The clashes and demonstrations in Egypt may very well have less to do with ideology and more to do with failed gubmnt policies. As I wrote back in April, the Egyptian gubmnt simply cannot continue to provide bread, for example, at such substantially subsidized prices.
When prices are set below the equilibrium price, the quantity supplied declines and the quantity demanded increases, leading to shortages. This is basic stuff that politicians cannot overrule or legislate out of existence, no matter how much the voters might want them to.
When politicians fail to deliver, it isn't surprising that their citizens are upset, as is happening now in Egypt. Central planning, especially an attempt to subsidize low prices without having a huge source of revenue (e.g. oil in Venezuela and Iran, two countries that have used oil revenues in just this fashion) is doomed to fail.
I realize that many people believe much of the protest in Egypt is also against the Muslim Brotherhood and its attempts to further restrict the freedoms of Egyptians. To some extent it surely is, and deep in my heart I hope that the desire for more freedom is strong. But I really don't know how strong these protests would be if there weren't at the same time so many shortages throughout the economy.
This excellent summary includes some mention of the economic struggles in Egypt. It is hard to know, though, the relative strengths of the two forces for change.
Also see this excellent piece by Doug Mataconis:Massive Anti-Morsy Protests Grip Egypt
Top news: Hundreds of thousands -- possibly millions -- of Egyptians poured into the streets on Sunday to protest the Islamist government of Mohamed Morsy, the country's first democratically elected president. Frustrated by lack of security, economic malaise, and what many see as Morsy's authoritarian tendencies, the Tamarod, or "rebel," movement gathered more than 22 million signatures of no-confidence ahead of Sunday's protests -- more than the number of Egyptians who voted the president into office. By nightfall, many thousands of protesters had gatheredoutside the presidential palace in Heliopolis, demanding that Morsy step down and hold early elections.
Across the country, clashes between opponents and supporters of the president left at least seven people dead and hundreds injured. (There were also numerous reports of sexual assault overnight in Cairo's Tahrir Square.) On Monday morning, anti-government protesters looted and burned the Moqattam headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, briefly sparring with armed Brotherhood members who fired birdshot from inside the building.
While there certainly seems to be a political element to the protests, Juan Cole points out that, as with the protests that began in January 2011 and eventually led to the downfall of the Mubarak regime, there is an economic element to these protests as well ...
At the same time, though, one should make no mistake that there are elements driving these protests who see this as a full-on attack against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, as The Atlantic’s J.J Gould finds in the person of activist Mona Eltahawy: