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How Entrepreneurs Led the Way to Revolution in Egypt

Image by Al Jazeera English via Flickr

Yale Law School professor Ian Ayres has posted both a blog article at The New York Times and an opinion piece at Politico, cowritten with his fellow professor Jonathan Macey, arguing convincingly that the rise of entrepreneurship in Egypt opened the way to the wave of change that has just swept that nation. How? Economic liberalization by President Hosni Mubarak over the past five years reduced the price of starting a new business from more than $11,000 to $250, made incorporation much easier, and altogether raised Egypt to the world’s eighteenth easiest country to start a business in, according to the World Bank. This led to unprecedented economic growth, new prosperity, and a burgeoning middle class that expected, and then demanded, that democratic reform accompany economic reform.

In the Times blog, Ayres goes so far as to say that he and Macey saw it all coming. He points to a 2005 article in which they wrote that “economic reform will bring increased pressure for democratization in countries such as Egypt and Syria.” The two write in their Politico piece, “If Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad cares more about retaining power than the welfare of his people, he would be advised not to follow Mubarak’s lead in opening the door to entrepreneurial democracy.”

Read the Times piece here and the Politico article here.