From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 08:58:42 MST
From: Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com]
> But tell us more about Egypt. Have you read Hernando
> DeSoto's book "The Mystery of Capitalism"? He tries
> hard to explain the poverty of Egypt, even given the
> peace and support over the past decades.
I haven't read that book, but I can give you my own assessment of why
Egypt has not prospered.
Some of it boils down to history. In the 1950s, after Egypt won
independence from Great Britain, it aligned itself with the Soviet
Union. In so doing it chose a model with a centrally controlled
economy, a large bureaucracy, and little in the way of civil
liberties. By the early 70s Egypt and the Soviet Union parted ways
and in the late 70s the Camp David Accords with Israel brought quite a
bit of US good will. However, the US in no way insisted that Egypt
change its domestic policies. As a result, Egypt is still largely a
soviet-block style society. That, more than anything, has stunted its
growth.
So the present situation in Egypt is:
1) It has a mostly centrally controlled economy that is very slowly
decentralizing.
2) It has a large and extremely corrupt bureaucracy. Anything you
want to do in Egypt requires bribing someone. You bribe the tax
inspector to reduce your taxes. You bribe a city official to get a
building permit. If you're a drug company, you bribe the minister of
health to get your drug approved in egypt.
3) There is no free press in Egypt. The main newspaper is owned by
the president's son. (Funny, that's how it is in Iraq as well.)
Every newspaper is told what to say by the government. Criticizing
the president or the government is a crime.
4) There are no free elections in Egypt. Every Egyptian "president"
has served until death. The Egyptian constitution (hah) limits
presidents to two 5 year terms, but it has simply been ignored.
5) The educational system in egypt has collapsed. Elementary school
is now about 3 hours a day, in classrooms with more than a hundred
students per teacher.
Most Egyptians are extremely cynical about their government. They
know that it's dishonest, so they see no reason to be honest with it.
Stealing is very much taboo in egypt, but cheating on your taxes or
stealing from the government at any moment are considered just fine.
One of my relatives commented a couple months ago that he didn't know
a single person in egypt who didn't cheat on his taxes.
The US provides $3B in direct aid to egypt. That's second only to
Israel. It's also around a quarter of the hard currency that flows
into egypt each year. Yet the US applies little or no pressure to
open up the press, hold elections, crack down on corruption, or reform
the educational system.
I could go on, but it's rather disheartening. The hardest thing is
talking to Egyptians about their country. They know how screwed up it
is. They have very little hope for things to get better anytime soon.
As I've said, I think hopelessness into the hands of fundamentalists
and terrorists. If you want to encourage people to contribute to the
world, you need to provide them avenues via which to do so.
mez
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