Despite what distinguished the Lebanese economy and its adoption of a free economic system, which made it a destination for Arab and Western funds and investments, which made the West consider it the Switzerland of the East, these funds did not contribute to creating a state of sustainable growth and achieving the desired economic development, as Lebanon focused on the service sector without real development of the productive sector, this made the Lebanese economy exposed to the outside, in addition to the political quotas that drained the Lebanese economy, as a more balanced consensual arrangement for power-sharing led to an even bigger expansion of the public sector, an increase in corruption and a decline in its independence; the public sector was concerned with predatory rentier practices on sectarian basics, and in the end, the country did not have as much bureaucratic independence, extractive capabilities, and a national agenda. And it ended with Lebanon declaring its bankruptcy, seizing depositors’ money in banks, and the collapse of the currency’s value. How did Lebanon reach this situation?
