I spoke recently with a friend who was visiting a seaside resort village in Albania. He commented on the beauty of the coastline and added that anti-government protests were taking place daily in the town and across the country. Enthralled by the scale and pageant of the street demonstrations, he assumed that the protesters had valid grievances. That gave me pause to think. I don’t dismiss off-hand the claims of every aggrieved group, but I am generally suspicious, especially with social justice movements. I have a contrarian streak that makes me inclined to doubt the wisdom of crowds, which often proves to be a form of mania. I wondered if this were the case in Albania.

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I asked myself, what spawned the latest wave of government protest? As best as I can make out, it was ignited by the start of work on a luxury coastal resort project near the Narta Lagoon that is linked to Jared Kushner’s investment firm. The political opposition alleged that Albania’s government was selling public assets to wealthy foreign investors without transparency.

Albanian Prime Minister Rama argues that Albania’s coast has been underdeveloped compared with Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, and Italy, and that large foreign-backed resorts could bring capital, infrastructure, tourism jobs, tax revenue, and global visibility. Rama has said that the project would help modernize Albania and turn it into a higher-end tourism destination. Moreover, he has defended his move to greenlight the resort project by stating the government has the authority to approve strategic investment projects, provided they pass the required legal, environmental, and planning procedures.

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Allegations of government corruption by the political opposition is standard fare in most countries. Sometimes it is true, but just as often it is not. Let me posit the main reason for the protests — the very human emotion of envy.

Wherever capitalism is on display, envy rears its ugly head. We see it with the reaction to Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO. We see it with NYC Mayor Mamdani pandering to the base instincts of his supporters by levying punitive taxes against the city’s most wealthy citizens. Would I be wrong to infer that there are many Albanians who do not want to see others succeed when they have not?

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The political opposition is trying to achieve in the street what it has not been able to accomplish through the ballot. Prime Minister Rama recently won a strong parliamentary majority. His Socialist Party won 83 of 140 seats, enough to govern without need of a coalition. That gives him institutional legitimacy, even if protests are large. The protests that so easily impressed my friend were in the thousands held in Tirana, the capital, and coastal towns, but they do not automatically mean most voters want the government removed. It is easy to get caught up in the exuberance of a large protest march, but it is also worth reflecting on the base instincts motivating any crowd.

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Image generated by ChatGPT.