the book’s title captures the widespread, oft-voiced sense amongst egyptians that they are experiencing a period in egypt’s history of unprecedented and comprehensive decline.
his primary thesis seems to be that egypt’s increased social mobility is the (or a) root cause of the country’s many ills (corruption, moral degradation, economic under-performance, islamic fanaticism), summarized in his introduction::
if it is also true, as seems to be the case, that the rate of social mobility during the last fifty years has been higher than anything experienced by egypt in its modern history, then one may argue that social mobility could be the most important single factor behind many of the social changes that have occurred in egypt since 1950.
this one paragraph that pivots amin’s central thesis captures much of what is wrong with the book.
for starters it is not even clear that social mobility has increased as amin conveys when he says ‘as it seems to be‘. it may well be that reliable statistics are hard to come by, but the complete lack of figures and quantitative evidence to back amin’s statements up are one of the book’s main weaknesses.
secondly, there are plenty of causality problems in the statement! again amin indirectly concedes this by stating only that social mobility could be the most important factor behind the changes egypt’s society has undergone. that is a very weak statement to be basing this whole collections of essays on! there is no hard evidence that social mobility has caused any of the changes discussed and the idea that this is the most important determinant is not addressed at all. unfortunately the book is full of arguments dependent on this type of weak causality and uncorroborated statements.
there’s either a problem of a lack of available stats or perhaps galal chooses to eschew figures in the name of writing a popular economics books for a non-numerate readership. either way the book suffers from too many loose, unsubstantiated ideas and arguments.
i am no economist, but even i can identify some of the absurd statements and economic arguments put forward by amin:
no degree of improvement in the public transportation system will be sufficient to dispense with the desire to acquire a private car when such an acquisition serves a purpose so much more powerful than mere transportation.
amin is implying that egypt’s ‘nouveaux riches‘ somehow wouldn’t respond to economic incentives in the way that others would. sure there is economic value attributable to status symbols but to say that this relative value would not budge if the economic stimuli for public transportation increased is ludicrous. in a later chapter he expands on this, incorrectly placing an increasing desire for status symbols above a failing public transport system as a cause of the exploding car numbers in cairo and in turn the maddening traffic.
there’s more! like this preposterous line:
‘the more income it gains, the more it must lose of its soul’.
what rubbish! although he does capture a seemingly universally yearning across all cultures; an ever present nostalgia for a simpler, purer (and simply, and purely) imagined past.
one of the book’s constant themes is amin’s tiresome and always an unsubstantiated bias against ‘western ideas‘. it’s notable that he never manages to propose alternatives when lashing out against imported ideas of progress. it’s a hollow argument when used without explaining how native arab or egyptian progress would be defined and how it might differ from the ‘western‘ definitions the author questions.
he yearns for an ‘arab’ alternative to market philosophies (which for amin encompasses the full spectrum from capitalism to marxism). this typifies the author’s perspective. the book is upset at the seeming degradation surrounding the author and reacts by blaming external influences… the author seems to imply that egypt would have been better off had it chosen to be less open to the outside world. i wonder whether amin has been to libya or perhaps iran lately? amin’s hope for the ‘arab’ or the local trumps all, it seems he would prefer it even over the better but foreign:
what may be a more important cause for concern for specifically Egyptian economists is that their biases are becoming less and less their own, and more and more those imposed by outside influences.
that’s from the conclusion of the chapter on egyptian economists that discusses the politicization of the subject in egypt. there is a sense in egypt, that everything is politicized one way or the other, such is the arbitrary and wide reach of the authorities.
one of the book’s better chapters focuses on women’s changing position in egyptian society. it’s a purely anecdotal based section that argues that one of the only positive developments in egypt recent history has been improvements in women’s stock. women are better educated, contribute more to the workplace, enjoy more rights and prominence. i agree that this seems to be one of the irrefutable positives of post-revolution egypt. although it has also meant almost doubling the growth of the already rapidly expanding employable population which has compounded the country’s insufficient job creation.
amin also recasts the observable omni-hijab as a positive enabler; allowing women to enter the workplace, and safely move in public spaces in what is still a traditional society. he sees the hijab as perhaps a stepping stone to greater female emancipation rather than a step backwards as it is often portrayed.
there is an unnecessary and particularly incoherent chapter on the (rather french) concern for the decline of classical arabic. so what? as in so much of the book amin takes certain positions, usually negative, without sufficiently explaining why they are unfavorable.
the book does shed some interesting light on various aspects of egyptian society. for example it discusses the evils of the ‘miri’ (government) job, which became the populace’s favored occupation as the state expanded wildly after the nasserite revolution. even naguib mahfouz clung on to the perceived security of a job in the public sector, only retiring a few years after winning the nobel prize for literatrue! this massive dependendence on state provided jobs for life has lead to plebeian productivity and scarred the country’s work ethic. egyptians’ still think highly of civil servants’ seeming security even though salaries are paltry in comparison to private sector jobs.
in yet another risible chapter, amin puts forward the absurd notion that egyptians are more attached to their land than greeks or lebanese (has this man spent any time with those two groups?!). he backs this up by pointing out their increased immigration vis-a-vis the egyptian’s relative lack thereof. could this perhaps have more to do with worse local conditions (try a 20 year civil war) or greater access (speaking foreign languages, better educated etc)?
the huge migration patterns to the oil-booming gulf states (which amin addresses often) surely prove that egyptians are no different to others in reacting to economic opportunities. amin however tries to attribute this migration explosion to a revolution of rising expectations. truth is for the first time mass migration was a viable option for egyptians.
he ends the book on a pessimistic note on the growth of markets that lead to
nothing less than a process of metamorphosis in which everything is gradually being turned into a community, the object of a commercial transaction, including man’s very soul.
this sums up the book really. galal amin has a world view, unsubstantiated and very often based of contradictory or outright unsound logic that he dresses up as fact in the book by his position as a respected egyptian economist.
my question is, in a rapidly globalizing and increasingly competitive world, does egypt have the luxury of entertaining these digressions?
on a fundamental level, the idea of increased social mobility would seem to me to be an absolute boon for society so long as it takes place on a meritocratic and fair playing field and this book gives the idea a bad name.