Fernando Alcoforado *
Brazil lives the time of catastrophes from the political, economic, social, environmental and national sovereignty point of view that are leading the country to a disaster of gigantic proportions. The political catastrophe in Brazil may occur with the end of the democratic process resulting from the escalation of fascism in Brazilian society by the nefarious action of President Jair Bolsonaro who seeks to put into practice his fascist government proposal based on authoritarian government practices, in the social contempt for groups vulnerable and fragile and anti-communism. The economic catastrophe materializes in the stagnation in which the Brazilian economy finds itself thanks to the inaction and incompetence of the Bolsonaro government, which does nothing to reactivate it. The social catastrophe results from the worsening social conditions of the Brazilian population in the face of the Bolsonaro government’s antisocial stance in attacking the population’s social rights and not adopting measures to combat poverty and mass unemployment. The environmental catastrophe is occurring with the Bolsonaro government’s incentive to the country’s environmental devastation and its opposition to the Paris Agreement on global climate change under the pretext of promoting the development of the national economy. The catastrophe of national sovereignty results from the fact that the Bolsonaro government’s subservience to the United States government is underway and the delivery of public assets and national wealth to international capital.
The political catastrophe is being processed by Bolsonaro with the attempt to implant a fascist dictatorship under the pretext of combating corruption and the old policy that will aggravate political and social conflicts and may lead the country to a political and social upheaval that can lead to a civil war never occurred in Brazil with unforeseeable consequences. A fascist dictatorship and a civil war are two of the catastrophes that can happen in Brazil in the near future on the political plane. The Bolsonaro government itself has intensified the conflict between the Presidency of the Republic and the other powers of the Republic and the confrontation with its opponents to justify repression against those who react against government measures and, ultimately, to implant a dictatorship in Brazil to govern without the obstacles currently imposed by the 1988 Constitution. Since the beginning of his government, the attitude of the Bolsonaro government has been to increase the existing divide in Brazil between its supporters and opponents such as its call for a demonstration against the National Congress and the Supreme Federal Court scheduled for March 15. At no time during his government, Bolsonaro proposed to govern for all Brazilians.
The economic catastrophe experienced by Brazil is reflected in the meager GDP growth in 2019 (1.1% in relation to 2018) which is added to the deficit in the Bolsonaro government’s accounts, which was R $ 139 billion in 2019 without calculating the payment of interest and amortization of the public debt, which corresponded to R$ 1.425 trillion (44% of the Union budget) and the deficit in the balance of payments of US$ 35.6 billion. It is important to highlight the disastrous behavior of the industry in relation to 2014 and the level of occupation of the workforce as well as unemployment and the average income that performed worse than in 2015. The meager GDP growth in 2019 resulted from the drop in consumption by the population caused by gigantic mass unemployment, fall in private investment as a result of the country’s economic stagnation and the very bad political environment and the fall in public investment due to the existing fiscal crisis and the government’s effort to reduce the participation of the State in the economy with its neoliberal policies. The economic stagnation and the current labor reform have contributed to a dramatic drop in government and Social Security revenues. The economic catastrophe experienced by Brazil is being reflected in the vertiginous fall of the shares on the São Paulo Stock Exchange and in the sharp fall of the Real against the Dollar.In short, the economic catastrophe represents the bankruptcy of the Brazilian economic system that has been stagnating for 5 years and of the national state itself because of the gigantic fiscal crisis that has caused the government to accumulate successive deficits in its public accounts. Economic growth is expected to be worse in 2020 due to the coronavirus problem that will have a negative impact on the Brazilian and world economy.
The social catastrophe is materialized in the fact that the Bolsonaro government does nothing to solve the problems of poverty and mass unemployment that are registered in Brazil. Extreme poverty has increased in Brazil and already amounts to 13.5 million people surviving with up to R$ 145 (US$ 31.4) a month. The number of poor people has been growing since 2015, reversing the downward curve of poverty in previous years. The number of poor people is a record in seven years of the historical series of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The rise in unemployment, the reduction of spending on social programs and discrimination against the Northeast of Brazil, the poorest region of the country, in relation to the Bolsa Família Program increase the gap of the poorest. Poverty mainly affects states in the North and Northeast of Brazil, especially the black and brown population, with no education or incomplete basic education. Unemployment corresponds to 12.7 million workers with an underutilized economically active population of 27.6 million workers, 44% or 40 million workers in an informal situation, that is, without enjoying labor rights.
The environmental catastrophe produced by the Bolsonaro government concerns the attempt to destroy the Amazon rainforest with the manifest possibility of the Bolsonaro government to pave the way for mining, agriculture, livestock and timber activities, including in indigenous lands, as well as not collaborating in the fight against change global climate with the rejection of the Paris Agreement. The implementation of mining, agriculture, livestock and timber activities in the Amazon has negative consequences for the Amazon rainforest and for the indigenous peoples residing there. The Amazon rainforest is threatened with deforestation, causing its trees to cease to act as a carbon sink, helping to prevent global climate change, in addition to harming the indigenous communities that live in it. Deforestation in the Amazon threatens Mercosur’s agreement with the European Union. Germany’s ambassador to Brazil, Georg Witschel said that if the Brazilian government does not reduce deforestation in the Amazon to 2017 levels, the free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union would not be ratified by the European side. The devastating action of the Bolsonaro government in the Amazon is also contributing to producing harmful economic consequences for Brazil.
The catastrophe of national sovereignty lies in the fact that the Bolsonaro government turns the Brazilian nation into a country subordinate to the interests of the United States and deepens its submission to the dictates of international capital that manifests itself in the delivery of the Alcântara Base to the United States, the denationalization of the Embraer, with its sale to Boeing, the ongoing gradual privatization of Petrobras and likely Banco do Brasil, the oil auctions in the Pre-salt area by carrying out the largest delivery of national wealth in history to foreign capital with the surplus area of “assignment with encumbrance” that some estimates amount to up to 30 billion barrels in the giant fields. In the Temer and Bolsonaro governments, foreign participation in the plundering of national wealth increased exponentially with privatizations of oil fields that belong to Petrobras and with new auctions that, in two years, foreign production went from 7% to 23%. With the new auctions to be carried out by the Bolsonaro government, quickly, most of the national production will be foreign demonstrating the antinational character of his government. Paulo Guedes, the neoliberal economist and Economy Minister of the Bolsonaro government, stated that he intends to privatize all public assets, thereby handing it over to foreign capital. Privatizing implies, in fact, what is usually called “denationalization”, in which the controlling acquirers are almost always (if not always!) Foreign companies or consortia whose profits are remitted to their headquarters abroad. The use of the term “privatization” is a way of hiding its true purpose, which is to hand over the nation’s assets to foreign capital. The delivery of national wealth to international capital is yet another catastrophe produced by the deplorable Bolsonaro government.
The prospects for the future of Brazil are extremely negative with the Jair Bolsonaro government, whose actions will be dire for the country in the face of the catastrophes that it is already producing and will produce for democracy, the national economy, social rights, the environment and Brazil’s independence in relation to the great powers, especially the United States, and the international capital. In the neoliberal era in which we live with the Bolsonaro government, there is no space for advancing democracy, social rights, economic progress 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, social, environmental and national independence fields. In the face of political, economic, social, environmental and national sovereignty catastrophes that the Bolsonaro government represents for Brazil, the country’s future is radically compromised.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, 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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