Note (Feb, 2012) : I wrote this piece as a comment on something, not an actual long and edited proper article. As I review it months after writing it the first time, I realise that I have done a few over-generalisations, quite a few inaccuracies, but it remains in essence viable and correct.
This article explores meaning of Centrism, Third Way, and Social Liberalism, and talks about their future in a new Arab World.
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Egypt is out of a revolution, or rather coming out of one. Some would even argue we are still in the middle of it. The economy certainly looks the part, going from a 5% growth in GDP to -4% at the moment, foreign reserves are dwindling, quite a deficit is building up (for Egypt, that is, somewhere between LE134-170bn as per official numbers), more than 10% unemployed, many more underemployed, many more employed with horrible pay and conditions, and there are the clear signs of a social crisis that has been in the making for decades.
The Previous regime has been alternating between remnant policies from the Nasserist era, imperfectly devised Capitalist policies that were supposed to stimulate the economy, and a bunch of disastrous policies intended to keep it in power such as horribly structured and executed subsidies. While I am not against subsidies in certain cases (very few of them, to be honest), subsidies should be structured in a correct, open, easily explorable and dissectible manner, and should benefit those who need them the most. Mubarak's regime was so afraid of doing any radical overhaul of the subsidies system for the fear of a public backlash. Food subsidies stand today at 2% of GDP, Fuel subsidies at 8% of GDP, and subsidies are almost three times the education budget (Source: The Economist).
There is a massive need to both streamline the economy while also attending to the explosive poverty situation. The socialist camp is gaining ground of course on a more grassroots level, while capitalism (of the centre right variety) is gaining ground in the upper strata of society. And there are people like myself. Sometimes we are defined as Social Liberals, Third Way Centrists, or Radical Centrists. For simplification, I will use these terms interchangeably here.
