Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to present how Brazil can release itself from the economic backwardness resulting from its secular dependence from the colonial period to the contemporary era. In order to achieve this objective, the trajectory of Brazil as a country dependent on the Portuguese, British and North American empires and imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism throughout history was analyzed and the true causes of its political, economic and technological dependence were identified.
1. The trajectory of Brazil as a dependent country throughout history.
Historically, Brazil faced two forms of dependence: the first, from empires such as the Portuguese, the British and the North American from 1500 until 1990; and, the second, by the new imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism from 1990. From 1500 to 1810, Brazil was dominated by the Portuguese colonial empire, from 1810 to 1929 by the British empire, from 1945 to 1990 by the North American empire and from 1990 to the present moment by the globalized capitalist world-system. Only from 1930 to 1945, during the Getúlio Vargas government, there was no foreign interference in Brazil in its development because the great capitalist powers were busy trying to overcome the great world economic depression that started in 1929 and, soon after, they became involved in the 2nd World War until 1945.
In its trajectory over the history of more than 500 years, Brazil has not achieved the status of an independent country because its Independence, unlike the experience of other Latin American countries, did not present the characteristics of a typical national-liberating revolutionary process. Revolutionary nativism, under the influence of the ideals of liberalism and the great revolutions of the end of the 18th century, was not responsible for the emancipation of Brazil from the colonial yoke, being the initiative of D. Pedro I, crown prince of the Portuguese Royal House, and not the Brazilian people the political act that culminated in the Independence of Brazil.
The Independence of Brazil was, therefore, an “independence without revolution” because there were no changes in the economic base and in the political and legal superstructures of the nation giving way to the logic of conserving-changing that still prevails today. The Empire that was born from the Independence of Brazil maintains the execrable latifundium and intensifies the accursed slavery, making it the support of the restoration it carries out regarding the economic structures inherited from the Colony. The Independence of Brazil was not an achievement of the Brazilian people, but granted by Portugal and paid to this country that colonized it for 322 years. The Independence of Brazil in 1822 was, therefore, a false independence.
The end of the Empire in 1889, with the Proclamation of the Republic in Brazil, did not result from the struggle of the Brazilian people, but from a coup d’état sponsored by the Army with the support of the economic oligarchies that dominated the country at the end of the 19th century. The Republic born of a coup d’etat maintains the agrarian-export economic model that privileges the interests of oligarchies since 1500 with the execrable latifundium inherited from the colonial period and maintains the country’s subordination to England since 1810 after the arrival of the royal family . British domination from 1810 to 1929 and the agrarian-export model, which was structured on the basis of the latifundium and slave labor during the colonial period and the Empire, constituted a gigantic obstacle to the development of Brazil with reflexes until today.
The first attempt to promote national emancipation with the economic development of Brazil not dependent on the world market, not subordinated to international capital and the great capitalist powers was initiated by President Getúlio Vargas, who assumed power with the so-called 1930 revolution with the end of República Velha printing to its government the policy of populist and nationalist character from 1930 to 1945. From 1930 to 1945, there was no foreign interference in Brazil in its development on the part of the great powers because they were all committed to overcoming the world economic depression from 1929 onwards and involved in the 2nd World War from 1939 to 1945.
Vargas based his administration on the precepts of populism, nationalism and labor. Economic policy started to value the domestic market that favored industrial growth and, consequently, the urbanization process. The centralism of the Vargas period paved the way for the complete unification of the domestic market, which was all the more important as the driving force of the economy became industrial activity. It was thanks to this centralizing impulse that Brazil definitively equipped itself with an integrated domestic market capable of self-generating its growth. Until 1930, the participation of industry in the Brazilian economy was insignificant. The 1929 economic crisis and the 1930 Revolution created the conditions for the beginning of Brazil’s rupture with the colonial past and for the country’s industrialization process to take off.
The political forces that came to power in Brazil in 1930 supported and implemented an industrialization project with the objective of removing it from economic backwardness and propelling it towards progress with the establishment of its own industrial park, along the lines of European nations and from United States. It was the first time in the history of Brazil that a government made such an option. In 1930, the ideology of nationalism became victorious: autonomous development with a strong industrial base. Industrialization developed through the import substitution process, that is, producing in the country what was previously imported from abroad. In the first phase of industrialization from 1930 to 1940, the emphasis was on the production of goods for immediate consumption (non-durable goods). The only external interference that took place from 1930 to 1945 occurred during World War II when the United States government pressured the Vargas government to install US military bases in Natal and Fernando de Noronha, which only happened because President Vargas demanded for, in return , the installation of Volta Redonda steel plant by US government, which was fundamental for the development of the base industry in Brazil.
After the Second World War, on October 29, 1945, under pressure from the United States government, military invaded the Palácio do Catete, in Rio de Janeiro, and forced the resignation of President Vargas. Getúlio Vargas was elected president of the Republic in 1950 when, in the period 1951/1953, he carried out one of the most complete surveys of the Brazilian economy, in addition to proposing a series of infrastructure projects with their execution programs, covering modernization projects of railways, ports, coastal shipping, generation of electricity, etc. Measures were taken to overcome regional income disparities, that is, to better integrate the Northeast with the rest of the national economy and to achieve monetary stability. BNDES and Petrobras were also created. For not accepting his deposition by the military in 1954, President Vargas committed suicide, and his attitude was also represented by the final act of the first ruler of Brazil that guided his action in defense of national sovereignty.
The second attempt to promote national emancipation with the economic development of Brazil not dependent on the world market, not subordinated to international capital and the great capitalist powers was taken by President João Goulart, who was a disciple of Getúlio Vargas, when, in 1961, it sought to initiate the same populist and nationalist policy by implementing the so-called Base Reforms that brought together initiatives aimed at banking, fiscal, urban, administrative, agrarian and university reforms. It also included offering the right to vote to the illiterate and to the subordinate ranks of the Armed Forces. President João Goulart’s measures also sought greater participation by the State in economic matters, regulating foreign investment in Brazil.
Among the changes intended by the basic reforms was, in the first place, land reform. The objective was to enable thousands of rural workers to have access to land in the hands of the latifundio. The new profit remittance law sought to reduce the extremely high rate of profits that large foreign companies sent from Brazil to their headquarters. For adopting a populist and nationalist policy, João Goulart was deposed from power in 1964 under the pretext that he intended to communize Brazil. The 1964 coup d’état that overthrew the João Goulart government was a counter-revolution promoted by Brazil’s ruling classes with the support of the United States government because it was a conservative reaction to the possibility of an effective and radical transformation of Brazil during the João Goulart government.
The rulers who succeeded Getúlio Vargas and João Goulart adopted policies that compromised Brazil’s future by increasing its political, economic and technological dependence on international capital and, above all, on the United States. The Eurico Dutra government (1946-1950), which succeeded the government of Getúlio Vargas in 1946, made Brazil subordinate to the United States whose alliance with the American government had repercussions on authoritarian political actions at the domestic level. The Juscelino Kubitschek government (1955 to 1960), which succeeded the Vargas government after 1954, contributed to the denationalization of the national economy when foreign capital took charge of Brazil’s industrialization process and the national industry was relegated to its own fate as it suffered competition external groups. The Brazilian industrialization that had advanced under the leadership of the Brazilian company during the Vargas government is overtaken by foreign capital, which is gradually taking over the most dynamic branches of the Brazilian economy.
The military rulers who came to power with the coup d’état in 1964 succeeding the government of João Goulart, implemented a dictatorship that lasted 21 years (1964 to 1985) which, in addition to dismantling the democratic institutions existing in the country, canceled mandates of parliamentarians from opposition, tortured and killed hundreds of leftist militants, maintained the economic policy of the Juscelino Kubitschek government of subordination of the Brazilian economy to international capital. The model of capitalist development dependent on technology and foreign capital, inaugurated by the Juscelino Kubitschek government in 1955, which peaked in the 1970s, ended in the early 1980s. The 1980s and 1990s marked the longest and most serious crisis of Brazil in its history only surpassed by the current crisis that broke out in 2014. This unfortunate situation reached greater seriousness since 1990 when the neoliberal model of subordination of the Country to imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism was adopted.
The neoliberal economic model imposed by the new imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism began to be implemented in Brazil under the Fernando Collor government in 1990, when the process of dismantling the existing institutional apparatus resulting from the national developmental model of the Vargas Era and the capitalist development model dependent on the Kubitschek government and the governments of the military regime in Brazil that were characterized by the active participation of the government in the conduct of the development process. With the neoliberal model, the Brazilian government abdicated this role and transferred it to the market forces commanded by imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism.
Internal and external factors contributed to changes in the existing institutional apparatus in Brazil. Internally, the State’s financial crisis, which made it unable to act as an investor, the insufficiency of domestic private savings, the cessation of financing from international banks and the reduction of foreign direct investments in Brazil since the debt crisis in the 1980s put in check the model of capitalist development that was dependent financially and technologically on the outside world until then. The neoliberal economic model seeks to promote development based exclusively on private national and foreign investments, including infrastructure that has always been a reserved area for government investments.
Adopting the neoliberal adjustment strategy formulated by the Washington Consensus, the Itamar Franco government, which replaced Fernando Collor, and the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government (FHC), which replaced the Itamar Franco government, began to fulfill their three stages described below: 1 ) stabilization of the economy (combating inflation); 2) carrying out structural reforms (privatizations, deregulation of markets, financial and commercial liberalization), and 3) resumption of foreign investments to leverage development. The Itamar Franco and FHC governments processed the fight against inflation with the Real Plan, privatized state companies and opened the national economy even more to international capital. The Lula government maintained the same policy as its predecessor FHC, except for the privatization policy. The Dilma Rousseff government continued the FHC and Lula governments that preceded it, resuming the privatization policy that had the name of public-private partnership.
The Michel Temer government, which replaced that of Dilma Rousseff, further aggravated the economic and social situation in Brazil by adopting measures that deepened the recession and made the resumption of Brazil’s development unfeasible. The results are there: negative economic growth, external imbalances, deindustrialization of the country, stagnation of productivity, generalized bankruptcy of companies, mass unemployment, high internal debt, fiscal crisis of the federal, state and municipal governments and, now also setback in the field of social achievements with the adoption of labor reform.
From 1990, when the neoliberal model of subordination of the country to the imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism, Brazil’s economic vulnerabilities increased during the Fernando Collor, Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer governments, which have deepened further with the Jair Bolsonaro government, which took power in 2019, because, in addition to posing a threat of dismantling democratic institutions with its neo-fascist government policy, of worsening the population’s social conditions, of compromising the population’s health with its inaction in the combating the new Coronavirus and increasing degradation of the country’s environment, is radicalizing even more in the adoption of the neoliberal economic model that is leading the country to greater subordination to imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism and, particularly, to the United States, and to the bankruptcy of the Brazilian economy aggravated with the new Coronavirus pandemic.
The Bolsonaro government compromises national sovereignty through Brazil’s subordinate alignment with North American interests and the imperialism exercised by globalized capitalism when it decided to hand over the Alcântara Base to the United States, the denationalization of Embraer with its sale to Boeing, the sale auctions of the onerous assignment of Petrobras regarding the Presal that benefits foreign capital and the privatization of the oil and gas refining, distribution and transportation sectors of Petrobras demonstrating the surrender character of his government that is at the service of the god Market, of Wall Street, of the Washington consensus and against the Brazilian people.
The neoliberal economic model that remains in force in Brazil has resulted in the economic recession that started in 2014, the general bankruptcy of companies, the mass unemployment that affects 14 million workers, the underutilization of 27 million workers, the deindustrialization of the country and the increase in the denationalization of what still remains of the public patrimony in Brazil and, consequently, in greater subordination of the country in relation to the exterior.
2. The real causes of political, economic and technological dependence in Brazil
According to the theory of world systems developed by Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel, the world organizes itself economically in the form of “world economies”, which would, in the language of the latter, “a fragment of the universe, a piece of the economically autonomous planet , capable of, in essence, sufficing itself and to which its internal connections and exchanges confer a certain organic unity” [BRAUDEL, F. Civilização material, economia e capitalismo (Material civilization, economy and capitalism). São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1996]. According to Wallerstein, the formation of the world-system took place in the 16th century – the beginning of the capitalist system – and its transformations until today, considering the capitalist system as a world system. By the 19th century, virtually all regions of the planet had been incorporated into the capitalist world-system (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. Unthinking Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). Since 1990, the capitalist world-system has integrated all the imperialisms of the great powers that have become the new imperialism of globalized capital.
For Wallerstein, the capitalist world-system is composed of a division between center, periphery and semiperiphery, due to the division of labor between the regions of the planet. The center is the area of great technological development that produces complex products; the periphery is the area that supplies raw materials, agricultural products and cheap labor for the center. The economic exchange between the periphery and the center is uneven: the periphery has to sell its products cheaply while it buys the center’s products at an expensive price, and this situation tends to reproduce automatically, almost deterministically, although it is also dynamic and has changed historically. As for the semiperiphery, it is a region of intermediate development that functions as a center for the periphery and a periphery for the center, as is the case in Brazil. Some central countries have assumed the condition of imperialists by exercising their dominion over countries in the periphery and semiperiphery that have been the object of secular plunder.
The semiperiphery is characterized by Wallerstein as a structural element necessary for performing a stabilizing role similar to that of the middle class within the configuration of classes in a country. It would also assume a function, in Arrighi’s words, of “systemic legitimation”, showing Periphery that there is the possibility of mobility within the international division of labor for those who are sufficiently “capable” and / or “well-behaved” [ARRIGHI, Giovanni, A ilusão do desenvolvimento (The illusion of development), Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997]. According to Arrighi, the semi-peripheral condition is described as one in which a significant number of national states like Brazil remain permanently stationed between the central and peripheral conditions, and which, despite having undergone far-reaching social and economic transformations, continues relatively backward in important respects.
Arrighi states that the center of the world-system is made up of the most developed countries in the world, which are the members of the organic core of the world capitalist economy, that is, the countries of Western Europe (Benelux, Scandinavia, West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom), North America (United States and Canada), Australia and New Zealand. After the Second World War, Japan and Italy, which were semi-peripheral countries, became part of this nucleus. The thesis that prevailed after the Second World War that it would be possible for all peripheral and semi-peripheral nations to reach the high level of development enjoyed by the central capitalist countries similar to the United States has not been realized. From the second half of the twentieth century, there were several attempts to promote economic and social development in several countries in the world that failed, both in terms of capitalism with the national developmentalism started, for example, in Brazil, and those with the implantation of socialism like the Soviet Union and socialist countries of Eastern Europe, among others. There were several partial and temporary successes. But just as all indicators seemed to be moving in the upward direction, almost all peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries collapsed during the 1990s.
One fact is evident: the transformation of a peripheral or semi-peripheral capitalist country to the condition of developed is quite difficult to accomplish as demonstrated by Arrighi in his work The illusion of development. In the second half of the twentieth century, Japan and Italy were the only ones that moved from being semi-peripheral countries to being part of the core of developed countries. Due to the geopolitical importance during the Cold War, Japan and South Korea were able to scale to a higher level of development due to the financial support they obtained from the United States after World War II and, above all, the role played by the national state in promoting development. South Korea was the only country on the periphery of the capitalist world-system that evolved into a semi-peripheral condition in the second half of the 20th century. Italy has managed to reach the level of a developed country thanks to a series of favorable factors existing in its economy and the developmental role played by the Italian State.
China, which was a semi-peripheral country in the world economy, abandoned the construction of Maoist socialism and joined the capitalist world-system taking advantage of its comparative economic advantages (gigantic market size, extremely low labor costs, large existing infrastructure , etc.) can integrate the core of developed countries thanks to the centralizing and developmental role played by the Chinese government. With the end of the Soviet Union, Russia, which fits as semi-peripheral country of the world economy, integrated itself into the capitalist world-system without becoming subordinate to the great capitalist powers like the others thanks to the independent developmental role played by the Russian government which, due to this and the comparative economic advantages (large market, large natural resources and large industrial structure) have the possibility of reaching developed country status. Brazil was a peripheral country until 1930 when it became a semi-peripheral country that, despite having great natural resources and a good consumer market, is threatened to go back to the condition of a peripheral country if the existing industrial structure in the country is scrapped with continuity of the neoliberal model.
It can be said that the failure to promote economic and social development in almost all the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries of the world must be attributed to the fact that these countries are unable to free themselves from their bonds or dependence on the capitalist world-system. In his work Unthinking Social Science, the American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein affirms that it is necessary to review the current paradigms of the social sciences and start to think differently about the 21st century. Wallerstein defends the thesis that it is not enough to start the national liberation struggle in each country as it happened during the 20th century without the rupture of the peripheral and semiperipheral countries of the world in relation to the capitalist world-system. This explains the failure of the vast majority of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries to break dependency. Instead of breaking with the capitalist world-system, China preferred to integrate itself because its government was able to avoid the harmful consequences of what has happened in all countries that are subjected to the tyranny of international capital. Not all countries, however, have the same conditions as China to attract capital from all over the world and have governments capable of not succumbing to the impositions of international capital.
3. How to release Brazil from its secular dependence
Taking into account the trajectory of Brazil throughout history, it can be said that its political, economic and social progress was aborted by the imperialist powers counting on the collaboration of the country’s various rulers who acted in a subordinate manner during the colonial period from 1500 to 1822, the Empire from 1822 to 1889 and the Republic from 1889 to the contemporary era with the exception of the Getúlio Vargas and João Goulart governments that tried to break the national dependence on the great imperialist powers and because of this they were overthrown from power. It also appears, based on the analysis of the causes of the dependence of peripheral and semiperipheral countries, as is the case of Brazil, that the autonomous national development of peripheral and semiperipheral countries, whether capitalist or socialist, will not succeed if it does not there is a rupture with the globalized capitalist world-system with the realization of a world revolution against the dominant economic order in the world that conditions the development of all countries in the world. This would explain the reasons why Brazil, as a semi-peripheral country of the capitalist world-system, was unsuccessful in both attempts to end its political, economic and technological dependence.
The failure of almost all of the capitalist and socialist peripheral and semi-peripheral countries that tried to promote their autonomous development in relation to the capitalist world-system is due to the fact that they promoted their social revolutions without carrying out a globally coordinated world revolution. This means that on a world scale, the peoples of all peripheral and semi-peripheral countries should struggle to carry out their national revolutions simultaneously with the realization of a world revolution aiming at the end of the capitalist world-system with the construction of a new world economic and political order that contributes to ending the plundering that they suffer at the moment by globalized imperialism. Without this perspective, national developmentalism and socialism as projects of society will be doomed to failure. A fact that is evident is that, while the globalized capitalist world-system acts based on global strategies supported by central capitalist countries and coordinated by international organizations, the peoples of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries do not act in a coordinated way in the fight against the common enemy , the capitalist world-system
It should be noted that the World Revolution was defended by the leaders of the socialist revolution in Russia, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in 1917, who believed that the socialist revolution should be global and permanent. Both Lenin and Trotsky believed in the need for a world revolution. The difference was that Trotsky proposed a path centered on real worker participation as opposed to the Soviet program that later showed its intention to withdraw popular participation. Adopting the false argument of the need to consolidate the Socialist State in the Soviet Union, at the expense of the expansion of the world socialist revolution, Stalin took control of power and imposed a dynamic of complete departure from the original project of the Russian Revolution.
It is concluded, therefore, that Brazil and all peripheral and semi-peripheral countries will only be freed from their economic backwardness by carrying out in each country a true revolution that promotes changes in the economic base and in the political and legal superstructure of the nation and the end of secular dependence in relation to ancient and modern imperialisms with the realization of a world revolution that promotes the construction of a new world economic and political order. To carry out the world revolution, it is necessary to establish a World Forum for the Progress of Humanity by civil society organizations from all countries in the world. In this Forum, the objectives and strategies of a world movement should be discussed and established for the construction of a new model of society in each country of the world according to the will of its peoples and for the constitution of a global democratic government and a world parliament aiming to raise awareness all peoples in order to make a world in which freedom, equality and fraternity prevail in every country in the world and international peace and progress for all humanity.
To be successful, national revolutions in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries should take place simultaneously with the world revolution and not in isolation as in the past. Peoples from all over the world and not only from peripheral and semi-peripheral countries should be summoned to carry out revolutions in their countries and, also, a world revolution that redeems humanity. In ideal conditions, national revolutions should be carried out without the use of violence, seeking to build the consensus of the populations of each country, as occurred among the people of Scandinavian countries after 1930 when they implanted the Social Welfare State, which, according to the UN, are the best governed countries in the world and with the highest political, economic and social progress among all countries in the world. The world revolution, in turn, should be triggered peacefully by the peoples and rulers of the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries of the world economy with the effort to attract the peoples and rulers of the central capitalist countries to join their cause. This would be the path that would allow national revolutions and the world revolution to take place without the use of violence. If this path is not accepted by all peoples and countries in the world, revolutionary violence will inevitably occur.
* 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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