Not against foreign capital, but against domestic "capitalism"

2026-06-19 21:54:00, Opinione CNA

On its 20th day, the protest is becoming increasingly clear: this is no longer just a revolt for Zvërnec, nor just anger against the government or the opposition. At its core, it is an uprising against the economic model that has been built in Albania.

Foreign journalists who have come to the square do not see banners against foreign investment. No one takes to the streets because an investor wants to build, produce or create jobs. What is opposed is something else: Albanian capitalism.

A capitalism without competition, where the winner is often known before the tender criteria are drawn up; a system with “capitalists appointed” by politics rather than created by the market; a model where part of the enterprise is not fed by customers, but by taxpayers' money.

In theory, capitalism rewards the best idea, the highest quality product, and the most efficient service; in practice, it often rewards the shortest connection to power.

The protest is against this deformation, against a model that does not see the employee as a partner, but as a cost, against a system that boasts billions in investments, while offering ridiculous salaries.

Therefore, its demands are not just symbolic: repeal of the changes to the law on protected areas, removal of the strategic investor status, and full transparency for contracts, concessions, and PPPs.

The paradox is brutal: we reached the EU with prices, but not with wages.

In many sectors, business seeks the cheapest possible labor force and, when it can no longer find it locally, imports it from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, or the Philippines. The protest raises a simple question: if Albanian capitalism needs workers from Bangladesh, why can't it keep Bradashesh's workers in the country?

The square is also rising against monopolies and oligopolies, against markets where competition is the exception and not the rule.
In modern economies, capital arises from ideas, innovation, risk, and competition. When capital originates from the government and not from the market, capitalism ceases to be capitalism and becomes a system of privileges.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the platonic love of concrete and the belief that development is measured only in towers and square meters. Capital is poured almost exclusively into concrete, while education, scientific research, technology and production remain "the last item on the agenda."

This is why the “flamingos” have resonated beyond environmentalists, beyond the left and right, across generations, and now even beyond the borders of Albania. From diaspora in various European cities to wide international coverage, the protest is articulating a dissatisfaction that goes far beyond a single project.

Citizens are not protesting against the free market, but against an oligarchic capitalism that privatizes profits and leaves the burden to the budget, against a system that feeds on custom laws, privileged concessions and PPPs without real competition, "against building capitalism with our own forces"

In capitalism, profit and loss are sister and brother. Our "capitalists" seem to only recognize profit. In fact, in many cases, the state even guarantees them compensation when the predicted profit is not realized.

Once upon a time, a French diplomat said: "you built the worst form of communism...", today, many of the protesters would complete the sentence: "...and now you are building the worst form of capitalism."

The question on the 20th day of protest is not whether Albania should have capitalism, but what kind of capitalism does it deserve?