Submission of rousseff´s government to neoliberalism at the altar of finance of davos
1. SUBMISSION OF ROUSSEFF'S GOVERNMENT TO NEOLIBERALISM AT
THE ALTAR OF FINANCE OF DAVOS
Fernando Alcoforado *
Changing the world through the State was the paradigm that prevailed among the
political parties on the left from the eighteenth century to the 1990s of the twentieth
century. The thesis of leftist political parties that underpinning these views is simple:
winning the State which until then was an instrument of the bourgeoisie and turns it into
an instrument of the working class through the Reform or Social Revolution. The thesis
considers the state as radiating center for change was a complete failure in all parts of
the world, both in countries that have tried to build socialism, and in peripheral
countries that have adopted a nationalist stance in promoting its development.
Both approaches, the reformist and revolutionary failed in its design to change society
peacefully or radically. With the end of socialism in the 1990s in the Soviet Union and
Eastern European countries, the major left parties in all countries of the world not only
abandoned the revolutionary theories, but also the social reformers seeking social
change. Many leftist parties in the world have become parties of the ruling order. From
the 1990s, the left that was born in 1848 and came to power in several countries has lost
its way mainly due to lack of an alternative to the project that was implemented in the
Soviet Union and other countries.
The political action of the old left was essentially reduced to its participation in
parliamentary elections advocating centrist liberal or neoliberal theses abdicating
nationalist and social revolution that has always been the main objective of his political
activities in the past. In many countries, left parties that won power, including in Brazil,
as happened in the Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff governments, adopted and adopt
liberal or neoliberal theses by granting large bounties to the dominant classes, especially
those from the sector financial, and "alms" to "low" in the social scale, to counteract
social upheavals as currently occurs in Brazil with "Bolsa Familia" Program of income
distribution to the poor.
The submission of the Brazilian government in relation to neoliberalism began with the
Collor government to adhere to the Washington Consensus that advocated the opening
of the economy, privatization of state enterprises and the floating exchange rate, a
situation maintained also during the Itamar Franco, Cardoso, Lula and Dilma Rousseff
governments. Recently, the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland where
were gathered the cream of world capitalism, Dilma Rousseff made a kind of repeat of
"Letter to the Brazilian People" launched by Lula at the beginning of the 2002 in
presidential campaign, when he assumed the commitment not undermine their interests.
In a low economic growth, high inflation and lack of confidence in the direction of
economic policy scenario, Rousseff 's speech focused on the key issues that trouble
investors is of particular importance .
As Lula in 2002 presidential campaign, Rousseff defended respect to existing contracts,
free trade, the improvement in public resource management and control of inflation.
This speech confirms in practice, which is registered in many countries of the world,
when leftist parties that came to power adopted and adopt liberal or neoliberal theses by
granting large bounties to the dominant classes, especially the financial sector. Rousseff
sojourned to the World Eonômico Forum in Davos to atone for the ephemeral
"developmental adventure" of Brazil and depositing, "on the altar of finance", the "usual
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2. offerings" in order to "obtain the acquittal of moneyed" [See the article Dilma, a
penitente
(Dilma,
the
penitent)
posted
on
the
website
http://oglobo.globo.com/opiniao/dilma-penitente-11445045]. Dilma Rousseff said in
Davos that loves the market, private investment and economic stability. The "usual
offerings" are equivalent to a certain extent, to a recantation of personal beliefs, but not
a break with the nefarious nature of Lulism.
The current global crisis has highlighted a theoretical vacuum of the left. Facing the
crisis of neoliberal thesis, the old left nothing presented as an alternative. The position
taken by the old left was summed up basically the reproduction of Keynesian ideas that
is a typically capitalist solution adopted after the 2nd World War. The most that the old
left sees the financial crisis is the possibility of strengthening the State rule. But, to
strengthen the State rule? To radically restructure society in which it operates or,
simply, to keep the power to enjoy the largesse provided by it? Because it hasn´t a
project for the restructuring of society remains only the old left the path to remain in
power at all costs making political alliances with the political scum as in the Brazil with
the PT and its allies of the old leftists who partners right-wing parties such as the
PMDB and nefarious politicians like Fernando Collor, José Sarney, Renan Calheiros,
among others.
This situation is already causing disillusionment with the broad sectors of the
population who acquired the sense that the parties of the old left had their historic
opportunity based on a two-step strategy to transform the world (taking state power,
then turn it) and have not fulfilled their historical promise in the Soviet Union and
eastern European countries, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. The loss of direction of the left
in the world is happening, not only due to the lack of an alternative to the project that
was implemented in the Soviet Union and other countries, but especially the offensive
by conservative forces in the United Kingdom and the United States under the
leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan that led along the neoliberal
economic doctrine whose thesis defends the absolute freedom of the market and a
restriction on state intervention in the economy which should only occur in essential
sectors and yet a minimal degree.
Considering this fact, the old left there remained no alternative but to participation in
parliamentary elections advocating centrist liberal theses and abdicating social
revolution that has always been the leading mobile of his political action in the past. In
several countries, including Brazil, leftist parties won power without initiatives have
been taken in the direction of social and economic changes of socialist basis. French
President François Hollande, the French Socialist Party, is an excellent example of an
elected president who betrayed his campaign promises because they did not break with
the orthodoxy of austerity policies, destructive, in Europe. But now he did something
really outrageous to have embraced the discredited economic doctrines of the right. It is
a reminder that economic trouble in Europe cannot be attributed solely to the bad ideas
from the right, according to Paul Krugman [See the article by Paul Krugman, Escândalo
na França é Hollande abraçar doutrinas desacreditadas da direita (Scandal in France's
Hollande embrace discredited doctrines of right) posted on the website
http://noticias.uol.com.br/blogs-e-colunas/coluna/paul-krugman/2014/01/18/escandalona-franca-e-hollande-abracar-doutrinas-desacreditadas-da-direita.htm
01.18.2014].
Krugman asserting that complements misguided and insensitive conservatives are
promoting policies, but they are allowed and encouraged by political cowards and
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3. bunglers of the moderate left as Hollande in France. This also applies to Brazil with her
political cowards and bunglers of the moderate left.
*
Alcoforado, Fernando, engineer and doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the
University of Barcelona, a university professor and consultant in strategic planning, business planning,
regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo,
1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do
desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,
http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel,
São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era
Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora,
Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global
(Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011) and Os Fatores Condicionantes do
Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), among others.
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