This article evaluates policies of economic reform primarily in Egypt and in Costa Rica as a comparative case study, specifically focusing on land policy and education policies. In this article I treat neoliberalism as primarily as localized governmentalities with unique policies. These governmentalities and policies reflect historical pacts and guarantees between citizens and their governments regardless of government type or location. The prevalence of international economic institutions supporting neoliberal transformations across the world in the last half century proves the opportunity for a new set of comparative studies. I place these policies within their political environment and identify the winners and losers of these policies, as well as remedial actions that were or were not taken to support losers. The comparative methodology of this article serves to strengthen the conclusions about Egyptian political economy while opening a line of inquiry into the effect of neoliberal economic reform across the world. Decades of economic reform in Egypt under successive autocratic and patrimonial regimes entrenched economic inequalities and stripped economic security from millions, leading to revolution. Costa Rica shared in many of the same economic and geopolitical conditions experienced by Egypt in the latter half of the twentieth century which led the country to adopt neoliberal economic reforms. However, Costa Rica emerged from reform with an intact social safety net and new economic opportunities for a large swathe of its citizens while taking steps to mitigate groups which experienced losses. This article concludes that the historical democratic character of Costa Rica’s economic decision making yielded this relatively more equitable outcome. Meanwhile, the orientation of Egyptian political economy towards cronyism and regime survival turned neoliberal reform policies into a means of eliminating unwanted economic guarantees on which much of the population relied. With the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring in mind, this article makes connections between the socio-economic outcomes of neoliberal reform and the onset of the January 25th revolution in Egypt. As plans for further reform continue under the Sisi regime particularly with privatization and infrastructure development, this article offers a conceptual lens to evaluate new reform policies in the context of almost a half-century of political developments and economic struggles. The fight over the future of the Egyptian social contract is far from settled.