Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate that Brazil lives the time of the catastrophes announced from the political, economic, social and environmental point of view that could lead the country to a disaster of gigantic proportions. The political catastrophe in Brazil could occur with the end of the democratic process resulting from the rise of fascism in society and at all levels of the Republic’s powers by the action of President Jair Bolsonaro who seeks to put into practice his typically fascist government proposal based on explicit cult of order, state violence, authoritarian government practices, social contempt for vulnerable and fragile groups, and anti-communism. In addition to the escalation of fascism, the worsening social conditions of the Brazilian population in view of the anti-social stance of the Bolsonaro government to undermine the social rights of the population and not meet their demands, especially those related to job creation.
Brazil has an economically active population of 90.6 million of which 36.3%, or 32.9 million of private sector workers have signed employment contracts and 44% or 40 million workers are in informal situation, that is, they do not enjoy labor rights. Unemployment is 12.7 million workers and the underutilized economically active population is 27.6 million workers. This means that the number of discouraged workers who stopped looking for a job is 14.9 million workers. Taking into account the speech of Jair Bolsonaro’s Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes, who is a fundamentalist of neoliberalism, the Bolsonaro government is unlikely to take an active role as a driver of economic growth by devising a development plan with the necessary measures in place to promote the reactivation of the economy and raising employment levels in Brazil.
The action of the Bolsonaro government detrimental to workers’ interests against social rights with labor and social security reforms and its inaction to solve the unemployment problem tends to place large sectors of Brazilian society in blatant opposition, creating the culture broth for the confrontation between government and the marginalized population. This clash has not yet been established because opposition parties and social movements are preferring to defeat Bolsonaro and his allies in the upcoming presidential elections because they are believing in the increasing unpopularity of the current president. The confrontation between the Bolsonaro government and Brazil’s marginalized population tends to be radicalized with the people rebelling against government anti-social measures and their inaction in solving the country’s problems that will worsen over time. The Bolsonaro government itself has an interest in creating this confrontational situation to justify repression against those who react against government measures and, ultimately, to establish a dictatorship in Brazil to govern without the obstacles currently imposed by the legislative and judiciary powers based on Constitution of 1988. Since the beginning of its government, the attitude of the Bolsonaro government has been to intensify the existing division in Brazil between its supporters and opponents. At no time did Bolsonaro propose to rule for all Brazilians.
Most likely, Bolsonaro’s attempt to establish a dictatorship will face strong opposition that could lead the country to a social upheaval that could lead to a civil war never occurred in Brazil of unpredictable consequences. A fascist dictatorship and a civil war are two of the catastrophes that can happen in Brazil in the near future at the political and institutional level. This scenario puts on the agenda the need for Brazil’s democratic forces to unite in order to prevent the escalation of fascism and the establishment of a far-right dictatorship in Brazil with the formation of an anti-fascist democratic front in Parliament and Civil Society to defend the 1988 Constitution and fight against government acts that are contrary to the interests of the vast majority of the population and Brazil.
The Bolsonaro government does not only attack Brazil at the institutional political level with the possibility of implanting a fascist dictatorship, but with the economic catastrophe represented by the bankruptcy of the Brazilian economic system that has been stagnant for 5 years and the national state itself as a result of the gigantic fiscal crisis that causes the government to accumulate successive deficits in its public accounts. Faced with the need to strengthen the Brazilian state to reactivate the national economy, the Brazilian government should suspend the payment of domestic public debt for a period of 5 years or renegotiate with its creditors in order to extend the time ofits payment so that the government could have the necessary resources for public investments aimed at reactivating the economy. This solution is unavoidable because almost half of the Union budget is used to pay the domestic public debt service because without it there will be no public investment necessary to reactivate the Brazilian economy. To make the Bolsonaro government’s economic policy match the nation’s interests, a political front must be set up to mobilize the population to demand that the Bolsonaro government take action in defense of the country’s economic progress.
The Bolsonaro government does not only attack Brazil on an institutional political level with the possibility of implanting a fascist dictatorship and on the economic level with the country’s economic bankruptcy, but with another catastrophe represented by the transformation of the Brazilian nation into a country subordinate to the interests of United States and of international capital. Brazil’s subaltern alignment with US interests is manifested in the position of the Bolsonaro government that handed over the Alcantara Base to the United States, the transfer of the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem according to Donald Trump’s guidance, and the denationalization of Embraer with its sale to Boeing. The Bolsonaro government also undermines national sovereignty by making a gigantic auction of oil in the pre-salt area by making the largest surrender of national wealth in history to foreign capital with the surplus area of “ceding assignment” that some estimates amount to up to 30 billion barrels in the giant fields. With the auction of the assignment, the fields of Buzios, Itaipu, Atapu and Sepia will be delivered to international capital. Petrobras will be left out and will be a minority shareholder of foreign companies that will capture most of it.
Since the Michel Temer government foreign participation in the looting of national wealth has increased exponentially, with privatizations of oil fields owned by Petrobras and with new auctions that, in two years, foreign production went from 7% to 23%. With the new auctions to be held by the Bolsonaro government, most of the national production will soon be foreign, demonstrating the surrender character of its government, which is in the service of the god Mercado, Wall Street, the Washington Consensus and against the Brazilian people. And more than that, it is conniving with the continued actions of the American empire and multinational corporations to dominate Brazil. The Bolsonaro government is willing to hand over Brazil, its lands and its mineral wealth, in short, the national public assets such as Petrobras, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, etc., to international investors.
Paulo Guedes, the neoliberal economist and minister of economics of the Bolsonaro government, said that he intends to privatize all public assets and, consequently, hand them over to foreign capital. Privatization implies, in fact, what is commonly referred to as “denationalization”, where controlling acquirers are almost always (if not always!) Foreign companies or consortia whose profits are remitted to their overseas headquarters. The use of the term “privatization” is a way of hiding its true purpose of surrendering the nation’s assets to foreign capital. This surrender action of the Bolsonaro government could cause the opposition nationalist forces to rise against it, as well as sectors of the armed forces that do not accept the impatriotic action of the Bolsonaro government. The handing over of national wealth to international capital is yet another catastrophe produced by the deplorable Bolsonaro government. In order to defend national sovereignty, a nationalist front must be constituted in Parliament and civil society to fight government acts that are contrary to Brazil’s interests.
Another major catastrophe to be produced by the Bolsonaro government is the destruction of the Amazon rainforest with the Bolsonaro government’s manifest possibility of paving the way for mining, agriculture, livestock and logging activities. The destruction of the Amazon rainforest to implement agricultural activities has negative consequences for the climate and water cycle. One of the consequences of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is also the destruction and extinction of different species. Many species that can help cure diseases used in food or as new raw materials, unknown to man, are in danger of being destroyed even before they are known and studied. This natural good is well known to the indigenous people who live in the forests. Another aggravating consequence of deforestation is the advance of erosion processes. The trees of a forest have the function of protecting the soil, so that rainwater does not pass through the trunk and infiltrate underground. They slow the runoff velocity, and prevent the direct impact of rainfall on the soil and its roots help to retain it, preventing its disintegration. The removal of vegetation cover with deforestation exposes the soil to the impact of rainfall. The world’s largest rainforest faces the danger of partially becoming savannah as a result of deforestation and burning.
About 200 billion tons of carbon are stored in the tropical vegetation that covers the planet. Photosynthesis by forest vegetation absorbs an enormous amount of carbon from the atmosphere each year. Only the Amazon rainforest is capable of absorbing six billion tons of carbon, equivalent to 10% of the world’s photosynthesis. Most of this absorption is compensated, however, by the release of carbon through the decomposition of organic matter and the respiration of the forest itself. The remaining part may be being absorbed by the forest, turning into a carbon dioxide (CO2) sink. In order to prevent the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and to ensure that the natural resources of the Amazon are rationally used for the benefit of its resident population and the economic and social progress of Brazil, as well as in the fight against global warming, it is essential the defense at all costs of the integrity of the Amazon rainforest. The Brazilian people must fight to stop the environmental crime practiced in the Amazon with the complacency of the Bolsonaro government.
Prospects for Brazil’s future are extremely negative with the Jair Bolsonaro government whose actions will be disastrous for the Country in the face of the catastrophe it can produce for democracy, social rights, the national economy and Brazil’s independence regarding the great powers, especially the United States, and international capital. In the neoliberal era in which we live with the Bolsonaro government, there is no room for the advancement of democracy, social rights, the Brazilian economy and national independence. On the contrary, there is the elimination of democracy and social rights and the deconstruction and denial of the achievements already made by Brazil in the political, economic and social fields and by the subordinate classes. The so-called “reforms” of social security, labor laws, the privatization of public enterprises, etc. – “reforms” that are on the Bolsonaro government’s agenda aim at the pure and simple restoration of the conditions proper to a “savage” capitalism, in which the laws of the market must be unhindered. Faced with the catastrophe that represents the fascist, anti-social and anti-national government of Bolsonaro for Brazil, the Brazilian people must mobilize in the struggle to defend democracy, the interests of the marginalized population, economic progress and national sovereignty.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, 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 author of the books 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. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 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), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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