The paper focuses its analysis on thelast three decades of the twentieth century. The basicassumption is that Egypt's economic performance duringthis period was less than satisfactory compared with themost successful examples in the far East and elsewhere. Thepaper also assumes that Egypt's initial conditions atmidcentury compared favorably with the winners in thedevelopment race at the end of the century. Egypt hasachieved positive progress, no doubt, yet compared with thehigher performers in Asia, and given its favorable goodinitial conditions, the record seems quite mediocre. Bymid-twentieth century, Egypt's agriculture had almostreached its limits. Egypt, therefore, faced a new challenge:a need to transform itself into an industrial society. Thisobjective was only partially achieved. The paper identifiesthree interrelated factors that helped hinder Egypt'saccession to a new industrial society. The first factor is astrong state and a weak society. An authoritarian state thatin its endeavor to preserve its prerogatives had to give upgood governance practices and limit the creative initiativeof the individuals. The second factor is a semi-rentiereconomy. The availability of windfall revenues not onlyreduced the pressure for change but also promoted a newrentier mentality that undermined the emergence of anindustrial spirit. The third factor is an inadequateeducation system. This system failed to provide the properskills and values required for the industrial society. Thesefactors, moreover, are interdependent and reinforce each other.
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