The Role of Food Prices in Revolt

Bread riots are among the oldest triggers of political upheaval. The French march on Versailles in 1789 followed a bad harvest and soaring grain prices; the February Revolution of 1917 began with bread queues in Petrograd; the 2010 to 2011 Arab uprisings tracked a global spike in wheat prices after droughts in Russia and China.

Economists find that sharp food price movements correlate with unrest more strongly than steady poverty does, because sudden shocks break the moral economy between rulers and the poor. Subsidies and grain reserves have long been instruments of political stability.

When regimes cut bread subsidies abruptly, as in 1977 Egypt, the street answers quickly..