This is partly because revolutions themselves cause damage and disrupt work. Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics estimates that the economic losses incurred when the crowds thronged Tahrir Square were about $1.7 billion. Add to that the subsequent losses in export earnings and revenue from tourism (journalists rush in where holidaymakers fear to tread). Then comes the cost of the ongoing disruption due to strikes and the enforced return of more than a million migrant workers fleeing war-torn Libya.

The big story, however, is capital flight. Egyptian businessmen complain of soaring crime in the cities, the difficulty of carrying out normal transactions, and, above all, nerve–racking political uncertainty. Rich Arabs do not trust this revolution. Since January they have been rushing to get their cash into safe havens, some arriving in London or Zurich with suitcases full of cash. According to Reuters, the country’s foreign–exchange reserves fell by as much as a third in the first three months of the year. Al-Hayat newspaper estimates that $30 billion has left Egypt since the onset of the Arab Spring…

None of this should surprise us. Such is the life cycle of revolutions. What begins with euphoric crowds soon slides into a second phase of economic paralysis. The same happened in France after the initial “bliss” of 1789 and in Russia after 1917. In each case, exuberance at the overthrow of the old regime was swiftly succeeded by exasperation at the decline in living standards. And that was what gave the political extremists their opportunity to peddle their radical ideology of war against internal and external foes. Yesterday, the Jacobins and Bolsheviks. Tomorrow, I fear, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.