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10 without work contracts, social security, retirement or union rights. The concept of the employee is disappearing, outside the public sector and government. There, social rights have been maintained and so jobs are coveted, especially by women, but openings are rare, because of the “structural adjustment” policies required by government spending cuts. The labour market is also fragmented by massive migration, both permanent (Palestinians, Iraqis or Somalis fleeing war) and temporary (mainly Asian), where migrants’ economic and social rights are eroded, because the exploitation of migrant labour is now a source of revenue. When the generation of the Arab demographic boom reached working age in the 2000s, connected by the new internet culture, the base toppled the summit in Tunisia and Egypt, and the entire social structure was shaken. People have been surprised by the many demands, social and otherwise, released by the revolution. Arab countries now have to rebuild the constitutional state, where power is finite and subject to institutions, instead of levitating above them. Government-dependent sources of revenue will have to be dismantled, as will monopolies, to release entrepreneurial energy. There will have to be states that guarantee public and social freedoms for all, so that workers have rights, and the states will have to be accountable, based on social consensus. It isn’t going to be easy, because the world, including Europe, isn’t going that way. Samir Aita is editor of the Arabic editions of Le Monde diplomatique and the author of Les travailleurs arabes hors-la-loi, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2011 (1) See Samir Radwan and Manuel Riesco, “The Changing Role of the State”, Economic Research Forum, 2007. (2) Read Salam Kawakibi and Bassma Kodmani, “To shoot, or not to shoot?”, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, March 2011. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025619