rhetotic and have a deep anti-people foundation. The Sindh Law is currently being scrutinized by the Sindh High Court – but in Lahore the DCO has given encroachers a deadline till 11 March to leave ‘encroached’ lands themselves – or face removal.
The application of a similar set of Law in Tunisia sparked the self-immolation that set Tunisia and subsequently the Middle East in uproar. Is there any chance that we shall learn?
- The article was printed in the Review in Pakistan Today on 6 March, 2011.
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