Libya Versus the Global Economy

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Jason Pack

Published:

2022

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

This chapter investigates the Libyan economy, its global linkages, and its mirroring of the impact of broken post-statist economies on the functioning of Western democracies, international institutions, and multinational corporations. It starts by adumbrating the various myths that exist in the foreign policy and business communities concerning Libya and the impact that multinational corporations and the globalisation of neo-liberal capitalism are "supposed to have" on post-statist economies. This chapter explores how the unique features of the Libyan economy were constructed by Qadhafi primarily to be able to defeat internal accountability/scrutiny. As a by-product, they later developed the ability to take advantage of the global capitalist order and use foreign companies against the national interests of the countries they come from. Qadhafian structures were not actually inefficient when judged against their expressed goals. They simply were not created to maximize profit and avoid loss. Rather, they were constructed to maintain political control and avoid scrutiny--tasks they performed admirably--and they were bequeathed en masse to the post-Qadhafian world without meaningful reform.

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