A new report by the World Bank evaluates the details of the usefulness of violent conflict for imposing the neoliberal program. The report compares and contrasts the macroeconomic situations in countries with and without violent conflict.
Approximately 20% of the world’s poor live in conflict zones, a statistic which already reveals the advantages of violent crisis for neoliberal progress.
The World Bank questioned its collaborators in countries experiencing violent instability and in countries without such conditions. 64% of respondents in conflict zones felt their countries ‘were moving in the right direction, only 51% agreed in non-conflict zones’.
World Bank collaborators, what they refer to as “stakeholders”, saw greater opportunities for neoliberal conquest in the areas of energy, agriculture, transport, and privatization of state enterprises and assets in countries of violent crisis than in countries without bloody conflict.
It is worth noting that Citadel Capital (now Qalaa Holdings), on behalf of foreign investors, has focused its investments in precisely these areas. You can deduce from this that the global imperial powers view violent instability in Egypt as desirable.
(Originally published December 16, 2014)