Fernando Alcoforado*
Two events in recent times demonstrate the advance of nationalism in the world in response to the failure of neoliberal globalization. The first concerns the fragmentation of the European Union, and the second concerns the election of Donald Trump to the United States Presidency. The Brexit that led to the removal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and Donald Trump’s inauguration speech in the United States presidency are the expression of the failure of neoliberal globalization in the world and the advance of nationalism. The facts of reality demonstrate that few win with neoliberal globalization, among which are the globalized financial system that gains astronomical profits thanks to the absence of global economic and financial regulation and few peripheral countries such as China, India, South Korea and other Asian countries, which are able to attract foreign investment thanks to cheap labor and favorable domestic legislation, and Germany. On the other hand, they lose with neoliberal globalization the central capitalist countries (United States and United Kingdom) and peripheral capitalist countries like Brazil that face problems of deindustrialization, increase of unemployment, economic stagnation and increasing public indebtedness.
The European Union is threatened with fragmentation as a result of living with internal structural imbalances with surpluses in rich countries and chronic shortages in other countries. One of the problems that have a negative impact on the evolution of the European crisis is that there is excess liquidity in parts of the euro area, and there is a lack in others. The fragmentation of the European Union should intensify, economically and financially, with the interruption of the transnational flows of goods, services and capital with large mismatches between currencies that could cause multiple deficits among the countries that are part of the European Union. The consequence is an increase in unemployment and social tensions that are intensifying throughout the European Union. The most vulnerable members of the Eurozone (Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal) have for some time been facing the risk of economic and financial disruptions that could lead to social unrest and political dysfunction that may lead them to withdraw from the European Union. An example of this phenomenon is Catalonia, one of the most important autonomous regions of Spain, which accounts for a fifth of the national economy, where the feeling of independence, now powerful, is now buoyed by the feeling that Spain is failing.
The lack of response to the economic crisis generated by neoliberal globalization calls into question the legitimacy of the European Union that is threatened with fragmentation. And the most serious is that there is no plan to overcome the crisis. After 50 years of unification, Europe runs the risk of a reverse process: that of its fragmentation. The crisis in the eurozone, which threatens to divide the bloc between countries that have managed to manage their finances and those who have failed to adopt the single currency (the Euro), is now not enough, regional nationalisms are gaining momentum as a result of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, in societies in southern Europe the exit from the crisis is nowhere near a glimpse, but more recession and unemployment. What happens in Greece, Portugal and Spain cannot be explained without this deep economic and financial crisis affecting the capitalist world system and the European Union that imposes immense sacrifice on its peoples to save banks from bankruptcy with the adoption of politics of austerity adopted by the member countries. The hopelessness of the people of the European Union and the excessive social tension existing in it can lead to the end of the European Union and threaten the political and institutional order in force in each of the countries of the region.
Donald Trump made evident his repulsion to neoliberal globalization in his White House nationalist speech when he stated that for many decades the United States enriched foreign industry to the detriment of American industry, made other countries rich, while the wealth, strength, and confidence of his country was dissipating on the horizon, that “one by one, factories closed and left our territory, never thinking of the millions and millions of American workers who were abandoned. The wealth of our middle class was taken from their homes and then redistributed all over the world. ” Trump’s nationalism is marked in his speech by stating that “from this day on, it will be only America first, America first” and that it will protect the United States from the devastation caused by countries that steal their businesses and destroy their jobs and that “we will bring our jobs back. We will bring back our wealth. ” Trump said he will follow two simple rules: buying american products and hiring americans. There will be progress in protectionism in the United States to be adopted by the Trump government with the aim of defending American companies and jobs that will cause the same to occur in the world as a counterpart. The mass deportation of immigrants is expected to occur especially among Hispanics who live illegally in the United States for Trump to secure jobs for US workers.
In Brazil, the neoliberal economic model implemented in 1990 is responsible for leading to economic bankruptcy and social devastation today. The practice has demonstrated the unfeasibility of the neoliberal economic model in Brazil inaugurated by President Fernando Collor in 1990 and maintained by Presidents Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula, Dilma Roussef and Michel Temer. The current economic recession, the marked deindustrialization of the country, the insolvency of the Union, states and municipalities, the excessive increase of the federal public debt, widespread bankruptcy of companies and mass unemployment demonstrate the unfeasibility of the neoliberal model implanted in the country.
The neoliberal economic model should be replaced in Brazil by the national economic development model of selective opening of the Brazilian economy that should contemplate the adoption of an economic policy that immediately prioritize: 1) the sharp reduction of interest rates to encourage investments in productive activities ; and 2) the resumption of development by investing R$ 2 trillion in economic infrastructure (ports – R$ 42.9 billion, railways – R$ 130.8 billion, highways – R$ 811.7 billion, waterways and river ports – R$ 10.9 billion, airports – R$ 9.3 billion, electric sector – R$ 293.9 billion, oil and gas – R$ 75.3 billion, basic sanitation – R$ 270 billion and telecommunications – R$ 19, 7 billion) and social (health sector – R$ 83 billion / year, education sector – R$ 16.9 billion / year and the popular housing sector – R$ 160 billion) through a public-private partnership.
Only in this way will it be possible to make Brazil grow economically at high rates and eliminate the underutilization of the workforce that reaches the record level of 27.7 million workers, according to the IBGE PNAD survey. Nicola Pamplona published article in Folha de S. Paulo on 5/17/2018, under the title Falta de trabalho para 27,7 milhões de pessoas, diz o IBGE (Missing work for 27.7 million people, says IBGE), available on the website <https://www1-folha-uol-com-br.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www1.folha.uol.com.br/amp/mercado/2018/05/falta-trabalho-para-277-milhoes-de-pessoas-diz-ibge.shtml>, that inform the under-utilization rate of the workforce, which includes the unemployed, people who would like to work more, and those who gave up looking for work, hit a record in the first quarter, reaching 24.7 percent. In all, there are 27.7 million people in these conditions, the largest contingent since the beginning of the historical series in 2012. Of these, 13.7 million have sought employment, but have not found. The rest are underemployed because of insufficient hours worked, people who would like to work, but did not seek employment or gave up looking for work.
The economic history of Brazil shows that, whenever we reach expressive socioeconomic development, the national state was the main protagonist as occurred with the national developmentalism of the Vargas Era and during the governments of Juscelino Kubitschek and the military governments after 1964. When it comes to productive investments, private economic agents do not seem to be encouraged by the periods in which hegemony in economic policy is neoliberal as it is today, since these moments (as occurred in the 1990s and are happening today) are marked by very low levels of private investment . Among the biggest disasters in the investment cuts that liberal politicians usually do, when they have political hegemony in Brazil, there are those in the area of Science and Technology. Here, historically, technological innovations occur when there is the involvement of public institutions. The fact is that at no time did we achieve technological innovation in Brazil without significant public investments. Again, neoliberalism condemns us to backwardness.
In view of the above, it is urgent to adopt the national economic model of development of selective opening of the Brazilian economy that would allow Brazil to assume the direction of its destiny, unlike the neoliberal model that makes the future of the country dictated by the forces of the market all of them committed to international capital. The failure of neoliberalism in Brazil and in the world does not recommend the election of candidates for the Presidency of the Republic and of parliamentarians who insist on maintaining the neoliberal economic model that contributed to the economic and social disaster in which the Brazilian nation is suffering. The candidates with neoliberal programs must be repelled by the true Brazilian patriots.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 78, holder of the CONFEA / CREA System Medal of Merit, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 13 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.
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