THE BARRIER TO EGYPT'S 'SURGE FORWARD'

...He is the author of "Israel and rhe Palestine Arabs," published by the Middle East Institute...

...Until that time, government will be managed by groups of professionals acting through bodies such as the recently elected National Congress of Popular Forces...

...Until the new High Nile Dam is completed at Aswan—ten or more years from now—there is little possibility of greatly increasing farm output, for most arable land is now in maximum production...

...Subdivision of land would do little to increase productivity or to redistribute income effectively, for there is just not enough farm land available to provide most peasants with a viable income...

...Another indication of the government's growing awareness of this decisive obstacle to its success was the first public symposium in May on family planning sponsored by the Egyptian Medical Association...

...At present about a fifth of national income is supplied by industry and a third by agriculture...

...But the government even acquired some control of the latter through limiting the amount of stock to be held by any individual...

...Since July it has been raised again, to 100 per cent on income above 10,000 pounds...

...But even this expansion of agricultural output will barely enable the nation to maintain even current living standards, low as they are, for ¦Egypt's birth rate is one of the world's highest—last year there was a net increase of 800,000 in a total population of 27,000,000...

...It was this "revolutionary surge forward" that sparked the Syrian revolution two months later, in September, 1961...

...Amendment of the 1949 income tax scale, substantially increasing rates in the upper brackets up to ninety per cent tax on income exceeding 10,000 pounds per year...

...The plans will in crease both industrial and agricultural production, but the ratio of industry and agriculture will change...

...Some observers in Cairo maintain that Nasser had given serious consideration to family planning, but that it was still too early to publicize any plans...

...In a recent speech Nasser pointed out that in 1952 the private sector had invested not more than 2.2 million Egyptian pounds in industry whereas forty-four times that amount was invested during 1960, mostly by government...

...Only after economic and social conditions have improved can there be genuine political democracy...

...Professor Mason concluded that the country's "revolutionary surge forward," while the most effective course under existing conditions, could not solve the problem of Egypt's population explosion within the framework of its limited resources...

...This means that its 27,000,000 people must live from the production of an arable area the size of Maryland...

...By 1970 industry's share will increase to a third, while agriculture will provide only a quarter...

...Unless Egypt can solve its population problem, the seemingly radical measures which have been adopted to deal with her growing economic pressures are unlikely to produce a revolutionary change during the next decade, although they may hold living standards at their present level...

...The conference recommended that studies be continued of ways to develop cheap, effective contraceptives, and to further establishment of family planning clinics in the villages...

...The only really extensive socialist action taken before 1956 was the 1952 agrarian reform limiting land holdings to a 200-acre maximum, fixing a minimum wage lor hired farm labor, a rent ceiling on agriDON PERETZ, long a student of the Middle East, is currently embarked on an intensive survey of conditions in that area...

...By the end of 1957, the Economic Organization was not only managing dozens of seized companies but had begun to establish government-owned and operated industrial, agricultural, commercial, financial, and other enterprises...

...According to President Nasser there were few "progressive" capitalists, that is, those who were willing to further national policy...

...In striking contrast, the Egyptian working man had received only twenty-five per cent before the revolution, and while there has been some slight progress since, today he receives only 27.5 per cent...

...A recent census showed that Egypt's population was 2,000,000 more than previously estimated by experts...

...The provisions for minimum agricultural wages and maximum rents were frequently evaded because of the huge labor surplus and severe land shortages...

...The total amount of land taken from large owners now came to 750,000 acres...

...When divided among the half-million or so industrial workers, the income which formerly went to the small group of plant owners (about twelve per cent of national income) will contribute little to an increase of living standards...

...national capitalism, ten...

...Therefore the government felt justified in "guiding" business toward "social interest and to prevent capitalism from exploiting both the individual and society...

...The original purpose was merely to "Egyptian-ize" the economy, that is, to turn over to local entrepreneurs the many firms which had been in non-Egyptian hands...

...Despite the strongly centralized revolutionary government and its growing control over all aspects of national life, those who know public opinion assert that until now no one has had the prestige or the power to persuade the people that there are benefits to be enjoyed from family planning...

...Foreign commerce and trade fell almost completely into government hands as a result of state controls over cotton exports and all imports...

...Nasser renounces the class struggle and defends private ownership of small landholdings, such as the two to five acre plots acquired by peasants after the land reform, and of industry "within the framework of the socialist revolution...

...Jordan's King Hussein, Arabia's Saud, and the Sudan's General Abboud have made some form of socialism as much a part of their political vocabulary as was the struggle against imperialism a decade ago...

...Reduction by fifty per cent of the installments and interest owed by farmers who received land allocated by the government under the land reform...

...In the rural sector increased population will absorb what moderate increases can be attained in agricultural production...

...Because they cannot obtain a fair share of their work by other means, it is common practice for laborers to filch materials from factories, for clerks to juggle accounts, and for managers to bribe their way through to a favorable contract...

...Furthermore, there is great doubt about the extent to which such advice can yet be absorbed by the public...

...Arab socialist fervor gathered momentum following the "revolutionary surge forward" during July, 1961, when Cairo published a spate of decrees whose most drastic impact fell on the urban middle and upper classes in both Egypt and Syria...

...Most, according to him, were mere "speculators" interested only in exorbitant profits...

...It is this great dilemma of a skyrocketing population and only moderate economic growth that gave rise to President Gamal Nasser's program for Arab socialism, and to the five and ten year plans now guiding the country's economy...

...Popular pressure, too, strongly favored even Nasser's socialism...

...Egypt's real revolution will begin when its leaders can effectively carry out extensive family planning, and achieve an annual rate of economic growth greater than the rate of population increase which currently frustrates any progress...

...Compared to Israel, where most agricultural land is held by governmental or quasi-governmental organizations, Egypt is still very much a private enterprise society, although one in which no individual can any longer gain political power or influence by virtue of his property...

...Most peasants remained tenant sharecroppers or hired farm workers, receiving between twelve and twenty-five cents a day for their work...

...Agricultural income now averages about $60 per capita...

...Efforts to direct the private sector into productive investment failed, largely because of mutual mistrust and the traditional reluctance of those with money to place it in long-term, risk-taking ventures...

...As a result, the President recently decided to lay the problem before the Congress of Popular Forces with this comment: "This year we have added to our number 800,000 persons, may God bless them...

...Since Arabs are not materialistic, like Westerners, he asserted, their socialism must be adapted to their own peculiar needs and experiences...

...When questioned about the theory and aims of his socialist policy, President Nasser said: "Ours is a new Arab type of socialism—not Marxian, nor like that of any other European...

...However, the greatest beneficiary will be the small proportion of industrial employes...

...university teachers, six...

...In any case, the primary intent of the land law was political, not economic...

...cultural holdings, and establishing the first effective peasant cooperatives...

...In the Soviet Union, Nasser has pointed out, a worker receives approximately sixty-five per cent of the product of his labor, and even more in the United States...

...The private sector was left with only a few relatively unimportant industries such as beer, wine, retail outlets, and some small-scale enterprises...

...Even inquiries about, to say nothing of interference with, such intimacies is deeply resented...

...During the past decade there have been experiments in some forty "family planning centers," but they supply only a fraction of the services and advice required to propagate a genuine population control program...

...students, seven...

...Per capita national income may— hopefully—grow from about $100 to about $160...

...unorganized labor, nine...

...Most property in Egypt—which means farmland—is still in private hands...

...Egypt already has a dozen cities of more than 100,000...

...Government acquisition of a minimum of fifty per cent of the shares in ninety-one companies and organizations, mostly in contracting, tobacco, cotton ginning, textile and other manufactures...

...Mason will doubtless recommend further outlays of American aid to tide Egypt over the next decade, since its people are not yet ready for an extensive population control program...

...Farmers will remain the lowest paid...

...Indeed, the Syrian counter-coup in March was a revolt against "reactionary" attempts to amend the socialist decrees...

...Amendment of the 1952 agrarian reform by lowering from 200 to 100 acres the agricultural area any one individual may own...

...But the proportion of laborers in industry and agriculture will remain about the same...

...Limitation of 10,000 Egyptian pounds on the participation of any individual in the share capital of 159 major companies...

...Then, according to Nasser, workers and peasants will be guaranteed fifty per cent of the seats in parliament...

...Its membership is divided as follows: Peasants, 251...

...It is still difficult to bypass the many administrative and bureaucratic operations required to obtain a building permit, to import machinery, or to obtain foreign currency for purchasing some vital raw material from abroad...

...Reduction of the working day to seven hours and the working week to forty-two hours...

...As one Syrian leader told me, "We are adopting Nasserism without Nasser...

...Frequently vital documents are waylaid by a minor clerk for weeks...

...Today only four per cent of the country's nearly 400,000 square miles is cultivated...

...Present methods of contraception are far too complex to be used effectively by the average villager...

...Few local capitalists had either the funds or the inclination to take over the government-operated firms...

...Since March most modifications made by the previous Syrian government in Nasser's socialist legislation have been abrogated...

...These ill effects of "cheating the worker" diminish the chances of success of revolutionary reforms, particularly of industrialization, for low-paid factory employes too often succumb to illicit offers to supplement their miserable salaries...

...Nevertheless, population pressure has become so great that it threatens to destroy any benefits from Nasser's revolutionary surge forward...

...Limitation of the number of directors in any corporation to a maximum of seven, two of them to be elected as representatives of employes and workers...

...trade unions, fifteen...

...Even the modest goals set by Nasser's long-range planners are only theoretical, and there is great doubt about the extent to which they can be fully realized because of administrative and bureaucratic obstacles...

...Provision for twenty-five per cent of all corporate profits to be distributed among workers, of which ten per cent was to be paid as a cash bonus and fifteen per cent to be used for workers' social services...

...If one includes the value of this land among the productive factors of society, less than ten per cent of the nation's total economy is in government hands...

...These are obvious to anyone who has had to deal with an Egyptian government office...

...A ceiling of 5,000 pounds on the total salaries, allowances, and other remuneration to be received by any individual from either government or private institutions...

...No count has been made of the number of owners who were relieved of their property or of those with incomes in the upper brackets, but it is believed to be fewer than 10,000...

...The political objective of Nasser's new Arab socialism is to increase democracy through a gradual extension of popular participation in government...

...The original maximum was eighty per cent on income above 30,000 pounds...

...The monumental proportions of Egypt's economic problems are underscored by comparing its rate of population growth with its sparse land resources...

...The simplest operation seems to require innumerable pieces of paper which must be signed and countersigned by several individuals...

...Successful completion of the ten-year plan will raise per capita farm income a mere fifteen per cent, while in the industrial sector it will be increased by nearly eighty per cent...

...Despite the vagueness of Egypt's revolutionary objectives, its slogans have so captured the popular imagination that every Arab political leader today espouses some form of "socialism...

...Cairo's population has increased from 2,000,000 in 1947 to more than 3,500,000, and projected housing and industrial expansion cannot cope with the growth...

...The reform affected only some ten per cent of the country's cultivated land, deprived about 1,200 owners of property, and resulted in distribution of land to less than ten per cent of the landless and small farmers...

...Its chief purpose was to destroy the great power of the landowning class which had dominated the old regime...

...Most of the monied class much preferred to buy land or high-priced luxury buildings which would guarantee a large and quick return on their investment...

...Under existing development plans expanded industry will be able to absorb only a small number of the surplus rural peasantry...

...The effect of the July Decrees was to nationalize completely all large Egyptian private enterprise outside the agricultural sector, more than eighty-five per cent of all business and industry...

...But we cannot go on at this rate...

...Arab socialism did not emerge from any specifically identifiable doctrine known to Western political theorists, but evolved as a pragmatic approach to Egypt's complex of economic and social ills...

...Nor will industrialization solve the dilemma...

...Restriction to fifty acres as the maximum amount of land any individual may acquire or lease in addition to land already owned...

...Their goal is to double national income by 1970...

...Nor did the RCC's relations with Egyptian capitalists encourage cooperation...

...At present, he believes, there can be no free voting because poverty stricken peasants are not free agents...

...The British, French, and Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956 provided the occasion for further socialization of the economy: Property belonging to foreigners was seized in retaliation for the attack...

...Completion of the Aswan dam will make it possible to expand existing agricultural productivity by about a third through extending the cultivated area and making more water available for already existing farms...

...In any case, state concern with such family matters enters an area traditionally sacrosanct in Eastern life...

...Soon, however, the young RCC officers realized that their initial slogan—discipline, unity, work—was inadequate, and by 1955 a new revolutionary creed was proclaimed, to make Egypt into a "democratic, socialist, cooperative society...

...While the officers of the Syrian anti-Nasser group and the civilians they installed in power were strongly represented by members of Syria's leading industrial and commercial families, the new Damascus government dared not discard the socialist legislation imposed by Cairo during the previous several months...

...The tax and salary measures eliminated the possibility of a comeback by private business, either from the previously dominant classes, or from some new emerging group...

...Arab socialism aims to increase the share of the Egyptian laborer in his contribution to productivity...

...Draconic as Nasser's measures may seem to the casual observer, their economic effect is likely to be far less radical than their social and political implications...

...For one thing, I he Economic Organization had become a colossus with which most private operators feared to compete...

...The Barrier to Egypt's Surge Forward by DON PERETZ The greatest dilemma confronting revolutionary Egypt in reconstructing its national society was recently brought to public attention by the Cairo visit of Harvard economist Edward S. Mason, one of President Kennedy's principal economic advisers...

...workers, twenty...

...Like the 1952 agrarian reform, the July Decrees affected only a few thousand of Egypt's 27,000,000 people...

...Many Moslems believe there are Islamic religious prohibitions against birth control, although a few years ago and again recently one of the country's highest religious dignitaries asserted that birth control does not conflict with Islamic teachings...

...The government set up the Economic Organization to manage the vast French, British, and Jewish sequestered properties—mostly banks, industries, and other urban commercial and trading firms...

...But the heart of Egypt's problem is its population explosion...

...Neither socialization of the economy and redistribution of its profits nor the maximum effort of which Egypt is capable in expanding industrial and agricultural productivity will perceptibly raise general living standards in other than the small industrial sector...

...From right to left in the Arab political spectrum the socialist slogan is a sine qua non for success...

...When the army took over the country in 1952, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) had no program for extensive social and economic change, but only a desire to institute an honest and efficient government...

...and women's organizations, seventy-one...

...Even when profits from formerly free enterprise are invested by government to expand Egypt's industry and trade, per capita national income will not rise immediately...

...Egyptian productivity and income distribution have changed little as a result of placing most of the major non-agrarian property under public instead of private control...

...Each of the succession of new Syrian governments which replaced the United Arab Republic in Damascus last September has claimed that "Arab socialism" is among its objectives...

...Although burgeoning population is a dominant factor in braking Egypt's economic progress, it has not, until recently, entered significantly into public discussion of government planning...

...Now the annual rate of population increase is about three per cent, but qualified observers fear it may rise to eight per cent in a few years...

...Such a meager reward for his efforts long ago undermined the worker's integrity and self-respect, and engendered a vicious cycle of bribery, corruption, and malfeasance...

...At present the economy is directed within a detailed five-year plan and a somewhat more general ten-year plan...

...The principal measures of the "July Decrees" were: ¶ Nationalization of all banks and insurance companies as well as fifty companies of a "national character," mainly transport, timber, metal, cement, land and hotels, and some chemical and fertilizer plants...