Food Crises and Revolt

• In Event: 1248 - The Curse of Resources: Commodifying Development, Developing Commodities

Abstract

In this book chapter the global food price hikes of 2007-2008 and 2011 are outlined and the immediate impacts and responses in Egypt are highlighted. In the wake of the 2007-2008 food crisis the growing neoliberal consensus was that food subsidies in Egypt (and beyond) are the cause of food insecurity and political instability. The ‘subsidy reform’ agenda re-surfaced all while prior to 2007 food subsidies had dwindled and a corporate agri-food system had grown. After the 2011 uprising and the popular unrest that spread to various countries around the world, the neoliberal reform agenda shifts to supporting the dismantling of this public entitlement so that in effect populations can not make claims on the state. The neoliberal subsidy agenda in the face of these twin crises of global capitalism offers a lens on the pre-alignment of neoliberals with the counter-revolutionary, authoritarian wave in Egypt and elsewhere from 2014 onward.

Author

• Marion W Dixon, Point Park University