اول العلاقات مع النفط: حسين عُوَيني والشبكة السعودية

Bidayat

Before Rafic Hariri, there was Hussein Oweini — the first Saudi-naturalized citizen to become Lebanon's prime minister.

عكس السير – القراءة السياسية للاقتصاد. سلطة المال وسلطة السياسة

Against the Current - A Political Reading of the Economy: The Power of Money and the Power of Politics

SifR

Reverse direction: the political reading of economics — the ruling class uses power to build its interests, and the state is a tool of accumulation, not development.

Ce n’est pas le multiconfessionnalisme, mais un système oligarchique qui gouverne le Liban – Interview Mediapart

It Is Not Multi-Confessionalism, but an Oligarchic System That Governs Lebanon - Mediapart Interview

Mediapart

An interview with Mediapart: it is not the confessional system that governs Lebanon but an oligarchy in which the political and capitalist classes have fused—and sectarianism is the ideal system for whitewashing everything.

Mamdouha Bobst Center for Peace and Justice – Princeton lecture

A Princeton lecture: neoliberalism banned "social justice" for a quarter century—and the Arab revolutions diagnosed the problem: unemployment, despotism, class inequality. No military solution to ISIS, only drying up its social sources.

Social Justice Lecture

A lecture: the Arab revolutions are a critique-in-practice of neoliberalism—the World Bank forgot about job creation, and "we are ruled by Ali Baba and the forty thieves—and they don't even reach forty."

Social Classes and Political Power in Lebanon

Heinrich Boll Stiftung

In Lebanon, where classes are denied, economic and political power intertwine in a rentier and sectarian system that deepens exploitation and leads to a "mafiocracy" increasing social polarization.

Social Justice is back? – Princeton lecture

Is social justice back? Neoliberalism banned it for a quarter century—and the Arab revolutions brought it back with "The people want": a return to the concepts of the national liberation phase.

القطيعة الاقتصادية السورية-اللبنانية بين محمد سعيد الزعيم وجبرائيل منسى الى ذكرى عصام الزعيم

The Syrian-Lebanese Economic Rupture Between Muhammad Said al-Za'im and Gabriel Menassa - In Memory of Issam al-Za'im

The "Common Interests" inherited from the Mandate led to a complete Syrian-Lebanese economic rupture, as the interests of two ruling bourgeoisies and conflicting economic visions overshadowed the potential for integration and mutual benefit.

Ethnonationalism and the Failed State: Sources of Civil State Fragmentation in the International Political Economy

Ethnonationalist conflicts stem not from ancient hatreds, but from modern state failures that rationally drive individuals towards ethnic and religious identities.

Do Collective Rights Contribute to Conflict Resolution? The case of Lebanon

Politicized sects are enlarged patronage networks shielding members from the market and covering predation—and the solution lies in the existing constitution: a Senate for sects, a non-sectarian House for citizens, plus social justice.

Saudi expansion: The Lebanese Connection (1924-1952)

Hussein 'Uwayni—the first "Saudi national" to govern Lebanon, four decades before Hariri—and through him the Kingdom penetrated Lebanese politics: wealth buys honor, and the regional broker makes prime ministers.

The financial-merchant oligarchy in Lebanon

The Consortium: thirty families ruled independent Lebanon — the Pharaon-Chiha Bank made the president, and Chiha's five sisters married into the oligarchy to protect wealth.

The Political Economy of Militia Control – Brown University

Wars have no sense but functions—Lebanese militias achieved the "supreme capitalist phantasm": profit without capital investment, through ten illegal ports and a mafia predation economy.

Lebanese Oligarchy

Lebanon's oligarchy: Pharaon-Chiha Bank manufactured Khuri's presidency and placed three-quarters of parliament on its payroll—and Michel Chiha was both banker and chief ideologue.

AHDR: a critique

300 books translated per year is an unreliable figure—and culture is used to mask neoliberal agendas: unemployment cannot be solved by translation but by productive economies. The Alexandria Charter is a shopping list, not a roadmap.

الطبقات الاجتماعية في لبنان

Social Classes in Lebanon

In Lebanon, the existence of social classes is denied through myths of exceptionalism and the externalization of poverty, while real structures of domination are obscured by politics, sectarianism, and neoliberal methodologies that invert the concept of justice.

هل يكون “الكازينو الدولي” بديلاً من العدالة الاجتماعية؟

Could the "International Casino" Replace Social Justice?

Bidayat

Can the "global casino" replace social justice? This piece critiques Friedrich von Hayek's neoliberal ideas and calls on the Arab left to reclaim the concepts of justice and equal opportunity it abandoned.

Zionism and Imperialism in the Middle East

New Left Review

A foundational 1969 paper: the fundamental contradiction combines Zionist colonialism and Western imperialism in one confrontation—and the national and class contradictions condense into one.