The most common interpretation of the Egyptian Revolution goes something like this: in January 2011, thousands of young Egyptians used social media to build a mass movement against Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian government. In February, the revolution brought down Mubarak and paved the way for democratic elections.

But after the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won the 2012 elections and began implementing Islamist policies, the army was forced to step in again to prevent the country from backsliding into authoritarianism.

This account is fundamentally flawed. The origins of the Egyptian Revolution go back to the country’s failed development as a capitalist economy and to the social movements that originated in support of the Palestinian Intifada in 2000.