The 2011 uprisings revealed the exacerbation of a widely shared feeling born of socio-economic injustice in the region. The protesters’ demands for recognition of a right to decent living conditions and access to employment and public services did not “naturally” and spontaneously arise ; rather, they were part an older political history. In both Morocco and Lebanon, the movements born of the uprisings have expressed themselves in the interspace of dissident innovation and more routine demands for rights without spreading beyond a revived militant constellation. Embedded within two different types of capitalism – the “laissez-faire” of Lebanon’s merchant republic and the “state capitalism” of the Moroccan monarchy – the “social question” played an interesting role. Examination of the various ways in which social problems have been politically addressed in these contexts reveals the emergence of differentiated protection regimes authorizing the demand of rights via an array of actions. While not amounting to revolt, these actions influence forms of protest