Morocco’s Kingdom of Impoverishment: The Death of the “Social State” Illusion

BY: Dr. Hana Saada

With Soaring Poverty and Systemic Corruption, the Moroccan Regime’s “Social State” is Nothing More Than a Delusion

Algiers, Algeria | February 25th, 2025 — As economic desperation grips Morocco, political parties and civil society organizations across the country are unanimously exposing the so-called “social state” narrative propagated by the Moroccan regime as nothing but an illusion. The reality on the ground paints a far darker picture—one where poverty is not an accident, but a deliberate and systemic policy designed to entrench the elite’s power while the masses struggle to survive.

 

Hassan Bennajeh, a prominent figure in the Justice and Spirituality movement, sounded the alarm in his scathing article, From the Social State to the State of Impoverishment. He detailed Morocco’s deepening socioeconomic crisis, citing skyrocketing prices, an ever-rising cost of living, the alarming decline in purchasing power, and the rampant expansion of poverty, all exacerbated by the deeply entrenched corruption plaguing the country’s governance.

The most recent figures from the Moroccan High Commission for Planning paint a grim reality: over four million Moroccans live in precarious conditions and are on the verge of sinking into extreme poverty. However, as Bennajeh points out, Moroccans do not need statistics to confirm the dire circumstances they face daily. The vast majority of citizens endure worsening financial hardship while a privileged few amass untold wealth through monopolized economic structures, corrupt practices, and state-sponsored clientelism.

This crisis, according to Bennajeh, is not an anomaly but the inevitable outcome of a Makhzen-controlled system that thrives on rentier economics and the intertwining of power and wealth at the highest levels. “What we are witnessing is not the failure to build a social state—it is the calculated absence of one,” he asserts. “Instead, the regime has built a State of Impoverishment that ensures the elite continue to accumulate fortunes while the majority of Moroccans fight merely to survive.”

Bennajeh further dismantles the notion that Morocco’s economic misery is an unfortunate byproduct of flawed policies. He argues that poverty in the country is neither coincidental nor the result of external factors, but rather an instrument of control—designed to keep the people in a state of perpetual struggle for basic sustenance, leaving them too exhausted to demand their fundamental rights to freedom, dignity, and justice.

Under the iron grip of the Moroccan monarchy, economic and social justice remain unattainable dreams for millions. The grandiose promises of a “social state” stand in stark contrast to the cruel reality of a nation deliberately plunged into impoverishment, where the regime ensures its survival by keeping its people hungry, powerless, and subjugated.

 

 

 

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