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back to article North Africa will need more revolution before it attracts IT tourists

Woo Hoo! Tens of millions of well-educated, young and above all, cheap workers for the capitalists among us to go and exploit! Quick, quick, get out the airline schedule and book that seat to Tunis, or Cairo or – coming soon no doubt – Algiers. Money money money, it's a capitalist world! pyramidinvestnorthafrica Hmm, what, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Comment without an IT angle

    So, how would one go about destroying a bureaucracy? I mean, it exists for Reasons, originally because it seemed a good idea at the time and later because of rampant self-importance and related traits. How do you keep the good it does (if any, and what might that be?) while getting rid of the bad? How would you do it? And no, armed revolt or revolution are not acceptable answers for this excercise.

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    1. Ted Treen
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Hmmm

      Bureaucracies are rather like matter: they cannot be destroyed but can only be changed from one form to another.

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  2. jonathan keith
    Grenade

    Marvellous

    No, really, it's wonderful that an attempt by a people to free themselves from oppression is viewed simply as an opportunity to exploit them instead. Well done! You must feel so proud.

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    1. No, I will not fix your computer
      Reply Icon
      Megaphone

      Re: Marvellous

      Like it or not, that is one angle, you have another, here is a third;

      Mubarak has made sure that religion and politics are separate, it is not too much of a stretch that the stability that Mubarak has brought to Egypt exists partly because of it (regardless of policies), once a "real" democracy (or even republic) is in place then religious based groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood could weild power and then Egypt will become a different place, perhaps with less tolerance for "western" cultures (destroying the tourist inductry) and more legal pressure for supression of womens rights.

      Perhaps, and like I'm saying, it's just another angle, Mubarak is the lesser of two evils.

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    2. Bobchinski
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      Missing Tim's point a bit

      He is trying to say that while they [the Egyptian people] can remove an autocrat and potentially increase their political freedom, the country and its people will see very little improvement unless they become more economically liberal.

      Essentially, Egypt (and seemingly the whole of North Africa) is potentially on the cusp of social, political and economic golden age, assuming they can remove/reduce the bureaucracy.

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  3. Richard Gadsden

    Re: comment without an IT angle

    How do you manage a bureaucracy?

    Keep the corruption down. If Microsoft can't bribe a bureaucrat to expedite their application beyond the normal 500-day wait, they'll bribe a politician to reduce the wait to two weeks, and everyone will benefit from that.

    This is the basic difference between the First World bureaucracies and the Third World bureaucracies; it's much harder to get special favours through a bribe, and actually easier to get the whole system changed.

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  4. Angus McIonnach
    Megaphone

    Shame on you Tim

    What if Egyptians were to read your article? They might cut away all that bureaucracy, and then Evil Western capitalists could inflict well-paid middle-class IT jobs on unemployed young people.

    What Egyptians want is to live in a country with no jobs or food - the perfect breeding ground for liberal democracy.

    -posted from my laptop, that arrived by magic without the aid of capitalism, so I could vicariously cheerlead brave revolutionaries while making sure they stay poor and jobless.

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  5. Tron Silver badge

    Feel free....

    ...to sink your money there.

    Egypt is 90% muslim. Remove the autocrat and you may get democracy. Political Islam isn't renowned for its moderation. It may soon be a bad place to be a Coptic Christian (the 10%) or a Westerner. With that % of the vote, the constitution can be tweaked. Only a short hop to the next Iran with all the women dressed like the ghosts in Pac Man. Have fun working in your Cairo office, especially when the sanctions kick in and a few rumbustious spats with Israel kick off.

    Or you could invest in China. All the stability of a dictatorship, the govt. censoring the net, carefully checking everything you do, suspicious that your company are Western spies and of course, all the tiresome butthurt at home when the law demands you support the regime's own particular take on political correctness and surrender someone up for posting something on a blog.

    Maybe better to stick with the UK. Another few years and they'll be cutting back on unions, removing the humanities from the university system, abolishing most health and safety and the welfare state, and instituting private workhouse/prison combos, because, damn it, we just can't afford not to, financial crisis etc., the bottom line, must balance the budget. The economy: worship it or the sky will fall in.

    Always amuses me the streak of cruelty of the business classes, so badly disguised as amorality and fiscal prudence. I hope their kids learn from ma and pa. Remember it, youngsters, and when your parents are old and going a bit alzy, mete out an appropriate level of compassion by putting them in a cheap home. I'm sure they will approve that those caring for them will be on minimum wage. I mean, you have to protect the bottom line. No room for sentimentality.

    Of course if they are well insured, you could even realise your asset and release some equity with a nudge downstairs. Because in the end, it's the money that matters, isn't it? Once they've ceased to be a viable economic unit, they're just a drain on your resources. Looked at that way, it is the logical, sensible and economically astute thing to do. And if they've lived their lives with their focus on the bottom line, surely they'd understand and even agree that you are doing the right thing. Although perhaps best not to warn them before you give them a push, just in case, eh? Couldn't happen to nicer people.

    1 1
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Sign me up

      "Maybe better to stick with the UK. Another few years and they'll be cutting back on unions, removing the humanities from the university system, abolishing most health and safety and the welfare state"

      Excellent news.

      A more prosperous place for my grandchildren. So where do I sign up?

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  6. Tim Almond
    Go

    Economic Freedom

    jonathan keith,

    "No, really, it's wonderful that an attempt by a people to free themselves from oppression is viewed simply as an opportunity to exploit them instead."

    I'm sure the people in Egypt would hate earning more than they currently do.

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    1. jonathan keith
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      Money

      I've got no objection to Egyptians making a better living for themselves. But that's the point. For themselves, as opposed to ridding themselves of one lot of venal bastards just so they can work 18 hours a day for pennies on behalf of another bunch of venal bastards.

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  7. despairing citizen
    Happy

    An object lesson in Off-Shoring

    Think of all the money you can save, until;

    1. The government switches off the international land lines

    2. The low paid workers decide to attend the riot instead of the call centre

    3. The workers decide to burn down the western capatlist/crusader (delete as applicable) call centre

    4. The two biggest crooks in the country (president and his son) decide to use your corporate customer info for a bit of insider trading, for which you get blamed by the SEC

    ETC. (i.e. all the other stuff the BPO consultant fails to mention on risk management)

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  8. John Sturdy

    Meanwhile north of the Med....

    Meanwhile north of the Med, the EU are piling up more and more regulations against productivity: a levelling measure towards a "social Europe", because the regulations only affect those who are trying to do something productive, and not those who sit around on subsidies.

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  9. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Re Re: Marvellous

    Can we think of any other countries where a small minority of religous conservatives manage to pass laws while being all democratic?

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  10. Clyde

    economic fascism

    "True economic fascism in fact: no, not using it as a pejorative, but as a straight description of that combination of big government, big business and big unions that makes up the system."

    Perfect description of the UK in recent years.

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