Fernando Alcoforado*
In 2017, we published the book ““A invenção de um novo Brasil” (The invention of a new Brazil) through Editora CRV de Curitiba. The main purpose of this book was to produce a diagnosis of the Brazilian economy, to outline perspectives for the future of Brazil, as well as to outline alternative development models to what is currently being adopted by the federal government in conducting its economic policy, whose results have so far been disastrous, given the fact that it does not contribute to the promotion of economic and social progress in the country and put its sovereignty in check in the current context of the globalization process.
What was proposed in this book imposes itself because Brazil faces 4 types of crisis: 1) a deep political crisis that is already throwing the country into chaos of total ungovernability and violence and threatens to generate political-institutional setbacks; 2) gigantic economic crisis that is putting the survival of families in check with the escalation of mass unemployment, of companies with the advance of the recession towards depression and the country itself with the growing economic stagnation and public debt; 3) management crisis elevated to the extreme thanks to the existence of incompetent rulers that contribute to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of government actions at all levels and demonstrate inability to propose solutions to the current crisis, much less to point out new directions for the country; and, 4) health crisis generated by the pandemic of the new Coronavirus that is causing the number of infected and dead to increase incessantly.
The political crisis that is shaking Brazil results from the existence of the Bolsonaro government whose objective is to gain full power with the implantation of a dictatorship to put into practice its fascist government project. In the escalation of fascism in Brazil, an alliance was made between the conservative elite and sectors of the middle class that was consummated with the support offered to candidate Jair Bolsonaro for the Presidency of the Republic who presented a proposal for a typically fascist government because his speech was based on the cult explicit of order, state violence, authoritarian government practices, social contempt for vulnerable and fragile groups and anti-communism. Since taking office in 2019, Bolsonaro has been acting systematically with the support of his fascist horde to promote a coup d’état to implant a dictatorship in Brazil under his command.
The gigantic economic crisis facing Brazil at the moment results from the bankruptcy of the neo-liberal and anti-national economic model. This model failed in Brazil after causing a real devastation in the Brazilian economy from 1990 to 2014 configured in the very low economic growth, in the existing bottlenecks in the economic and social infrastructure, in the deindustrialization of the Brazilian economy, in the explosion of public debt, in the denationalization of the Brazilian economy, in the widespread breakdown of companies and also in mass unemployment. With the Bolsonaro government, the economic and social situation deteriorated further and was aggravated by the spread of the new Coronavirus. The economic crisis continues, too, because the Bolsonaro government does not adopt any strategy that will contribute to reactivate the country’s economic growth and deal with its worsening with the new Coronavirus pandemic.
The management crisis in Brazil results from the bankruptcy of the existing public administration model in Brazil and the incompetence of the Bolsonaro government. The failure of the public administration model in Brazil is characterized by the fact that the Brazilian State is inefficient and ineffective due, among other factors, to the lack of integration of the federal, state and municipal governments in promoting national, regional and local development. This is one of the main causes of the administrative failure of the public sector in Brazil, which generates waste and delays in the execution of works. The lack of integration of the various instances of the Brazilian State is, therefore, total, causing the action of the public authorities to become chaotic as a whole, thus generating diseconomies of all kinds. This situation has further deteriorated in the incompetent Bolsonaro government that became evident during the new Coronavirus pandemic.
The health crisis in Brazil is evident in the fact that Brazil is close to collapsing its health system. The indispensable condition for Brazil to win the war against the new Coronavirus would be for the government at all levels and the population to be united against the common enemy. In combating the new Coronavirus, there should be coordinating action by the federal government. Unfortunately, in Brazil, this situation does not exist because the President of the Republic Jair Bolsonaro is against the social isolation of the population, systematically disrespecting all the restrictive measures to the agglomeration of people under the pretext that it is also necessary to save the Brazilian economy from debacle. In addition to acting to destroy the effort of governors and mayors to fight the new Coronavirus, the Bolsonaro government does not act with the necessary urgency in the economic plan with the release of the financial resources it has approved by the National Congress to help vulnerable populations to fight hunger, companies in general to avoid bankruptcy and states and municipal governments to avoid their insolvency. Brazil urgently needs strategic alignment of the federal government with states and municipalities in health actions with those of an economic nature to combat the new Coronavirus. Very difficultly, the Bolsonaro government will collaborate in the fight against the new Coronavirus.
It is necessary to understand that small changes or simple reforms in the political institutions and in the legislation in force and in fiscal adjustments are not enough to overcome the current economic crisis because the Brazilian crisis is structural. There is an urgent need to overcome the deep political crisis and the health crisis generated by the pandemic of the new Coronavirus, and then seek to overcome the gigantic economic crisis and the crisis in public administration management. It is necessary to understand that all these crises are interconnected and that none of them will be overcome in isolation without overcoming the others. The first of the crises to be overcome is the political crisis in the face of President Jair Bolsonaro’s inability to govern. Overcoming the political crisis requires the removal of Jair Bolsonaro from the presidency of the Republic, either because of impeachment for committing various crimes of responsibility, or for showing psychopathy, and also because he does not have the necessary capacity to overcome current obstacles and unite the Brazilian nation around a national salvation project that corresponds to the interests of the majority of the Brazilian population. In addition, this action must precede the adoption of solutions to overcome the health crisis generated by the pandemic of the new Coronavirus that will worsen with Bolsonaro in power.
Having overcome the political crisis with Bolsonaro’s removal from power, the health crisis must be overcome by investing in strengthening Brazil’s public health system and minimizing its harmful effects on the economy by distributing basic income to vulnerable and unemployed populations so that they do not die of hunger and creating a low-interest credit line to avoid bankruptcy of companies, especially micro, small and medium-sized companies. These actions must be carried out until the emergence of a vaccine capable of immunizing the population that is expected to occur within 1.5 to 2 years. To finance the actions of the federal government, one can use the country’s international reserves in the amount of US$ 320 billion and, also, resources whose amount totals R$ 200 billion to be collected from government debtors.
Overcoming the health crisis with the emergence of a vaccine capable of immunizing the population, there should be an effort to reactivate the Brazilian economy with the government by adopting a broad program of public infrastructure works (energy, transportation, housing, basic sanitation, etc.) with the participation of the private sector that would contribute to combat current mass unemployment by raising the levels of employment and income of families and companies, consequently promoting the expansion of consumption by families and the resulting companies, respectively, the increase in the wage bill of families and the income of companies.
Reactivating the Brazilian economy, after overcoming the health crisis generated by the pandemic of the new Coronavirus, one can adopt what is suggested in our book “The invention of a new Brazil” that shows what and how to do for Brazil to achieve high levels of political, economic and social development. To invent a new Brazil, it is necessary to fulfill three stages: the first, in the short term, of recovery of the Brazilian economy with the overcoming of the political and health crises, as presented above; the second, in the medium term, with the adoption of the national developmentalist model along the lines of the development model adopted by Asian countries (Japan, South Korea and China) since the second half of the 20th century, and the third, in the long term, with the adoption of the social democratic model along the lines of that practiced in Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland) with the necessary improvements and adaptation.
The adoption of the national developmentalist model in the medium term, along the lines of the development model adopted by the countries of Asia (Japan, South Korea and China) would be justified because they are the countries whose economic model provided the greatest economic development in the world from the second half of 20th century to the present moment and, in the long run, the adoption of the social democratic model in the same way as practiced in Scandinavian countries would be justified because it was the only model of society that allowed the greatest economic, social and political progress in human history.
Regarding the development model of Asia, it is important to note that 3 countries in Asia (Japan, South Korea and China) promoted their development with the government acting as an inducer of development, contrary to the neoliberal economic policy of the governments Fernando Collor, Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula, Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer and, now, Jair Bolsonaro who abdicated from using the Brazilian State as an instrument to promote Brazil’s economic and social development, leaving it at the mercy of market forces. The economic policy of neoliberal governments is diametrically opposed to those adopted by Japan, South Korea and China, which had a primary role in the national state in the development of these countries in the second half of the 20th century.
Japan became a major economic power in the 20th century based on a developmental project carried out by state bureaucracy on behalf of the nation. For its part, in South Korea, the South Korean state has taken on a developmental role through companies and public investments. It was thanks to the role of the State in economic development that China has been presenting the highest GDP growth rates on the planet for the past 30 years.
Private capitalist investors have always played a key role in making investments throughout history in several countries. Entrepreneurs’ decision to invest depends, above all, on the existence of two factors: 1) favorable economic environment; and, 2) developmental government policies. In Brazil today, the economic environment is largely unfavorable due to the steep interest rates practiced by the banking system, the high tax burden, the risk of explosion of the public debt and the retraction of the domestic market due to the economic crisis and the recessionary policy of the Bolsonaro government . The disadvantages caused by the unfavorable economic environment are compounded by the lack of governmental developmental policies that encourage the implementation of productive enterprises in Brazil.
After the adoption of the national developmentalist model in the medium term, a new model of society must be implemented in the long term, which allows civilized coexistence among all human beings in Brazil. This new model should be inspired by the social democracy that exists in Scandinavia, where was implanted the most successful of all them, with the necessary improvements and adaptations. In 2013, The Economist magazine stated that the Nordic countries are probably the best governed countries in the world. The UN World Happiness Report 2014 shows that the happiest nations in the world are concentrated in Northern Europe, with Norway at the top of the list. Nordics have the highest ranking in real GDP per capita, the highest healthy life expectancy, the greatest freedom to make life choices and the greatest generosity. It is no coincidence that the Scandinavian countries, in addition to having great economic and social successes, are leaders in HDI (Human Development Index) in the world.
The social democracy to be implemented in Brazil should, therefore, result from the improvement of the current Scandinavian model adjusted to the Brazilian reality that would operate with a tripod structured based on a neutral State, active organized civil society and an efficient and productive sector (state and private) effective. The neutral State would seek to reconcile the interests of the Productive Sector (state and private) with those of Civil Society, mediating its conflicts in various instances of the executive and legislative branches that, when consensus is not reached, the final decision would be left to the population that would decide democratically through plebiscite and / or referendum. In the new social democracy, the action of monopoly groups and private cartels in the economy should not be allowed. Private companies would only operate in economic sectors where there was competition. State or mixed economy companies would occupy economic sectors where competition was not possible. This is the new Brazil that would need to be invented urgently.
* 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).
Site Title 