Can Lebanon Function Better Without A State? – OpEd |
By Nadim Shehadi
For the last six years, Lebanese society has survived without functioning state institutions and even without banks. If anything, the state has, in the past decade, been more of a liability than an asset. The country’s economic and financial collapse was largely due to the dysfunctional state accumulating debt, draining resources and refusing to acknowledge any responsibility. If anything has been achieved since, it was despite the state, not thanks to it.
Yet the government is about to issue a financial gap law, throwing the main burden of the financial crisis on the banks and their depositors — and consequently on the Lebanese economy and society. The supposed aim is to rebuild the state and preserve its assets. This is like punishing the survivors and finishing them off.
The financial crisis of 2019, the Beirut port explosion of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis and the consequences of the war with Israel have all been dealt with practically without any help from the state. This was not by choice. Lebanon has had to accommodate and survive with a semi-paralyzed state practically since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005 — if not before.
In the last year, the country imported about $17 billion of goods without recourse to letters of credit issued by local banks. Ask any lawyer and they will tell you that most of their work has consisted of resolving disputes through arbitration with less and........