Lebanon in 2035 … Predictions

Antoine Fata
Akhbar Al-Yom News Agency
(Translated from Arabic)

After decades of a bloated economic prosperity in Lebanon, of money supplies based on grants and loans, of an economy of individual initiatives by anyone, of an economy that is open and allowed to anyone, and where “the crammed house is suitable to a million friends”, what are the prospects for the future? Let’s look at where we’ll be, say, in 2035.

Sustainable collapse?

A source highly familiar with the Lebanese economy says that “Lebanon’s economic future is somewhat complicated. What we need first is a new banking sector because the present one is nearly on its death bed in the midst of a failure to lay down any plan to either restructure the sector or for any other matter whatsoever. The country needs a banking sector that is able to deal with unforeseen circumstances with flexibility.”

In a conversation with Akhbar Al-Yom Agency, the source asserted that “the market factors will impose themselves and decide whether or not the new banking sector will be able to offer loans for all needs, as was the case previously. The important thing is for the banking sector not to become entangled, again, in a rentier economy in disguise. Otherwise, the elements of collapse will become sustainable.”

Change Starts with the Economy

The source warned that the “risk of rentier economies lies in the fact that they are able to renew themselves in certain conditions and countries through some of the reforms themselves, in parallel with attempts at change and transformation. The easiest way to eliminate or reduce those risks is to seriously work on increasing economic productivity, to incentivize the new generation to work and produce, to understand the value of every penny, and to be ready to undertake any type of work in the domestic economy. Otherwise, there is no point in hoping for a new country with a new economy in, say, another decade from now.”

The source added, “A significant segment of the Lebanese active force is not willing to work in agriculture, or in industry for that matter, arguing that this or that type of work should be left to the Syrians or foreigners in general. This means that in theory we live in a sick economy.

It is in fact this same reason that will cause many factories to close, leading to the loss of many foreign investments in Lebanon in the future, even if the right environment to attract them is made available at a certain point. This portends the failure to create a productive Lebanese economy in this case.”

The source concluded, “We need major political change. But to begin with, this needs a new administration, a new finance. The real change that Lebanon badly needs only begins with the economy and finance.”

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[Lebanon Iznogood comments]:

The Lebanese economy relies primarily on money that expatriates send or bring with them. There is a system in place whereby people, encouraged by their state and religious institutions:

- Provide a good education to their children in three foreign languages [Arabic, French, English; yes, Arabic is a dead foreign language, like Latin in western countries; ask any school age student!] and basic science and math for the specific purpose of sending them abroad because the country does not have the infrastructure or the social-economic framework to provide jobs for these over-qualified children. That is what the opinion above refers to when it says that the young Lebanese do not want to work in agriculture or industry.

- The local economy can only offer jobs in managerial or service sectors. Every young Lebanese dreams of becoming a manager in some institution for the rest of their lives, and these jobs are few and far between.

- There is also a stigma to educated Lebanese working with their hands. Such crafts are considered menial and are left for the lower classes.

- Farming in general is also considered a lowly type of work to be left for peasants in the villages. Even though most Lebanese hail from peasant backgrounds, the consumerism of our time has rendered the Lebanese arrogant: Why work to live when I can buy to live?

- The expatriated young Lebanese send money to their families who generally live better off on these foreign currency inputs. All the fancy cars that you see on the roads belong to people who live off their expatriated family members or who are employed by state institutions where endemic corruption allows them to live at higher standards than the average individual.

- But this cycle has over time allowed a decaying administration and economy to survive artificially. It would be difficult to ask those expatriates to stop sending money to their families in order to starve this diseased economy. So the cycle goes on and on.

- The young Lebanese must change their outlook, and the state must enable the rise of a middle class of technicians, farmers, craftsmen etc. Not everyone should seek a college education, but rather – as in the German model - train as highly-skilled technicians with decent salaries and social protections who can then elevate the economy to the standards of all the successful economies we see in the West.