At the fish market along Egypt’s coasts, the scenes of commercial activity may appear primitive, but in reality, they represent one of the most highly professional economic systems, despite its age-old nature. Boats arrive from the sea and line up at the market’s water entrance in the order of their arrival. At six in the morning, the supply process begins for the wholesale trader, with the privilege given to the captain of the first boat to set the price for each box of fish, within reasonable limits, of course, but he always has the final say. Then it’s the turn of the second boat, which must lower its price slightly compared to the first, as it arrived later, assuming the goods have not yet been fully introduced to the market. This process continues until the end of the workday.
Next comes the role of the sellers, who purchase fish from the market in another highly disciplined scene. The wholesale trader uses a bidding system to distribute his stock, acquired from the boats. Sellers bid against each other based on their assessment of consumer demand and purchasing power, all while competing to secure the best fish at the lowest price. This scene is free from any bureaucratic interference that might disrupt its fluidity or distort its fairness. However, they are all human, with their virtues and flaws, and some collusion is inevitable. What’s remarkable about this seemingly primitive system is that the market remains open and adaptable, capable of self-correction. For instance, if the market becomes corrupt, a seller might buy directly from a boat, turn to another market, or simply substitute local fish with cheaper imported alternatives.
This is precisely how a free-market economy should function, based on the principles of private ownership of production means, individual initiative, and adherence to the dynamics of supply and demand and free competition, free from any monopolistic constraints. This does not, of course, mean abandoning the role of the state as a regulator of this market. However, this ideal and logical picture seems absent from the reality of Egypt’s economic mechanisms, which strive to achieve what is called market liberalisation but have yet to rise to the level of the ‘fish market’ system, often described as primitive.
In reality, since adopting free-market mechanisms, the Egyptian economy has fallen victim to a heavy legacy of socialist practices ingrained in the tools of its local economic kitchen. It seems our ‘chefs’ have yet to learn how to properly wash their dishes before serving their free-market meals to the economy. The result is a dish of strange flavours and lost identity, a mix of contradictory liberal measures accompanied by excessive interventions, rarely correct. Tariffs on the wrong goods, misdirected and poorly studied subsidies, and restrictions labelled as regulatory but rooted in bureaucracy. In truth, intervention for regulation is not rejected in a free-market economy, but it is unfortunate that those entrusted with this responsibility are the ‘dishwashers’ who failed to rid themselves of socialist remnants and were promoted to the rank of chefs.
However, all of the above falls within the realm of good intentions and the absence of deliberate harm to the public interest. What can be added to this uniquely Egyptian mix of market liberalisation, far from good intentions, is the crisis of transparency in what we claim to call a ‘free market’. What freedom are economic decision-makers in Egypt talking about, with their centralised, poorly studied decisions that are limited in addressing specific emergencies—or even non-emergencies—while lacking parliamentary approval for most of them? The real tragedy lies in the ability of these decisions and strategies to leak into the ears of the unscrupulous wealthy before anyone else, allowing them to become, overnight, the masters of this society stumbling along the path of market liberalisation.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.