4 - Old Society, New Society

Summary

From early on, the Free Officers emphasised that the revolution was a social as well as an economic and political revolution that aimed to create a ‘new society’. According to this narrative, the 1952 revolution was a social revolution in the sense that it would bring social justice – equity and equality of opportunity for all Egyptians. Following the formal transition to socialism during the early 1960s, this revolution was also supposed to change the structural base of society by creating a classless society. In such a utopian society, social solidarity would allow social cooperation that would mend previous social problems. This chapter asks the following questions: To what extent did social engineering – the state role in socio-economic development through the formal expansion of the social contract – bring social change to Egypt, and what kind of change? Put differently, what transitions did the promised ‘fruits of the revolution’ bring to Egyptian society, and to which classes within society? And how did the new society differ from the old?

To respond to these questions, this chapter evaluates social change along three class lines: peasants and workers, or lower-class Egyptians; the middle class; and upper-class Egyptians. It investigates pre- and post-revolutionary transitions among these social classes, throughout the period 1952–70. The chapter first evaluates the notion of a new Nasserite elite and argues that this new elite embraced much of the earlier effendi vision of good government and governance. It then investigates how hierarchies of state redistribution schemes – the state's universal as opposed to progressive social policies and economic development schemes – benefited each social group. Central to the analysis here is an examination of the development of ‘middle society’ following the revolution. This middle society included the lower and middle echelons of urban, educated and often state-employed Egyptians. It also included organised labour, now incorporated into the newly emerging public sector, and middle-size landowners/peasants. The chapter discusses how, rather than helping the peasants and workers most in need, or creating a classless society, the effendi social contract mostly benefited middle society.