Egyptian Privatization = Crony Capitalism

By John Ballard

Love the ring of that old term, crony capitalism.
It says it all.
Come to think of it, trans-national corporations deserve the same sobriquet.

Two stories this morning hit this theme. Here are the links.
I may expand on them later, but the point is already made.

? In Egypt, Revolution Moves Into The Factories
NPR did a spot this morning that takes less than five minutes. These last three lines tell it all.

Hanna says the privatization program � turning public assets into private hands � made some within Mubarak's inner circle very rich.

"And so it's very difficult now to try to push policies that are now, in the minds of regular Egyptians, associated with massive distortions in wealth, inequality and corruption," he says.

There is wide sympathy for the textile workers' strike, and it will be hard to convince Egyptians that private enterprise, so associated with the old regime, is good for Egypt.

? Revolution�s benefits passed over Egypt�s factory workers
Lisa Goldman covers the story in more detail with photos. Read the whole piece which ends with this:

An acquaintance that works for an NGO, which processes refugees from Eritrea, said that the monthly stipend for a family of four refugees was LE 1,100 (USD 184) � and that it was not quite enough for them to manage on. Another acquaintance, a diplomat and an expert in trade and economic matters, told me that there was absolutely no chance of the workers� demand for a minimum wage of LE 1,200 per month being met. The government would go bankrupt, and foreign investment would dry up. This would exacerbate Egypt�s already grave economic difficulties. It was impossible. And if the factory workers did not go back to work, the economy would spiral even further downward.

Two nights ago, I celebrated the story of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. It is the story of escape from slavery, and it was told at a seder in one of Cairo�s last synagogues. For the first time in my life, I heard a seder leader, the person who reads the story of the Exodus from the Haggadah, tell us that we had once been slaves �here� (in Egypt), and not �there.� I thought about those factory workers again as I chewed on my first piece of matza, the Jews� equivalent of Proust�s madeleine, and realized, not for the first time, that there were still some people who lived in a sort of slavery, way down in Egypt-land � even though the pharaoh has been deposed and exiled to Sharm el Sheikh.