Ahmed Zahir Writes: “Money Without Vocation… How Does Luxury Arise from Emptiness?”

In a recent article, Ahmed Zahir wrote:

“Social class has always been a reflection of the nature of the economy. In agrarian societies, elites derived their power from land ownership and the ability to organize labor within it.

In pre-oil Libya, the social structure was influenced by this pattern. A powerful class of large landowners and locally influential families emerged, relying on traditional networks interwoven with tribal ties and an agricultural economy. Their dominance was rooted in controlling resources, not in controlling the state. But with the discovery of oil, everything changed.

Influence was no longer measured by land ownership or productive capacity, but by one’s position within the state apparatus or proximity to decision-making centers.

The economy shifted from a traditional productive base to a centralized rentier model. With that, the dominant class transitioned from one rooted in geography to one rooted in authority.

This transformation disrupted the class structure — not because the state became more equitable, but because it redefined the very sources of wealth and power.

Wealth no longer stemmed from labor or production, but from privileges, contracts, and public employment.

A new class emerged — not legitimized by history, lineage, or competence, but by access to the state or ability to maneuver within its orbit. This class, which may be termed the rentier bourgeoisie, did not evolve organically within the economy. Rather, it was a product of sudden financial surges caused by the influx of public funds from abroad.

Despite its recent rise, this class has not produced its own cultural model. Instead, it has borrowed the imagery of wealth from the old elite: displays of luxury, social symbols, relative isolation from society, and mimicry of central authority rather than local roots.

The key difference, however, is that the new bourgeoisie has no productive mission, nor does it derive legitimacy from an economic role. It merely redistributes what the state generates from rent.

It is a class that consumes wealth rather than creates it, imitating past elites without embodying their essence. It inherited the appearance of the elite, but not the substance of leadership. In essence, Libya has shifted from a land-based aristocracy to a state-based bourgeoisie — from the power of place to the power of privilege, from the logic of production to the logic of proximity.

This shift, however, did not pass through the natural stages of capitalist maturity, nor did it give rise to a true middle class or a stable culture of work. And because this transformation occurred without institutional foundations, it remained fragile and distorted.

Instead of establishing an upward-moving class structure, it merely reproduced social exclusion in new forms — exclusion based on occupation, region, or proximity to power, rather than merit or actual economic contribution.

Understanding this transformation is not just a matter of history, but of present reality. Every current struggle over power and wealth, every fragmentation in national identity, and every fragility in the social contract, is rooted in this unbalanced class shift.

Therefore, Libya’s future cannot be built without deconstructing this rentier class structure and reestablishing the relationship between wealth and labor, between state and society, on new foundations:

Foundations that restore the value of production, grant legitimacy to those who create value — not merely consume it — and cultivate an active middle class, rather than just local agents of rent.”