Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Isn't 2/3rds of a country not remembering a time when they were free to speak their mind in public a good enough reason?
If despotism alone were enough to generate revolution there would be a lot fewer despots in the world.

In an urban environment with a large number of economically marginal residents the price of food is always a key issue, and it's been a major concern for despots for a long time: one recalls the Roman emperors placating the masses with bread and circuses, and Marie Antoinette's infamous "let them eat cake".

Micro is what it's all about: urban insurrections involve a very small percentage of the population. Overall employment rates mean less than the ability to absorb young people coming into the labor force, and GDP growth has little impact on the ability of poor people to put food in their stomachs or the ability of the government to supply cheap food.

Cairo had bread riots when wheat prices spiked in 2008, but the time wasn't yet ripe for expansion to full revolt. This time around it was different. Wheat prices spiked in 2008 and 2011; Cairo had rioting in the streets in 2008 and threw out a government in 2011... no relationship?

Of course resentment toward dictatorship is an underlying cause, but specific economic conditions play a major part in translating that general resentment into action. National unemployment may have been up, but it wasn't up among the mass of young urban males who compose the Twitterless footsoldiers of the revolution. Bread prices made a difference, and they will be a factor in the effort to produce a stable transition.