Reviewing Egypt’s economic situation over successive decades reveals a recurring pattern of events, both in terms of causes and outcomes. This brings to mind the renowned literary work by the late Dr. Youssef Idris, titled “The Poverty of Thought and the Thought of Poverty.”
This great effort generated a revolutionary discussion that touched on every aspect of life, revealing patterns of thought and behavior that solidify the concept of poverty, both intellectually and materially.
In this work, the author explored the concept that poverty is more than just an economic situation; it is a general state in which individuals act and think in impoverished ways. He addressed the problem of poor thoughts resulting in impoverished products.
From the author’s perspective, poverty is not just about being under the weight of need and deprivation. It is a broader and more comprehensive concept tied to the poverty of ideas, imagination, will, creativity, work, and planning, which ultimately results in material poverty (deprivation).
Strategic planning
To this day, we are “trapped” in this conceptual orientation. Nobody can dispute that we continue to suffer from a lack of strategic planning that includes multiple deadlines and objectives, which leads to inefficient use of natural resources. We also suffer from a lack of professional marketing ideas to attract foreign investment in all its forms, resulting in a scarcity of foreign currency resources and, conversely, growing debt levels to fulfill the state’s necessary requirements and commitments.
Furthermore, there is tremendous poverty in education and healthcare. Poverty in education leads to a reduction in human capabilities, lower productivity, a detachment from the march of development, technology, and scientific research, as well as a lack of ideas and breakthroughs in a variety of disciplines.
On the other hand, poverty in health translates into generations that are either sick or prone to illness, alongside increased spending on medicine and various medical supplies. This places pressure on resources and leads to further poverty.
Our country also suffers from poverty in agricultural and industrial output as a result of a reluctance to make meaningful medium- and long-term investments on the one hand, and a preference for short-term investment solutions with low returns on the other.
This is compounded by the administrative, investment, and financial pressures imposed by state policies on industry and agriculture, as well as the absence of real incentives for these sectors compared to what other markets in the region offer. All these factors lead to poverty in essential economic pathways for a nation’s stability and independence, such as exports and the availability of foreign currency needed to meet primary import needs, or the provision of alternative opportunities for local products to replace imports to achieve self-sufficiency.
This is in addition to poverty in energy resources and water resources, which pose pressing risks to citizens’ spending and security in general.
Poverty of thinking
The poverty of thinking, imagination, and creativity exacerbates all the aforementioned crises, trapping us in the same vicious cycles, repeating the same mistakes, and arriving at the same outcomes. We consume time and effort in exchanging accusations and shifting responsibilities without seeking a “rich thought” filled with proposals, solutions, and real plans to address the actual material poverty that gnaws at the bodies of millions of the nation’s citizens.
We must devise the most inventive solutions to these problems and manage these resources with the vision of the affluent in order to attain prosperity and pleasure for the people while enhancing reality with plentiful employment possibilities and production.
I return once again to the remarkable book by the late Dr. Youssef Idris, who warned of the “poverty of the rich” – a poverty that drives them to prioritise individual interests over the interests of the majority and to prioritise extreme material greed to gain more profits and wealth at the expense of others.
In this context, I recall a meeting between Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly and investors and businessmen – those whose rights I have long defended to secure an encouraging, safe, and stable investment environment.
Businessmen demands
What caught my attention in this meeting was that all the remarks made by the investors and businessmen were limited to personal demands to serve their investments and secure more profits, while addressing any pressures threatening their growth rates.
None of them proposed reformative views that would benefit society as a whole or relieve the pressures and obligations on the great majority of the people, which lives in severe poverty and is unable to deal with the waves of increasing costs and stagnating salaries.
Not one of them proposed even a suggestion indicating their willingness to increase private sector workers’ salaries to confront the waves of inflation sweeping the country.
On the contrary, the main demand of the investors was focused on the need to reduce interest rates, which most of them deemed unattractive for investment. They overlooked the unprecedented rise in prices and inflation present in the Egyptian economy, which makes higher interest rates the only way for millions of citizens to preserve their wealth and cope with the exceptional waves of inflation, especially amid declining economic growth and the inability of productive and service sectors to provide the necessary financial resources to cover import needs.
Finally, the issues that were addressed in this informative work have not changed. The author analysed the state’s economic structure, portraying the circumstances at the time as combining the worst of capitalism and socialism.
Intellectual crisis
In the ninth chapter of his book, “The Poverty of Thought and the Thought of Poverty,” Idris describes the Egyptian people as having reached a point of intellectual and economic crisis where they no longer want to exert effort in research and scrutiny, nor even in examining their problems, preferring ready-made solutions served to them on a silver platter.
Idris believes that the solution for us lies in production – in becoming a productive force. To achieve this, we must either become capitalists with all the capitalist guarantees of justice and democracy, or we must embrace socialism with all its advantages and disadvantages. “Walking the tightrope,” as he puts it, has landed us in our current situation.
The author adds: If Egyptian leaders have often stated that we cannot walk in the shadow of a superpower, we all agree, as long as we understand why we were and continue to be compelled to walk in its shadow.
To avoid relying on a superpower, the author contends that we must first rely on ourselves. To reach this aim, we must choose either full, productive capitalism or full, productive socialism. There is no production without first establishing a solid foundation, with all of its benefits and drawbacks – a foundation from which we can embark on our true journey of existence, one that forces us to think richly, which transforms into rich production, real wealth, life, and civilisation. A journey in which we rely on ourselves, and in order to be ourselves, our people must have full rights to life.
Our current situation is existential rather than economic or intellectual in nature. My greatest concern, as Idris expresses it, is that we will emerge from it in a worse situation. The issue is not a joke, nor is it just a problem; it is a fork in the road with no other options.
Although nearly forty years have passed between the publication of the book and the writing of this article, the conditions the country is experiencing are almost identical, the requirements for overcoming the crisis are the same, the causes of confusion are similar, and even the state of the people and the description of their dependency remain unchanged. The ultimate conclusion of the book is that we are at a crossroads, and we have no choice but to find a solution quickly, as this is the same historical moment we are living in now.
The issue is, when will we get out of this quagmire and break free from the vicious cycle into a period of stability and economic growth? Why does the same situation repeat itself with the same occurrences when we know the outcome in advance? How can we adjust the conclusion to make it happier and more unique this time before it’s too late?
