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Fernando Alcoforado*

The main political events of Brazil have presented in the moments of deep crisis throughout history as the main characteristic the conciliation between the representative political forces of the ruling classes with the maintenance of the economic and social status quo as happened with the Independence of the Country in 1822, the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 and the end of the Oligarchic Republic in 1930. The conciliation between the representative political forces of the ruling classes can assume two characteristics, according to the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci: 1) passive revolution; and 2) counter-reform [COUTINHO, Carlos Nelson. Revolução passiva ou contrarreforma? (Passive revolution or counter-reform?)  Available at the website <http://www.acessa.com/gramsci/?page=visualizar&id=790>].

Unlike a popular “Jacobin” revolution, such as the French 1789, Russian 1917, Chinese 1949, and Cuban 1959 revolutions carried out by the people by breaking down the dominant power by radically breaking with the old political, economic and social order, a passive revolution always implies the presence of two moments: that of “restoration” (it is always a conservative reaction against the possibility of an effective and radical transformation from “below”, that is, a popular revolution) and “renewal” (in which some of the popular demands are met through “concessions” from the ruling strata).

In Brazil, the 1964 coup d’état was a passive revolution based on “restoration” because it was a counterrevolution, that is, a conservative reaction to the possibility of an effective and radical transformation from “below” during the João Goulart administration. The end of the Oligarchic Republic in 1930, for example, was a passive revolution based on “renewal” in which some of the popular demands were met by the ruling classes, such as the social laws introduced by the Getúlio Vargas government that represented “concessions” to subordinate social strata, besides contributing to the advance of capitalism in Brazil.

As for the counter-reform, Gramsci characterizes it as a pure “restoration” of a political, economic and social order that eliminates obstacles to the development of capitalism, such as the “restoration” of liberalism now with new elements. The passive revolution acts towards the “restoration” of a political, economic and social order by acting to prevent, for example, a social revolution. In the counter-reform, there is a “combination of old and new,” that is, liberalism that has come to operate globally.

The Welfare State, for example, introduced in several Western European countries after World War II, was a passive revolution with the introduction of social democracy that had the moment of restoration by barring the possibilities of successful of socialist revolution and the moment of renewal by adopting the interventionist economic policies suggested by Keynes and by accommodating many of the demands of the working classes. In turn, the counter-reform has as an example the neoliberalism that was introduced in the world economy, including Brazil, from the 1990s to enable the return of the old liberalism, which was previously limited to each country, to operate on the world level.

In the neoliberal era in which we live there is no space for the advancement of social rights. On the contrary, there is the elimination of such rights and the deconstruction and denial of the reforms already achieved by the subordinate classes. So-called “reforms” of social security, labor protection laws, privatization of public enterprises, etc. – “reforms” that are currently present on the political agenda of both central and peripheral capitalist countries, such as Brazil, aim at the pure and simple restoration of the conditions proper to a “savage” capitalism, in which market laws must be applied without restriction.

After the passive revolution based on the “restoration” carried out by the military regime from 1964 to 1985, the economic policy adopted by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments represented a mix of passive revolution based on “renewal” and counter-reform. With the passive revolution based on “renewal” some popular demands were met by the ruling classes, such as cash transfer programs such as Bolsa Familia. The counter-reform was characterized by the introduction of neoliberalism which resulted in the elimination of some social rights, the deconstruction and denial of the reforms already achieved by the subordinate classes, the privatization of public enterprises, etc.

Brazil, more than any other country in Latin America, can be characterized as the quintessential place of passive revolution and counter-reform. Independence of Brazil differed from the experience of other Latin American countries because it did not have the characteristics of a typical national-liberatory revolutionary process because it was aborted, in the Brazilian case, by the episode of the Portuguese royal family’s transmigration to Brazil, when the Colony received the structure and frameworks of the Portuguese metropolitan state.

Revolutionary nativism, under the influence of the ideals of liberalism and the great revolutions of the late eighteenth century, gave way in Brazil to the logic of to keep and to change that still prevails today, with the initiative of D. Pedro I, Crown Prince of the Portuguese Royal House, and not to the Brazilian people the political act that culminated with Independence. Brazil’s independence was therefore a “revolution without revolution” because there were no changes in the nation’s economic base and political and legal superstructures. The State born of Independence maintains the execrable landholding and intensifies the no less execrable slavery by making it the support of restoration of the economic structures inherited from the Colony.

Brazil was the last country in the world to end slavery in the nineteenth century, land reform is yet to be realized because the landlord-based agrarian structure still exists in Brazil, currently modernized with agribusiness, and the process of industrialization was introduced late in Brazil, 200 years after the Industrial Revolution in England. This explains Brazil’s economic backwardness relative to more developed countries. The economic crises faced by Brazil throughout its history have not been able to generate political crises that would lead the Brazilian people to the “Jacobin” social revolution and put in check the economic system and the holders of power to promote their economic and social development.

Despite the numerous popular uprisings recorded throughout the history of Brazil, a true political, economic and social revolution capable of making profound structural changes and promoting development for the benefit of the Brazilian population has never actually happened in Brazil. All the revolutionary attempts made in Brazil were aborted with harsh repression by the holders of power. It is well known that, in the world, the countries that have advanced politically are those whose peoples have been protagonists, through social revolutions, the changes made in the economic and social planes.

At the current juncture, the country is moving swiftly towards economic and political collapse with the nefarious Bolsonaro government, which is making a mix of passive “restoration” revolution, aimed at maintaining the privileges of the ruling classes and promoting setbacks in the social realm, and of counter-reform by deepening neoliberalism to the detriment of the interests of its population and Brazil. The passive revolution based on the “restoration” associated with the counter-reform is a conservative reaction to the possibility of an effective and radical transformation of Brazil that corresponds to the will of the vast majority of the Brazilian population. The critical political, economic and social situation in which Brazil is currently facing may also cause social upheaval that may abort the passive and counter-reform revolution and result in a Jacobin or popular revolution in Brazil.

* 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).

Fernando Alcoforado*

Os principais acontecimentos políticos do Brasil têm apresentado nos momentos de crise profunda ao longo da história como característica principal a conciliação pelo alto quando as forças políticas em presença procuraram manter o “status quo” como ocorreu com a Independência do País em 1822, a Proclamação da República em 1889 e o fim da República Oligárquica em 1930. A conciliação pelo alto pode assumir duas características, segundo o filósofo italiano Antonio Gramsci: 1) revolução passiva; e, 2) contrarreforma (COUTINHO, Carlos Nelson. Revolução passiva ou contrarreforma? Disponível no website  <http://www.acessa.com/gramsci/?page=visualizar&id=790>).

Ao contrário de uma revolução popular, “jacobina”, como, por exemplo, as revoluções francesa de 1789, russa de 1917, chinesa de 1949 e cubana de 1959 realizada pelo povo pondo abaixo o poder dominante rompendo radicalmente com a velha ordem política, econômica e social, uma revolução passiva implica sempre a presença de dois momentos: o da “restauração” (trata-se sempre de uma reação conservadora contra a possibilidade de uma transformação efetiva e radical proveniente “de baixo”, isto é, uma revolução popular) e da “renovação” (no qual algumas das demandas populares são satisfeitas através de “concessões” das camadas dominantes).

No Brasil, o golpe de estado de 1964 foi uma revolução passiva baseada na “restauração” porque ela foi uma contrarrevolução, isto é, uma reação conservadora à possibilidade de uma transformação efetiva e radical proveniente “de baixo” durante o governo João Goulart. O fim da República Oligárquica em 1930, por exemplo, foi uma revolução passiva baseada na “renovação” na qual algumas das demandas populares foram satisfeitas pelas classes dominantes, como é o caso das leis sociais introduzidas pelo governo Getúlio Vargas que representaram “concessões” às camadas sociais subalternas, além de contribuir para o avanço do capitalismo no Brasil.

Quanto à contrarreforma, Gramsci a caracteriza como uma pura e simples “restauração” de uma ordem política, econômica e social que elimine os obstáculos ao desenvolvimento do capitalismo como, por exemplo, a “restauração” do liberalismo agora com novos elementos. A revolução passiva atua no sentido da “restauração” de uma ordem política, econômica e social ao atuar para impedir, por exemplo, uma revolução social. Na contrarreforma, há uma “combinação entre o velho e o novo”, isto é, o liberalismo que passou a operar globalmente.

O Welfare State (Estado de Bem estar Social), por exemplo, introduzido em vários países da Europa Ocidental após a Segunda Guerra Mundial foi uma revolução passiva com a introdução da social democracia que teve o momento da restauração ao barrar as possibilidades de sucesso de revolução socialista e o momento da renovação ao adotar as políticas econômicas intervencionistas sugeridas por Keynes e ao acolher muitas das demandas das classes trabalhadoras. Por sua vez, a contrarreforma tem como exemplo o neoliberalismo que foi introduzido na economia mundial, inclusive no Brasil, a partir da década de 1990 para viabilizar a volta do velho liberalismo, que antes se circunscrevia a cada país, para operar no plano mundial.

Na época neoliberal em que vivemos não há espaço para o avanço dos direitos sociais. Ao contrário, há a eliminação de tais direitos e a desconstrução e negação das reformas já conquistadas pelas classes subalternas. As chamadas “reformas” da previdência social, das leis de proteção ao trabalho, a privatização das empresas públicas, etc. — “reformas” que estão atualmente presentes na agenda política tanto dos países capitalistas centrais quanto dos periféricos, como o Brasil, têm por objetivo a pura e simples restauração das condições próprias de um capitalismo “selvagem”, no qual devem vigorar sem freios as leis do mercado.

Após a revolução passiva baseada na “restauração” realizada pelo regime militar de 1964 a 1985, a política econômica adotada pelos governos Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula e Dilma Rousseff representou um misto de revolução passiva baseada na “renovação” e na contrarreforma. Com a revolução passiva baseada na “renovação” algumas demandas populares foram satisfeitas pelas classes dominantes, como, por exemplo, os programas de transferência de renda como o Bolsa Família. A contrarreforma se caracterizou pela introdução do neoliberalismo do qual resultou a  eliminação de alguns direitos sociais, a desconstrução e negação das reformas já conquistadas pelas classes subalternas, a privatização das empresas públicas, etc.

O Brasil, mais que qualquer outro país da América Latina, pode ser caracterizado como o lugar por excelência da revolução passiva e da contrarreforma. A Independência do Brasil diferiu da experiência dos demais países da América Latina porque não apresentou as características de um típico processo revolucionário nacional-libertador porque foi abortado, no caso brasileiro, pelo episódio da transmigração da família real portuguesa para o Brasil, quando a Colônia acolhe a estrutura e os quadros do Estado metropolitano português.

O nativismo revolucionário, sob a influência dos ideais do liberalismo e das grandes revoluções de fins do século XVIII cedeu terreno no Brasil à lógica do conservar-mudando que prevalece até hoje, cabendo à iniciativa de D. Pedro I, príncipe herdeiro da Casa Real portuguesa, e não ao povo brasileiro o ato político que culminou com a Independência. A Independência do Brasil foi, portanto, uma “revolução sem revolução” porque não houve mudanças na base econômica e nas superestruturas política e jurídica da nação. O Estado que nasce da Independência mantém o execrável latifúndio e intensifica a não menos execrável escravidão fazendo desta o suporte da restauração que realiza quanto às estruturas econômicas herdadas da Colônia.

O Brasil foi o último país do mundo a acabar com a escravidão no século XIX, a reforma agrária ainda está por se realizar porque a estrutura agrária baseada no latifúndio continua existindo no Brasil, modernizada na atualidade com o agronegócio, e o processo de industrialização foi introduzido  tardiamente no Brasil, 200 anos após a Revolução Industrial na Inglaterra. Isto explica o atraso econômico do Brasil em relação aos países mais desenvolvidos. As crises econômicas enfrentadas pelo Brasil ao longo de sua história não foram capazes de gerar crises políticas que levassem o povo brasileiro à revolução social “jacobina” e colocassem em xeque o sistema econômico e os detentores do poder visando a promoção de seu desenvolvimento econômico e social.

Apesar das inúmeras revoltas populares registradas ao longo da história do Brasil, uma verdadeira revolução política, econômica e social capaz de realizar mudanças estruturais profundas e promover o desenvolvimento em benefício da população brasileira nunca aconteceu efetivamente no País. Todas as tentativas revolucionárias realizadas no Brasil foram abortadas com dura repressão pelos detentores do poder. É sabido que, no mundo, os países que avançaram politicamente são aqueles cujos povos foram protagonistas, através de revoluções sociais, das mudanças realizadas nos planos econômico e social.

Na conjuntura atual, o País caminha celeremente para o colapso econômico e político com o nefasto governo Bolsonaro que está fazendo um misto de revolução passiva baseada na “restauração”, que visa manter os privilégios das classes dominantes e promover retrocessos no campo social, e de contrarreforma ao aprofundar o neoliberalismo em detrimento dos interesses de sua população e do Brasil. A revolução passiva baseada na “restauração” associada à contrarreforma se trata de uma reação conservadora à possibilidade de uma transformação efetiva e radical do Brasil que corresponda à vontade da grande maioria da população brasileira. A crítica situação política, econômica e social em que se encontra o Brasil no momento pode fazer, também, com que ocorra convulsão social que pode abortar a revolução passiva e a contrarreforma e dela resultar uma revolução jacobina ou popular no Brasil.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, condecorado com a Medalha do Mérito da Engenharia do Sistema CONFEA/CREA, membro da Academia Baiana de Educação, engenheiro e doutor em Planejamento Territorial e Desenvolvimento Regional pela Universidade de Barcelona, professor universitário e consultor nas áreas de planejamento estratégico, planejamento empresarial, planejamento regional e planejamento de sistemas energéticos, é autor dos livros 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) e Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).

Fernando Alcoforado*

Cet article vise à expliquer la nouvelle crise pétrolière et ses conséquences résultant d’attaques de drones sur deux des principales installations pétrolières d’Arabie saoudite, le plus grand exportateur de pétrole au monde qui ont exacerbé les tensions dans la région du Moyen-Orient, a entraîné une réduction de 5% de la production mondiale de pétrole et ont fait grimper le prix du baril sur le marché international à son plus haut niveau depuis la guerre du Golfe de 1991. Le prix du pétrole a augmenté de près de 20%. Le baril de pétrole international de référence Brent était cité à 71,95 USD. La hausse a été contenue peu de temps après que Trump ait autorisé la libération de réserves stratégiques américaines si nécessaire. L’impact sur l’offre de pétrole est énorme. L’Arabie Saoudite est le plus grand exportateur de pétrole au monde, expédiant plus de sept millions de barils par jour.

Les attaques ont touché la plus grande installation de traitement de pétrole de la planète, ainsi qu’un champ pétrolifère situé à proximité, tous deux exploités par Aramco, appartenant à l’État saoudien. Ensemble, ils représentent environ 50% de la production de pétrole de l’Arabie saoudite. Il faudra peut-être des semaines avant que l’installation puisse rétablir complètement son exploitation. Les dommages causés aux installations d’Abqaiq et de Khurais sont considérables et il faudra peut-être des semaines avant que les approvisionnements en pétrole soient normalisés. Les rebelles yéménites au Yémen ont revendiqué l’attentat à la bombe, ce qui constituerait une réponse aux attaques de la coalition dirigée par l’Arabie saoudite. Les Etats-Unis, qui soutiennent les Saoudiens, insistent sur le fait que l’Iran, l’allié du groupe rebelle, est derrière l’offensive. Les Iraniens nient à leur tour toute implication dans cet épisode. Ces attaques ont davantage déstabilisé la région du golfe Persique, révélant la vulnérabilité des installations pétrolières saoudiennes d’une importance vitale pour l’économie mondiale, ce qui a accéléré la montée des tensions entre l’Iran et les États-Unis.

Pourquoi les rebelles yéménites auraient-ils attaqué l’Arabie saoudite? Cela s’explique par le fait que le Yémen, un pays du sud de l’Arabie saoudite, connaît une violente guerre civile depuis 2015. La guerre civile a éclaté au printemps arabe de 2011, lorsqu’un soulèvement populaire a forcé le président yéménite Ali Abdullah Saleh, laisser le pouvoir entre les mains du Vice-président Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Le changement politique n’a pas conduit à la stabilité et à la fin de 2014, les rebelles chiites houthis se sont emparés de la capitale Sanah et ont renversé Hadi. Avec la montée du groupe rebelle, qui, croyait-il, était soutenu militairement par un Iran à majorité chiite, l’Arabie saoudite dirigeait une coalition de huit nations arabes à majorité sunnite contre les Houthis, dans le but déclaré de rétablir le gouvernement Hadi. Et c’est comme cela que le conflit a considérablement augmenté en mars 2015. Les Saoudiens mènent des frappes aériennes contre les jeunes rebelles Houthis – avec le soutien des États-Unis – depuis un certain temps. Mais tes adversaires ils démontrent seulement maintenant leur réelle capacité à se défendre.

Les troupes de la coalition – appuyées par les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni et la France – lancent des frappes aériennes presque tous les jours au Yémen, tandis que les Houthis tirent souvent des missiles sur l’Arabie saoudite. Les Nations Unies estiment que le conflit a tué au moins 7 290 civils et laissé 80% de la population, soit 24 millions de personnes, à la merci de l’aide humanitaire ou de la protection, dont 10 millions dépendent de la nourriture pour survivre. L’Iran entretient des liens étroits avec les Houthis et il ne fait aucun doute que ceux-ci jouent un rôle important dans le développement de la capacité d’attaque à longue distance du Yémen, qu’il s’agisse de drones armés ou de missiles. Le secrétaire d’État américain, Mike Pompeo, n’a pas tardé à montrer du doigt l’Iran pour ses attaques, mais il l’a apparemment fait avant que des renseignements clairs soient disponibles.

Des sources américaines ont indiqué qu’il y avait environ 17 points d’impact de l’attaque, tous suggérant qu’ils venaient du nord ou du nord-ouest – plus probablement d’Iran ou d’Irak, que du Yémen. Le ministre iranien des Affaires étrangères, Javad Zarif, a qualifié les accusations américaines de mensonges. “Après l’échec de la politique de” pression maximale “, le secrétaire d’Etat Pompeo a adopté le” mensonge maximum “, a-t-il écrit sur Twitter, évoquant la” campagne de pression maximale “déclarée par l’administration Trump contre Téhéran – une série de Les sanctions économiques adoptées depuis que les États-Unis ont abandonné l’accord nucléaire signé entre l’Iran et les puissances mondiales.

La question qui se pose maintenant est de savoir ce que feront les États-Unis et l’Arabie saoudite en réponse aux attaques contre les installations pétrolières de l’Arabie saoudite. Beaucoup d’analystes disent pas grand chose. La poursuite des frappes aériennes de la coalition saoudienne n’a aucun sens car elle ne fait que transformer le Yémen appauvri en une zone de catastrophe humanitaire. L’attaque de l’Iran transformerait le Moyen-Orient en une conflagration mondiale avec la participation de la Russie, de la Chine, des alliés de l’Iran, des pays européens, et d’Israël, des alliés des États-Unis en plus de faire monter fortement le prix du baril de pétrole à des niveaux qui mettraient en péril l’économie mondiale en difficulté. Un autre scénario est la cessation des attaques de la coalition saoudienne contre le Yémen face à son impopularité croissante aux États-Unis et en Europe et la célébration d’un accord avec l’Iran qui pourrait avoir lieu lors du débat de l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies (à la fin de cette mois à New York).

Il convient de noter que l’Iran sait que Trump, malgré toute sa fanfaronnade et son imprévisibilité, veut sortir les États-Unis de l’embrouillage militaire et ne pas en engager de nouveaux conflit. L’intention la plus récente de Trump était de ramener tous les soldats américains encore en Afghanistan en conflit avec les talibans. L’événement qui a précipité la chute récente de John Bolton est une réunion secrète avec des dirigeants du mouvement taliban – officiellement considérée comme une organisation terroriste – prévue à Camp David, mais annulée après la divulgation de l’information à la presse (Trump attribué à Bolton la responsabilité de la fuites). Cela donne aux Iraniens la possibilité d’appliquer leur propre “pression maximale” en réponse à la “pression maximale” exercée par les États-Unis. Toutefois, une erreur de calcul risque de conduire à un conflit à grande échelle, ce qu’aucune des parties ne souhaite réellement.

Il convient de noter que les sanctions imposées par les États-Unis à l’Iran il y a un an représentent un prix très élevé pour l’économie iranienne. Les Iraniens ne peuvent pas payer le coût d’une guerre. Mais ils ont tout intérêt à maintenir la menace de confrontation avec les États-Unis en prenant possession de pétroliers ou en endommageant les infrastructures saoudiennes. Le scénario le plus probable n’est ni la guerre ni un nouvel accord, mais la tension progressive au «seuil de la guerre». La stratégie iranienne consiste donc à conserver une position dominante dans l’escalade, à créer un levier de négociation et à transmettre une idée de force et de défi, selon l’analyste John Raine dans un texte à l’Institut international d’études stratégiques (IISS). Cela donne aux Iraniens la possibilité d’appliquer leur propre “pression maximale” en réponse à la “pression maximale” exercée par les États-Unis. Si cela peut augmenter le coût pour les Américains et les Européens de poursuivre la stratégie de pression, ce sera le cas.

Les conséquences de la nouvelle crise pétrolière seront catastrophiques pour le Brésil en raison de l’effet qu’elle aura sur la hausse des prix du pétrole sur l’économie stagnante, sans perspective de reprise sous le gouvernement Bolsonaro. Cela est dû au fait que Petrobras a adopté une politique de prix du carburant liée au prix du pétrole sur le marché international qui renforcera encore la stagnation économique du Brésil.

 Fernando Alcoforado, 79, a reçoit la Médaille du Mérite en Ingénierie du Système CONFEA / CREA, membre de l’Académie de l’Education de Bahia, ingénieur et docteur en planification territoriale et développement régional pour l’Université de Barcelone, professeur universitaire et consultant dans les domaines de la planification stratégique, planification d’entreprise, planification régionale et planification énergétique, il est l’auteur de ouvrages 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) et Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).

Fernando Alcoforado*

This article aims to explain the new oil crisis and its consequences resulting from drone attacks on two of the main oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter that have heightened tension in the Middle East region, caused a reduction of 5 % of world oil production and rose the price of a barrel on the international market soaring to its highest since the 1991 Gulf War. The price of oil has risen by almost 20%. The international reference Brent oil barrel was quoted at US$ 71.95. The rise was contained shortly after Trump authorized the release of US strategic reserves if necessary. The impact on oil supply is huge. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter, shipping more than seven million barrels a day.

The attacks hit the largest oil processing facility on the planet, as well as a nearby oil field, both operated by Saudi state-owned Aramco. Together they account for about 50% of Saudi Arabia’s oil production. It may take weeks before the facility can fully reestablish its operation. Damage to the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities is extensive, and it may take weeks before oil supplies are normalized. Yemeni rebels in Yemen claimed the bombing, which would be a response to attacks by the Saudi-led coalition against them. The United States, which supports the Saudis, insists that Iran, the rebel group’s ally, is behind the offensive. The Iranians in turn deny any involvement in the episode. These attacks further destabilized the Persian Gulf region, revealing the vulnerability of Saudi oil facilities of vital importance to the global economy, which has accelerated the escalating tension between Iran and the United States.

Why would Yemeni rebel rebels attack Saudi Arabia? This resulted from the fact that Yemen, a country in southern Saudi Arabia, has been experiencing a violent civil war since 2015. The civil war erupted in the 2011 Arab Spring, when a popular uprising forced then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to leave power in the hands of the Vice President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Political change did not lead to stability, and by the end of 2014, the Houthi Shiite rebels seized the capital, Sanah, and toppled Hadi. With the rise of the rebel group, which it believed was militarily supported by mostly Shi’ite Iran, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of eight mainly Sunni Arab nations against the Houthis, with the stated aim of restoring the Hadi government. And that’s how the conflict escalated dramatically in March 2015. The Saudis have been conducting air strikes against Youth Houthi rebels – with US backing – for some time. But its opponents now only demonstrated their real ability to fight back.

Coalition troops – backed by the United States, the United Kingdom and France – launch air strikes almost every day in Yemen, while the Houthis often fire missiles at Saudi Arabia. The United Nations (UN) estimates that the conflict has killed at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population – 24 million people – at the mercy of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who depend on food supplies to survive. Iran has strong ties to the Houthis, and there is no doubt that they play an important role in developing Yemen’s long-range attack capability, whether through armed drones or missiles. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quick to point his finger blaming Iran for the attacks, but he apparently did so before any clear intelligence was available.

US sources indicated that there were about 17 impact points from the attack, all suggesting they came from the north or northwest – more likely from Iran or Iraq, than from Yemen. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has classified the US accusations as lies. “After the failure of the ‘maximum pressure’ policy, Secretary Pompeo changes to ‘maximum lie’,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to the “maximum pressure campaign” declared by the Trump administration against Tehran – a series of diplomatic and economic sanctions adopted since the United States abandoned the nuclear agreement signed between Iran and world powers.

The question now is what will the United States and Saudi Arabia do in response to attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities? Many analysts say not much. Continuing air strikes by the Saudi coalition makes no sense because it is only serving to turn impoverished Yemen into a zone of humanitarian catastrophe. Attacking Iran would turn the Middle East into a global conflagration with the involvement of Russia and China, allies of Iran, the european countries, and Israel, allies of the United States, as well as causing the price of a barrel of oil to rise sharply to levels that would jeopardize the debilitated global economy. Another scenario is the cessation of Saudi coalition attacks against Yemen in the face of its growing unpopularity in the United States and Europe and the conclusion of an agreement with Iran that could take place at the UN General Assembly debate session (at the end of this month in New York).

It should be noted that Iran knows that Trump, despite all his braggadocio and unpredictability, wants to get the United States out of the military tangle and not get into new conflits. Trump’s most recent intention was to bring back all American soldiers still in Afghanistan in conflict with the Taliban. The event that precipitated John Bolton’s recent downfall was a secret meeting with leaders of the Taliban movement – officially considered a terrorist organization – scheduled for Camp David but canceled after the information was leaked to the press (Trump attributed Bolton responsibility for the leakage). This gives Iranians the ability to apply their own “maximum pressure” in response to the “maximum pressure” exerted by the United States. There is, however, the risk that a miscalculation could lead to large-scale conflict, which neither party really wants.

It should be noted that the sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran a year ago represent a very high price for the Iranian economy. Iranians cannot afford the cost of a war. But they have every interest in maintaining the threat of confrontation with the United States by taking possession of oil tankers or causing damage to Saudi infrastructure. The most likely scenario is neither war nor a new agreement, but the progressive tension on the ‘threshold of war’. The Iranian strategy, therefore, is to maintain dominance in climbing, create leverage for negotiation and convey an idea of ​​strength and challenge, according to analyst John Raine in a text to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). This gives Iranians the ability to apply their own “maximum pressure” in response to the “maximum pressure” exerted by the United States. If it can increase the cost for Americans and Europeans to continue the pressure strategy, it will.

The consequences of the new oil crisis will be catastrophic for Brazil because of the effect it will have on rising oil prices on the stagnant economy with no prospect of recovery during the Bolsonaro administration. This is due to the fact that Petrobras has adopted a fuel price policy linked to the price of oil in the international market that will make Brazil’s economic stagnation even more intense.

* 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).

Fernando Alcoforado*

Este artigo tem por objetivo explicar a nova crise do petróleo e sua consequências resultantes dos ataques de drones a duas das principais instalações petrolíferas da Arábia Saudita , maior exportador de petróleo do mundo que acirraram a tensão na região do Oriente Médio, provocaram uma redução de 5% na produção mundial de petróleo e fizeram disparar o preço do barril no mercado internacional atingindo a maior alta desde a Guerra do Golfo, em 1991. O preço do petróleo chegou a subir quase 20%,. O barril de petróleo do tipo Brent, referência internacional, atingiu a cotação de US$ 71,95. A alta foi contida um pouco depois que Trump autorizou a liberação de reservas estratégicas dos Estados Unidos se for necessário. É gigantesco o Impacto sobre o abastecimento de petróleo. A Arábia Saudita é o maior exportador de petróleo do mundo, despachando diariamente mais de sete milhões de barris.

Os ataques atingiram a maior instalação de processamento de petróleo do planeta, assim como um campo de petróleo próximo, ambos operados pela estatal saudita Aramco. Juntos, eles são responsáveis por cerca de 50% da produção de petróleo da Arábia Saudita. Pode levar semanas até que as instalações consigam restabelecer completamente sua operação. Os danos às instalações de Abqaiq e Khurais são extensos, e pode levar semanas até que o fornecimento de petróleo seja normalizado. Os rebeldes houthis do Iêmen reivindicaram a autoria do atentado, que seria uma resposta aos ataques da coalizão liderada pela Arábia Saudita contra eles. Os Estados Unidos, que apoiam os sauditas, insistem que o Irã, aliado do grupo rebelde, está por trás da ofensiva. Os iranianos negam, por sua vez, qualquer envolvimento no episódio. Estes ataques desestabilizaram ainda mais a região do Golfo Pérsico, revelando a vulnerabilidade de instalações petrolíferas sauditas de importância vital para a economia global, fato este que acelerou a escalada da tensão entre o Irã e os Estados Unidos.

Por que os rebeldes houthis do Iêmen atacariam a Arábia Saudita? Isto resultou do fato de o Iêmen, país que fica ao sul da Arábia Saudita, viver uma guerra civil violente desde 2015. A guerra civil surgiu na Primavera Árabe, de 2011, quando uma revolta popular forçou o então presidente iemenita, Ali Abdullah Saleh, a deixar o poder nas mãos do vice-presidente, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. A mudança pol[itica não levou à estabilidade e, ao final de 2014, os rebeldes xiitas houthis tomaram a capital, Saná, e derrubaram Hadi. Com a ascensão do grupo rebelde, que acreditava ser apoiado militarmente pelo Irã, país majoritariamente xiita, a Arábia Saudita liderou uma coalizão de oito nações árabes, principalmente sunitas, contra os houthis, com o objetivo declarado de restaurar o governo de Hadi. E foi assim que o conflito escalou dramaticamente em março de 2015. Os sauditas vêm realizando ataques aéreos contra os rebeldes houthis no Iêmen – com o apoio dos EUA – há algum tempo. Mas seus adversários só demonstraram agora sua real capacidade de revidar.

As tropas da coalizão – que contam com o apoio de Estados Unidos, Reino Unido e França – lançam ataques aéreos quase todos os dias no Iêmen, enquanto os houthis disparam com frequência mísseis contra a Arábia Saudita. A Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) estima que o conflito já matou pelo menos 7.290 civis e deixou 80% da população – 24 milhões de pessoas – à mercê de assistência ou proteção humanitária, incluindo 10 milhões que dependem do fornecimento de alimentos para sobreviver. O Irã tem laços fortes com os houthis e não há dúvida de que têm um papel importante no desenvolvimento da capacidade de ataque de longo alcance do Iêmen, seja por meio de drones armados ou mísseis. O secretário de Estado dos Estados Unidos, Mike Pompeo, foi rápido em apontar o dedo responsabilizando o Irã pelos ataques, mas ele fez isso aparentemente antes de haver qualquer informação de inteligência clara disponível.

Fontes americanas indicaram que houve cerca de 17 pontos de impacto do ataque, todos sugerindo que vieram do norte ou noroeste – ou seja, mais provavelmente do Irã ou do Iraque, do que do Iêmen. O ministro das Relações Exteriores do Irã, Javad Zarif, classificou as acusações dos EUA como mentiras. “Depois do fracasso da política de ‘pressão máxima’, o secretário Pompeo muda para ‘mentira máxima'”, escreveu no Twitter, fazendo referência à “campanha de pressão máxima”, declarada pelo governo Trump contra Teerã – uma série de medidas diplomáticas e sanções econômicas adotadas desde que os Estados Unidos abandonaram o acordo nuclear assinado entre o Irã e potências mundiais.

A questão agora é o que os Estados Unidos e a Arabia Saudita irão fazer como resposta aos ataques às instalações petrolíferas da Arábia Saudita? Muitos analistas afirmam que não muito. Continuar os ataques aéreos da coalização saudita não faz sentido porque está servindo apenas para transformar o Iêmen já empobrecido em uma zona de catástrofe humanitária. Atacar o Irã transformaria o Oriente Médio em uma conflagração global com o envolvimento da Rússia e da China, aliados do Irã, países europeus e Israel, aliados dos Estados Unidos, além de provocarem a elevação vertiginosa do preço do barril do petróleo em níveis que colocariam em xeque a combalida economia global. Outro cenário é a cessação dos ataques da coalizão saudita contra o Iêmen diante de sua crescente impopularidade nos Estados Unidos e na Europa e da celebração de um acordo com o Irã que poderia ocorrer na sessão de debates da Assembleia-Geral da ONU (no fim deste mês, em New York).

É preciso observar que o Irã sabe que Trump, apesar de toda a sua fanfarronice e imprevisibilidade, quer tirar os Estados Unidos dos emaranhados militares e não entrar em novos conflitos. A intenção mais recente de Trump era trazer de volta todos os soldados americanos que ainda estão no Afeganistão, em conflito com os talibãs. O evento que precipitou a queda recente de John Bolton foi uma reunião secreta com líderes do movimento Talibã – considerado oficialmente uma organização terrorista –, marcada para Camp David, mas cancelada depois que a informação vazou para a imprensa (Trump atribuiu a Bolton a responsabilidade pelo vazamento). Isso dá aos iranianos a capacidade de aplicar sua própria « pressão máxima » em resposta à « pressão máxima » exercida pelos Estados Unidos. Há, no entanto, o risco de que um erro de cálculo possa levar a um conflito em larga escala, o que nenhuma das partes realmente deseja.

Ë oportuno observar que as sanções impostas pelos Estados Unidos contra o Irã há um ano representam um preço altíssimo para a economia iraniana. Os iranianos não dispõem de recursos para arcar com o custo de uma guerra. Mas têm todo interesse em manter a ameaça de confronto com os Estados Unidos tomando posse de petroleiros ou causar danos à infraestrutura saudita. O cenário mais provável não é nem a guerra, nem um novo acordo, mas a tensão progressiva no “limiar da guerra”. A estratégia iraniana consiste, portanto, em manter o domínio na escalada, criar alavancagem para negociação e transmitir uma ideia de força e desafio, segundo o analista John Raine em texto para o Instituto Internacional para Estudos Estratégicos (IISS). Isso dá aos iranianos a capacidade de aplicar sua própria « pressão máxima » em resposta à « pressão máxima » exercida pelos Estados Unidos. Se puder aumentar o custo para americanos e europeus de continuar a estratégia de pressão, fará isso. Há, no entanto, o risco de que um erro de cálculo possa levar a um conflito em larga escala, o que nenhuma das partes realmente deseja.

As consequências da nova crise do petróleo serão catastróficas para o Brasil pelo efeito que produzirá com a elevação dos preços do barril de petróleo sobre a economia estagnada e sem perspectiva de recuperação durante o governo Bolsonaro. Isto se deve ao fato de a Petrobras adotar uma política de preço de combustíveis atrelado ao preço do petróleo no mercado internacional que fará com que a estagnação econômic do Brasil se ecentue ainda mais.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, condecorado com a Medalha do Mérito da Engenharia do Sistema CONFEA/CREA, membro da Academia Baiana de Educação, engenheiro e doutor em Planejamento Territorial e Desenvolvimento Regional pela Universidade de Barcelona, professor universitário e consultor nas áreas de planejamento estratégico, planejamento empresarial, planejamento regional e planejamento de sistemas energéticos, é autor dos livros 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) e Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).

Fernando Alcoforado*

“Think outside the box” is a phrase from the English. When this expression is used, it is usually referring to the ability to think of non-standard creative solutions for whatever problem is presented. Engaging in looking for new things, looking at them from another angle, looking for new alternatives that meet your needs is the starting point for thinking outside the box. It was by thinking outside the box that Immanuel Wallerstein, recently deceased, broke the paradigm of analysis of the development process by formulating the theory of the world system. Wallerstein argued that the unit of analysis should be the “world system” rather than the nation state in which the economic, political, and socio-cultural spheres are viewed as closely connected and not separated according to the traditional approach. In other words, Wallerstein considered it a methodological mistake to analyze a nation state in isolation from the context of the “world system”.

According to Immanuel Wallerstein, the world economy is governed by a system, the capitalist world-system that is composed of a division between center, periphery and semi-periphery and that emerged in the 16th century at the beginning of the globalization process with the great navigations inaugurated with the discovery of America. The most developed countries in the world are part of the center of the world system which is part of the organic core of the world capitalist economy, ie the countries of Western Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, United Kingdom and Italy), North America (United States and Canada), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and Japan. For Wallerstein, the center is the area of major technological development that produces complex products; The periphery is the area that supplies raw materials, agricultural products and cheap labor to the center. The economic exchange between the periphery and the center is unequal: the periphery has to sell its products cheaply while buying the products of the center dearly. Semiperiphery is an intermediate development region that functions as a center for the periphery and a periphery for the center (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. The modern world system – Vol. 1, 2, 3. Berkeley and Los Angelis: University of California Press, 2011).

The semi periphery is characterized by Wallerstein as a structural element necessary for playing a stabilizing role between countries in the international system similar to that of the middle class within the class configuration in a country. The semi-periphery would also assume a function, in Arrighi’s words, of “systemic legitimation”, showing the periphery that there is the possibility of mobility within the international division of labor for those who are sufficiently “capable” and / or “well-behaved”. According to Arrighi, the semi-peripheral condition is described as one in which a significant number of national states such as Brazil remain permanently stationed between central and peripheral conditions, and which, despite having undergone far-reaching social and economic transformations, continues to exist relatively backwardness in important respects [ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento (The illusion of development). Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997].

It can be said that one of the reasons for the failure to promote the economic and social development of almost all peripheral and semi-peripheral countries of the world can be attributed to the fact that the governments of these countries do not think “out of the box” formulating their development process with emphasis on the analysis of the internal factors of each country in the promotion of national development, that is, in isolation from the capitalist world-system. The new theoretical framework for analyzing a nation’s economic system should take into account the capitalist world-system proposed by Wallerstein, which contrasts with the Cartesian method that formulates the development of the national economic system in isolation. This is one of the reasons for the failure of national developmentalism and the establishment of real socialism that resulted from the fact that its mentors admitted to promoting national economic and social development without regard for the existence of the capitalist world-system (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. Unthinking Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).

World-system theory was formulated by Immanuel Wallerstein and its main thinkers André Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi and Theotonio dos Santos, intellectuals linked to the “theory of dependence”, who claim that “dependence” expresses subordination of the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries in relation to the central capitalist countries whose economic backwardness was not forged by their agrarian-exporting condition or their pre-capitalist heritage, but by the pattern of dependent capitalist development of the country and its subordinate insertion in world capitalism. Therefore, overcoming underdevelopment in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries should result from the end of dependence and not on the modernization and industrialization of the economy as advocated, for example, by ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America) in the 1950s. This fact confirms, for example, the misconception of Brazil’s development relying on foreign capital and foreign technology adopted since 1955 with the Juscelino Kubitscheck government and the deepening of this dependence on the adoption of the neoliberal economic model since 1990.

One fact is evident: the transformation from peripheral or semi-peripheral capitalist country to the condition of developed is quite difficult to accomplish as Arrighi demonstrated in his book A ilusão do desenvolvimento (The Illusion of Development). After World War II, Japan and Italy were the only countries that emerged from the semiperipheral to the core of developed countries, and South Korea was the only country on the periphery of the capitalist world-system that evolved into semi-peripheral condition [ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento (The illusion of development). Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997]. The thesis, after World War II, that it would be possible for all peripheral and semi-peripheral nations to reach the high-level stage of development enjoyed by the central capitalist countries, especially the United States, was not realized. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, there have been several attempts to promote economic and social development in many of the world’s countries that have failed be those situated in the framework of capitalism with national developmentalism, for example, in Brazil and those with the implantation of socialism

It can be said that peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries such as Brazil will only promote their development if their external dependence (economic and technological) is brought to an end on the central capitalist countries as did, for example, Japan, South Korea and China in the second half of the twentieth century. Achieving the economic and technological break with the central capitalist countries does not mean autarchic development, but rather to promote the internal development of the country with selective foreign economic openness as did Japan, South Korea and China in the 1970s, 1980 and 1990, respectively. The breaking of dependence means active state participation in the planning of the national economy aiming at the development of the productive forces of the country and the internal market, the domestic production in substitution of imported products and for export, the development of own technology and the formation of internal savings in the amount necessary not to depend on foreign capital for investment. This strategy would enable the national economy to expand by generating enough business and jobs to meet the country’s needs, as well as mitigating the impact of crises occurring in the world economy as a result of the US-led trade war against China and possible explosion of the world debt bubble.

Countries, such as Brazil, that have not overcome their foreign dependency by adhering to the neoliberal economic model are threatened with the consequences of global economic crises that tend to worsen over time. In Brazil, the results are: negative economic growth, external imbalances, deindustrialization of the country, denationalization of state-owned enterprises, stagnation of productivity, widespread corporate failure, mass unemployment, high domestic debt and fiscal crisis of federal, state and municipal governments.

*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).

Fernando Alcoforado*

“Penser en dehors de la boîte” est une phrase tirée du “Think outside the box” en anglais. Lorsque cette expression est utilisée, elle fait généralement référence à la capacité de penser à des solutions créatives non standard pour tous les problèmes présentés. S’engager dans la recherche de nouvelles choses, les regarder sous un autre angle, la recherche de nouvelles alternatives qui répondent à vos besoins est le point de départ pour penser en dehors de la boîte . Fut c’est en penser en dehors de la boîte que Immanuel Wallerstein, récemment décédé, a brisé le paradigme de l’analyse du processus de développement en formulant la théorie du système mondial. Wallerstein a fait valoir que l’unité d’analyse devrait être le “système mondial” plutôt que l’État-nation dans lequel les sphères économique, politique et socioculturelle sont considérées comme étroitement liées et non séparées selon l’approche traditionnelle. En d’autres termes, Wallerstein considérait qu’il était erroné d’analyser un État-nation indépendamment du contexte du “système mondial”.

Selon Immanuel Wallerstein, l’économie mondiale est régie par un système, le système mondial capitaliste qui se compose d’une division entre centre, périphérie et semi-périphérie et qui est apparu au XVIe siècle au début du processus de mondialisation avec les grandes navigations inaugurées par la découverte d’Amérique. Les pays les plus développés du monde font partie du centre du système mondial qui fait partie du noyau organique de l’économie capitaliste mondiale, à savoir les pays de l’Europe occidentale (Belgique, Pays-Bas, Luxembourg, Scandinavie, Allemagne de l’Ouest, Autriche, Suisse, France, Royaume-Uni et Italie), d’Amérique du Nord (États-Unis et Canada), d’Océanie (Australie et Nouvelle-Zélande) et du Japon. Pour Wallerstein, le centre est le domaine du développement technologique majeur qui produit des produits complexes; La périphérie est la zone qui fournit les matières premières, les produits agricoles et une main-d’œuvre bon marché au centre. L’échange économique entre la périphérie et le centre est inégal: la périphérie doit vendre ses produits à moindre coût tout en achetant chèrement les produits du centre. La semi-périphérie est une région de développement intermédiaire qui fonctionne comme un centre pour la périphérie et une périphérie pour le centre (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. The modern world system – Vol. 1, 2, 3. Berkeley and Los Angelis: University of California Press, 2011).

La semi-périphérie est caractérisée par Wallerstein comme un élément structurel nécessaire pour jouer un rôle stabilisateur entre les pays du système international similaire à celui de la classe moyenne dans la configuration de classe d’un pays. La semi-périphérie assumerait également une fonction, selon les termes d’Arrighi, de «légitimation systémique», montrant à la périphérie qu’il existe une possibilité de mobilité dans la division internationale du travail pour ceux qui sont suffisamment «capables» et / ou «bien élevés». Selon Arrighi, la situation semi-périphérique est décrite comme une situation dans laquelle un nombre important d’États nationaux, comme le Brésil, restent en permanence entre les conditions centrales et périphériques et qui, en dépit de profondes transformations sociales et économiques, continue d’exister. relativement tard dans des aspects importants [ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento (L’illusion du développement). Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997].

On peut dire que l’une des raisons de l’échec de la promotion du développement économique et social de la quasi-totalité des pays périphériques et semi-périphériques du monde peut être attribuée au fait que les gouvernements de ces pays ne pensent pas «en dehors de la boîte» avec la formulacion du son processus de développement en mettant l’accent sur l’analyse des facteurs internes de chaque pays dans la promotion du développement national, c’est-à-dire indépendamment du système mondial capitaliste. Le nouveau cadre théorique d’analyse du système économique d’un pays devrait prendre en compte le système mondial capitaliste proposé par Wallerstein, qui contraste avec la méthode cartésienne qui définit le développement du système économique national de manière isolée. C’est l’une des raisons de l’échec du développementalisme national et de l’instauration du socialisme réel du fait que ses mentors ont admis promouvoir le développement économique et social national sans se soucier de l’existence du système mondial capitaliste (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. Unthinking Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).

La théorie du système mondial a été formulée par Immanuel Wallerstein et ses principaux penseurs, André Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi et Theotonio dos Santos, intellectuels liés à la «théorie de la dépendance», qui prétendent que la «dépendance» exprime la subordination des pays périphériques et semi-périphériques par rapport aux pays capitalistes centraux dont le retard économique n’a pas été forgé par leur condition d’exportation agraire ni par leur héritage précapitaliste, mais par le modèle de développement capitaliste dépendant du pays et de son insertion subordonnée dans le capitalisme mondial. Par conséquent, la lutte contre le sous-développement dans les pays périphériques et semi-périphériques devrait résulter de la fin de la dépendance et non de la modernisation et de l’industrialisation de l’économie, comme le préconise par exemple la CEPALC (Commission économique pour l’Amérique latine) dans les années cinquante. Ce fait confirme, par exemple, l’idée fausse selon laquelle le développement du Brésil reposait sur le capital étranger et les technologies étrangères adoptées depuis 1955 avec le gouvernement Juscelino Kubitscheck et l’intensification de cette dépendance vis-à-vis de l’adoption du modèle économique néolibéral depuis 1990.

Un fait est évident: la transformation du pays capitaliste périphérique ou semi-périphérique à l’état de pays développé est assez difficile à accomplir, comme l’a démontré Arrighi dans son livre A ilusão do desenvolvimento (L’illusion du développement). Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le Japon et l’Italie étaient les seuls pays à quitter de l’état des semi-périphériques à celui des membres du noyau de développé et La Corée du Sud était le seul pays à la périphérie du système mondial capitaliste à évoluer vers un statut semi-périphérique [ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento (L’illusion du développement). Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997]. La thèse d’après-guerre selon laquelle il serait possible pour toutes les nations périphériques et semi-périphériques d’atteindre le stade de développement de haut niveau dont jouissent les pays capitalistes centraux, en particulier les États-Unis, n’a pas été réalisée. À partir de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, plusieurs pays ont tenté de promouvoir le développement économique et social, mais sans succès dans le cadre du capitalisme avec le national développementalisme, par exemple au Brésil et dans ceux qui appliquaient la le socialisme.

On peut dire que les pays capitalistes périphériques et semi-périphériques comme le Brésil ne favoriseront leur développement que s’ils rompent avec leur dépendance extérieure (économique et technologique) à l’égard des pays capitalistes centraux, comme le Japon, la Corée du Sud et les États-Unis. La Chine dans la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle. Réaliser la rupture économique et technologique avec les pays capitalistes centraux ne signifie pas un développement autonome, mais favorise plutôt le développement interne du pays avec une ouverture économique étrangère sélective, comme le Japon, la Corée du Sud et la Chine dans les années 1970. , 1980 et 1990, respectivement. La rupture de la dépendance signifie une participation active de l’État à la planification de l’économie nationale visant au développement des forces productives du pays et du marché intérieur, à la production nationale en remplacement des produits importés et exportés, au développement de sa propre technologie et à la constitution d’une épargne interne. du montant nécessaire pour ne pas dépendre de capitaux étrangers pour investir. Cette stratégie permettrait à l’économie nationale de se développer en générant suffisamment d’entreprises et d’emplois pour répondre aux besoins du pays, tout en atténuant les conséquences des crises survenant dans l’économie mondiale à la suite de la guerre commerciale menée par les États-Unis contre la Chine et possible explosion de la bulle de la dette mondiale.

Des pays, tels que le Brésil, qui n’ont pas surmonté leur dépendance étrangère en adhérant au modèle économique néolibéral sont menacés par les conséquences des crises économiques mondiales qui ont tendance à s’aggraver au fil du temps. Au Brésil, les résultats sont les suivants: croissance économique négative, déséquilibres extérieurs, désindustrialisation du pays, dénationalisation des entreprises publiques, stagnation de la productivité, échec généralisé des entreprises, chômage de masse, dette intérieure élevée et crise budgétaire des gouvernements fédéral, des États et des municipalités.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, a reçoit la Médaille du Mérite en Ingénierie du Système CONFEA / CREA, membre de l’Académie de l’Education de Bahia, ingénieur et docteur en planification territoriale et développement régional pour l’Université de Barcelone, professeur universitaire et consultant dans les domaines de la planification stratégique, planification d’entreprise, planification régionale et planification énergétique, il est l’auteur de ouvrages 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) et Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).

Fernando Alcoforado*

“Pensar fora da caixa” é uma expressão oriunda do inglês “Think outside the box”. Quando esta expressão é usada, geralmente está se referindo à habilidade de pensar em soluções criativas fora do padrão para qualquer que seja o problema apresentado. Engajar-se na procura de coisas novas, observando-as sob outro ângulo, procurando novas alternativas que atendam às necessidades é o ponto de partida para se pensar fora da caixa. Foi pensando fora da caixa que Immanuel Wallerstein, falecido recentemente, quebrou o paradigma de análise do processo de desenvolvimento ao formular a teoria do sistema mundo. Wallerstein defendia a tese de que a unidade de análise deve ser o “sistema mundo” e não o Estado-nação no qual, as esferas econômica, política e sociocultural são vistas como estreitamente conectadas e não separadas, conforme a abordagem tradicional. Em outras palavras, Wallerstein considerava um erro metodológico analisar um Estado nação isoladamente do contexto do “sistema mundo”.

Segundo Immanuel Wallerstein, a economia mundial é regido por um sistema, o sistema-mundo capitalista que é composto por uma divisão entre centro, periferia e semiperiferia e que surgiu no século XVI no início do processo de globalização com as grandes navegações inauguradas com a descoberta da América. Os países mais desenvolvidos do mundo integram o centro do sistema-mundo os quais integram o núcleo orgânico da economia capitalista mundial, isto é, os países da Europa Ocidental (Bélgica, Holanda, Luxemburgo, Escandinávia, Alemanha, Áustria, Suíça, França, Reino Unido e Itália), da América do Norte (Estados Unidos e Canadá), da Oceania (Austrália e Nova Zelândia) e Japão. Para Wallerstein, o centro é a área de grande desenvolvimento tecnológico que produz produtos complexos; a periferia é a área que fornece matérias-primas, produtos agrícolas e força de trabalho barata para o centro. A troca econômica entre periferia e centro é desigual: a periferia tem de vender barato os seus produtos enquanto compra caro os produtos do centro. Quanto à semiperiferia trata-se de uma região de desenvolvimento intermediário que funciona como um centro para a periferia e uma periferia para o centro (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. The modern world system – Vol. 1, 2, 3. Berkeley and Los Angelis: University of California Press, 2011).

A semiperiferia é caracterizada por Wallerstein como um elemento estrutural necessário por realizar um papel estabilizador entre os países no sistema internacional semelhante ao da classe média dentro da configuração de classes em um país. A semiperiferia assumiria ainda uma função, nos dizeres de Arrighi, de “legitimação sistêmica”, mostrando à Periferia que existe a possibilidade de mobilidade dentro da divisão internacional do trabalho para os que forem suficientemente “capazes” e/ou “bem-comportados”. Segundo Arrighi, a condição semiperiférica é descrita como aquela na qual um número significativo de Estados nacionais como o Brasil permanece estacionado de forma permanente entre as condições central e periférica, e que, apesar de ter passado por transformações sociais e econômicas de longo alcance, continua relativamente atrasado em aspectos importantes (ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997).

Pode-se afirmar que uma das razões do insucesso na promoção do desenvolvimento econômico e social da quase totalidade dos países periféricos e semiperiféricos do mundo pode ser atribuída ao fato de os governos desses países não pensarem “fora da caixa” formulando seu processo de desenvolvimento com ênfase na análise dos fatores internos de cada país na promoção do desenvolvimento nacional, isto é, de forma isolada em relação ao sistema-mundo capitalista. O novo referencial teórico de análise do sistema econômico de uma nação deveria levar em conta o sistema-mundo capitalista proposto por Wallerstein que se contrapõe ao método cartesiano que formula o desenvolvimento do sistema econômico nacional de forma isolada. Esta é uma das razões do fracasso do nacional desenvolvimentismo e de implantação do socialismo real que resultou do fato de seus mentores terem admitido promover o desenvolvimento econômico e social nacional sem levar em conta a existênxia do sistema- mundo capitalista (WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. Unthinking Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).

A teoria do sistema-mundo teve como formulador Immanuel Wallerstein e como seus principais pensadores André Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi e Theotonio dos Santos, intelectuais ligados à “teoria da dependência”, os quais afirmam que a “dependência” expressa subordinação dos países periféricos e semiperiféricos em relação aos países capitalistas centrais cujo atraso econômico não era forjado por sua condição agrário-exportadora ou por sua herança pré-capitalista, mas pelo padrão de desenvolvimento capitalista dependente do país e por sua inserção subordinada no capitalismo mundial. Portanto, a superação do subdesenvolvimento dos países periféricos e semiperiféricos deveria resultar do fim da dependência e não da modernização e industrialização da economia como foi preconizado, por exemplo, pela CEPAL (Comissão Econômica pra a América Latina) na década de 1950. Os fatos da realidade confirmam, por exemplo, o equivoco do desenvolvimento do Brasil ter se apoiado em capitais estrangeiros e em tecnologia externa adotado a partir de 1955 com o governo Juscelino Kubitscheck e o aprofundamento desta dependência com a adoção do modelo econômico neoliberal desde 1990.

Um fato é evidente: a transformação de país capitalista periférico ou semiperiférico para a condição de desenvolvido é bastante difícil de realizar conforme foi demonstrada por Arrighi em sua obra A ilusão do desenvolvimento. Após a 2ª Guerra Mundial, o Japão e a Itália foram os únicos países que saíram da condição de semiperiféricos para a de integrantes do núcleo de países desenvolvidos e a Coréia do Sul foi o único país da periferia do sistema-mundo capitalista que evoluiu para a condição de semiperiférico (ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997). A tese que vigorava após a Segunda Guerra Mundial de que seria possível a todas as nações periféricas e semiperiféricas alcançarem o estágio de elevado nível de desenvolvimento desfrutado pelos países capitalistas centrais, sobretudo pelos Estados Unidos não se realizou. A partir da segunda metade do século XX, houve várias tentativas de promoção do desenvolvimento econômico e social em vários os países do mundo que fracassaram sejam aqueles nos marcos do capitalismo com o nacional desenvolvimentismo encetado, por exemplo, no Brasil e aquelas com a implantação do socialismo.

Pode-se afirmar que países capitalistas periféricos e semiperiféricos como o Brasil só promoverão seu desenvolvimento se levarem ao fim sua dependência externa (econômica e tecnológica) em relação aos países capitalistas centrais como fizeram, por exemplo, o Japão, a Coreia do Sul e a China na segunda metade do século XX. Realizar a ruptura econômica e tecnológica em relação aos países capitalistas centrais não significa o desenvolvimento autárquico, mas promover prioritariamente o desenvolvimento interno do país com abertura econômica seletiva em relação ao exterior como fizeram o Japão, a Coreia do Sul e a China nas décadas de 1970, 1980 e 1990, respectivamente. A ruptura da dependência significa ativa participação do Estado no planejamento da economia nacional visando o desenvolvimento das forças produtivas do país e do mercado interno, a produção interna em substituição de produtos importados e para exportação, o desenvolvimento de tecnologia própria e a formação de poupança interna na quantidade necessária para não depender de capitais externos para investimento. Esta estratégia propiciaria a expansão da economia nacional com a geração de negócios e de empregos suficientes para atender as necessidades do país, além de atenuar o impacto das crises que ocorram na economia mundial em consequência da guerra comercial desencadeada pelos Estados Unidos contra a China e da possível explosão da bolha da dívida mundial.

Os países, como o Brasil, que não superaram sua dependência em relação ao exterior aderindo ao modelo econômico neoliberal estão ameaçados de sofrer as consequências das crises da economia global que tendem a se agravar com a evolução do tempo. No Brasil, os resultados são: crescimento econômico negativo, desequilíbrios externos, desindustrialização do País, desnacionalização de empresas estatais, estagnação da produtividade, falência generalizada de empresas, desemprego em massa, dívida interna elevada e crise fiscal dos governos federal, estaduais e municipais.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, condecorado com a Medalha do Mérito da Engenharia do Sistema CONFEA/CREA, membro da Academia Baiana de Educação, engenheiro e doutor em Planejamento Territorial e Desenvolvimento Regional pela Universidade de Barcelona, professor universitário e consultor nas áreas de planejamento estratégico, planejamento empresarial, planejamento regional e planejamento de sistemas energéticos, é autor dos livros 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) e Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).

Fernando Alcoforado*

Ce document a pour objectif de présenter les obstacles au progrès économique du Brésil à travers l’histoire et de démontrer la nécessité de remplacer le modèle économique néolibéral actuel par un modèle développementaliste national adapté aux temps nouveaux. Cette nécessité tient à ce que le modèle économique néolibéral a contribué pour la débâcle économique actuelle du Brésil, à promouvoir sa désindustrialisation et sa dénationalisation, à accroître sa dépendance à l’égard des pays étrangers et à aggraver ses inégalités sociales et régionales.

Au cours de son histoire, le Brésil a adopté le modèle d’exportation agraire pendant plus de 400 ans, ce qui constituait un obstacle majeur à son développement. Le modèle d’exportation agraire a été structuré sur la base de grands domaines et du travail forcé jusqu’en 1888 et sur la base de domaines de 1888 à 1930. Le modèle d’exportation agraire a été remplacé par le modèle de développement national à partir de 1930, lorsque Getúlio Vargas est arrivé au pouvoir et a amorcé la période d’industrialisation au Brésil avec un retard de 200 ans par rapport à la 1re révolution industrielle en Angleterre. Ce modèle économique a favorisé le développement du Brésil avec une politique de substitution des importations reposant principalement sur des investissements publics, notamment dans les infrastructures, les investissements d’entreprises publiques et les investissements de capitaux privés nationaux.

Vargas a fondé son administration sur les préceptes du populisme, du nationalisme et du travail. La politique économique a commencé à valoriser le marché intérieur qui favorisait la croissance industrielle et, par conséquent, le processus d’urbanisation. L’ère Vargas marque donc le changement d’orientation de l’économie brésilienne, transférant l’essentiel du pouvoir politique de l’agriculture à l’industrie. La politique économique et les investissements publics de l’administration Vargas ont permis de supprimer les principaux obstacles à l’intégration des marchés nationaux. Le centralisme de la période Vargas a ouvert la voie à l’unification complète du marché intérieur, ce qui était d’autant plus important que le moteur de l’économie devenait l´activité industriell. Jusqu’en 1930, la participation de l’industrie à l’économie brésilienne était insignifiante. La crise économique de 1929 et l’arrivée au pouvoir de Getúlio Vargas en 1930 ont créé les conditions du début du processus de rupture du Brésil avec le passé et du démarrage du processus d’industrialisation du pays..

Les forces politiques qui ont pris le pouvoir au Brésil en 1930 ont soutenu et mis en œuvre un projet d’industrialisation dans le but de le sortir de son retard économique et de le propulser vers le progrès avec la création de son propre parc industriel, à l’image des nations européennes et des États-Unis. C’était la première fois dans l’histoire du Brésil qu’un gouvernement faisait un tel choix. En 1930, l’idéologie du nationalisme avec développement autonome et base industrielle forte devient victorieuse. L’industrialisation s’est développée par le processus de substitution des importations, c’est-à-dire la production dans le pays de ce qui était auparavant importé de l’étranger. Au cours de la première phase d’industrialisation dans les années 30 et 40, l’accent était mis sur la production de biens de consommation immédiats (biens non durables). Le 29 octobre 1945, sous la pression du gouvernement des États-Unis, des militaires ont envahi le palais de Catete à Rio de Janeiro et contraint le président Vargas à démissionner.

Après la déposition de Getúlio Vargas, le général Eurico Dutra a été le premier président élu au suffrage direct, dont le gouvernement n’a pas poursuivi la politique économique du gouvernement Vargas. Sous le gouvernement Dutra, les réserves de change du pays ont diminué, l’industrie nationale s’est ralentie et la dette extérieure a augmenté à nouveau, rendant le pays de plus en plus vulnérable sur le plan économique. Le président Getúlio Vargas, qui accéda au pouvoir par la voie électorale, gouverna de nouveau le Brésil dans la première moitié des années 50. En adoptant la même politique populiste et nationaliste adoptée de 1930 à 1945, est devenu la cible du gouvernement américain et de ses alliés internes, qui le voulait hors du pouvoir. La déposition de Getúlio Vargas en 1945 et son suicide en 1954 sont les conséquences de ce processus. En ce moment historique de la guerre froide, il était primordial que les États-Unis, dans leur confrontation avec l’ex-Union soviétique, gardent le contrôle de leurs zones d’influence en Amérique latine, notamment au Brésil, et dans d’autres régions du monde.

Au cours de la période 1951/1953, sous l’administration Vargas, un effort de planification beaucoup plus ambitieux et complet que celui de la période précédente (1930/1945) a été déployé. A cette époque, a été exécuté l’une des études les plus complètes sur l’économie brésilienne, en plus de proposer une série de projets d’infrastructure avec leurs programmes d’exécution, couvrant des projets de modernisation des chemins de fer, des ports, de la navigation de cabotage, de la production d’électricité, etc. Des mesures ont été prises pour surmonter les disparités régionales de revenus, c’est-à-dire pour mieux intégrer le Nord-Est au reste de l’économie nationale et pour assurer la stabilité monétaire. BNDES et Petrobras ont également été créés. En n’acceptant pas sa déposition par l’armée en 1954, le président Vargas se suicida. Son attitude constituait également l’acte final du premier dirigeant du Brésil qui avait guidé son action dans la défense de la souveraineté nationale.

Le modèle national développementalist de Vargas a été remplacé par le modèle de développement capitaliste dépendant du gouvernement Juscelino Kubitschek en 1955 et maintenu jusqu’en 1985 par les dirigeants militaires qui ont pris le pouvoir lors du coup d’État de 1964. Ce modèle économique a favorisé le développement du Brésil avec une politique de substitution des importations soutenue par les investissements publics, notamment dans les infrastructures, investissements de capital privé national et aussi des investissements et technologie étrangère, ainsi que le financement des banques internationales. Sous le rgouvernment du président Juscelino Kubitschek (JK), élu en 1955, le vaste programme d’investissements publics et privés réalisés entre 1956 et 1961, au moment de l’introduction de l’industrie lourde et des biens de consommation durables, modifia le modèle de domination du marché national. D’une part, cela renforçait la concentration industrielle survenue à São Paulo et dans les régions voisines et, d’autre part, exigeait une plus grande complémentarité agricole et industrielle entre São Paulo et le reste du pays.

Dans le gouvernement JK, on pensait qu’il serait possible de réaliser le développement du pays à partir d’un seul centre dynamique (dans ce cas, São Paulo). La politique de centralisation du développement à São Paulo a contribué de manière décisive à l’élargissement des inégalités régionales existantes au Brésil. L’expansion de l’économie brésilienne s’est faite avec la participation croissante du capital étranger oligopolisé qui a réalisé ses investissements visant à la conquête complète du marché national sous le gouvernement Juscelino Kubitschek. Depuis l’administration de Kubitschek, la dénationalisation de l’économie nationale s’est approfondie avec le capital étranger en supposant la maîtrise du processus d’industrialisation au Brésil et L’industrie nationale a été reléguée à son propre destin en raison de la concurrence de groupes extérieurs attirés par des incitations et des avantages officiels. Au milieu des années 50, l’industrialisation brésilienne a pris un nouveau tournant. Jusqu’alors, sous l’administration Vargas, le processus d’industrialisation avait avancé sous la direction de l´entreprise brésilienne. Sous le gouvernement Juscelino Kubitscheck, les capitaux étrangers prendront progressivement le contrôle des branches les plus dynamiques de l’économie brésilienne..

Janio Quadros, qui a été élu pour remplacer Juscelino Kubitschek, a démissionné après 7 mois de mandat. Le vice-président João Goulart a assumé la présidence de la République en 1961, succédant à Jânio Quadros. Face aux grands problèmes structurels rencontrés par le Brésil et pour faire face à la crise économique, politique et sociale du début des années 1960, le gouvernement João Goulart a cherché à mettre en œuvre les réformes à la base. Sous le titre de «réformes à la base», on trouve des initiatives visant les réformes bancaire, fiscale, urbaine, administrative, agraire et universitaire. Cela incluait également l’octroi du droit de vote pour les illettrés et rangs subalternes des forces armées. Les mesures visaient également à accroître la participation de l’État aux affaires économiques en réglementant les investissements étrangers au Brésil. Parmi les changements prévus par les réformes fondamentales figurait, premièrement, la réforme agraire. L’objectif était de permettre à des milliers de travailleurs ruraux d’accéder à des terres entre les mains du propriétaire. La loi sur les transferts de bénéfices visait à réduire le taux de profit très élevé que les grandes entreprises étrangères envoyaient du Brésil à leur siège.

Les efforts de l’administration João Goulart en faveur de la mise en œuvre des réformes fondamentales ont débuté le 13 mars 1964 lors d’un grand rassemblement a la gare centrale du Brésil à Rio de Janeiro. Lors de ce rassemblement, le président Joao Goulart a annoncé la signature du décret de nationalisation des raffineries de pétrole privées et du décret d’expropriation des terres non productives situées à proximité des routes et des voies ferrées. Comme les propositions étaient influencées par la pensée de gauche, les défenseurs du capitalisme, le propriétaire et les membres de la droite brésilienne avaient peur de la croissance d’un éventuel gouvernement communiste dans le pays. Le rassemblement au centre du Brésil a été le moment décisif pour déterminer l’organisation de l’armée pour initier le coup d’État qui a éclaté le 31 mars 1964, instaurant une dictature militaire dans le pays.

De 1968 à 1973, le Brésil a connu une forte croissance économique, générant un climat d’optimisme général, que l’on a vite qualifié de «miracle économique», et l’industrie a constitué le principal secteur de l’expansion du développement depuis 1968. De 1968 à 1985, 3 plans nationaux de développement (PND) ont été mis en œuvre par les gouvernements Garrastazu Médici, Ernesto Geisel et João Figueiredo. C’est principalement dans l’administration Ernesto Geisel, avec le II PND, que lont été définis comme objectifs compléter la structure industrielle brésilienne, remplacer les importations d’intrants de base et de biens d’équipement, surmonter les problèmes de taux de change résultant de la crise pétrolière, développer des projets charbonniers, produits non ferreux, alcool de canne à sucre, électricité et huile mis en œuvre dans les années 1970 dans diverses régions du pays et contribuent à la déconcentration de l’activité productive au Brésil.

La lutte pour mettre fin à la présence de l’armée au pouvoir central se multipliait. Au cours des derniers mois de 1983, une campagne pour l’élection directe du président, “Direct Déjà”, a été lancée, qui a réuni plusieurs dirigeants politiques. Le mouvement a culminé en 1984, lorsque l’amendement Dante de Oliveira a été voté en vue de rétablir les élections directes à la présidence. Le 25 avril, l’amendement, bien qu’ayant remporté la majorité des voix, n’a pas obtenu les 2/3 requis pour son approbation par le Congrès national. Peu de temps après la défaite du 25 avril, la plupart des forces de l’opposition ont décidé de participer aux élections présidentielles indirectes. La PMDB a lancé Tancredo Neves pour président et José Sarney pour vice-président. Une fois le collège électoral assemblé, la majorité des voix a été remportée par Tancredo Neves, qui a battu Paulo Maluf du PDS, candidat de la dictature militaire. Cela a mis fin à la dictature militaire. Tancredo Neves est décédé avant sa prise de fonction, ce qui a obligé le vice-président José Sarney à occuper la présidence de la République.

De 1980 à 1989, sous les gouvernements João Figueiredo et José Sarney, la situation économique et sociale du Brésil s’est profondément détériorée. Dans les années 80, le Brésil avait un déficit de balance des paiements aggravé par le deuxième «choc pétrolier» et la forte hausse des taux d’intérêt sur le marché international qui ont aggravé la balance des paiements et alourdi considérablement la dette extérieure du pays, qui cela signifiait que le gouvernement devait lever des fonds auprès du FMI. Le modèle de développement fondé sur le processus de substitution des importations et dépendant de la technologie et des capitaux étrangers, qui avait culminé dans les années 70, a été épuisé au début des années 80 et rien n’a été fait pendant cette décennie pour restructurer l’économie brésilienne. sur de nouvelles fondations. Les années 80 représentent la crise la plus longue et la plus grave du Brésil de son histoire, dépassée seulement par la crise actuelle qui a éclaté en 2014. La récession et le chômage croissant du début et de la fin des années 80 ont pris une dimension jusqu’alors inconnue. L’aspect le plus frappant de l’économie brésilienne est que la forte baisse du rythme de la croissance témoigne de l’épuisement d’une tendance qui lui confère un dynamisme impressionnant tout au long de la période d’industrialisation moderne, en particulier après le milieu des années 50.

On peut dire que l’expérience du développement au Brésil de 1930 à 1985 a eu son agent principal au sein du gouvernement fédéral et son principal soutien au processus d’industrialisation. Inspirés par les thèses de la Commission économique pour l’Amérique latine de la CEPALC, les dirigeants brésiliens des années 50 estimaient qu’une industrialisation substituant les importations rendrait l’économie moins caudace des pays capitalistes centraux. L’espoir de parvenir à un plus grand degré d’indépendance économique par le biais de l’industrialisation s’est estompé car il a été pris conscience du fait qu’elle entraînait un nouveau type de dépendance plus complexe vis-à-vis de la pénétration d’entreprises multinationales sur le marché intérieur brésilien. On peut dire que l’expérience du développement au Brésil de 1930 à 1985 a eu son agent principal au sein du gouvernement fédéral et son principal soutien le processus d’industrialisation. Inspirés par les thèses de la Commission économique pour l’Amérique latine de la CEPALC, les dirigeants brésiliens des années 50 estimaient qu’une industrialisation substituant les importations rendrait l’économie moins dépendant des pays capitalistes centraux. L’espoir de parvenir à un plus grand degré d’indépendance économique par le biais de l’industrialisation s’est estompé car il a été pris conscience du fait qu’elle entraînait un nouveau type de dépendance plus complexe avec la pénétration d’entreprises multinationales sur le marché intérieur brésilien. En outre, le coup d’État qui a entraîné la chute de João Goulart a échoué la tentative de reprendre le développementalisme national model initié par Getúlio Vargas.

Le principal fait déplorable de cette période de l’histoire du Brésil a sans aucun doute été l’abandon sous Juscelino Kubitscheck du modèle national développementalist adopté par le gouvernement Getúlio Vargas, qui visait à promouvoir le développement autonome et à lutter contre la dépendance économique et technologique du pays à l’égard des pays étrangers. Un autre événement déplorable a également été le remplacement du modèle de développement capitaliste dépendant adopté par le gouvernement Juscelino Kubitschek et les gouvernements militaires post-1964 par le modèle économique néolibéral qui a conduit le Brésil à la débâcle économique actuelle, a favorisé sa désindustrialisation et sa dénationalisation, a accru sa dépendance à l’étranger et aggravé leurs inégalités sociales et régionales. Le modèle économique néolibéral a été mis en œuvre pour la première fois au Brésil sous le gouvernement Fernando Collor en 1990, quand a commencé le processus de démantèlement de l’appareil institutionnel existant résultant du modèle national développementalist de l’ère Vargas et du modèle de développement capitaliste dépendant du gouvernement Kubitschek et des dirigeants du régime militaire au Brésil, caractérisé par la participation active du gouvernement à la conduite du processus de développement. Avec le modèle néolibéral, le gouvernement a abandonné ce rôle en le transférant sur le marché.

Internal and external factors contributed to changes in this existing institutional apparatus in Brazil. Internally, the financial crisis of the Brazilian state, which made it unable to act as an investor, the insufficiency of internal private savings for investments and, externally, the cessation of financing from international banks and the reduction of foreign direct investments in Brazil après la crise de la dette extérieure des années 1980 ont mis en échec le modèle de développement capitaliste dépendant financièrement et technologiquement de l’étranger jusque-là en vigueur.

Adoptant la stratégie d’ajustement néolibérale formulée par le consensus de Washington, le gouvernement d’Itamar Franco, qui remplace Fernando Collor, et le gouvernement de Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), qui remplace le gouvernement d’Itamar Franco, ont commencé à remplir les trois étapes décrites ci-dessous: 1 ) stabilisation de l’économie (lutte contre l’inflation); 2) réformes structurelles (privatisation, déréglementation du marché, libéralisation financière et commerciale), et 3) reprise de l’investissement étranger pour favoriser le développement. Les gouvernements Itamar Franco et FHC ont poursuivi la lutte contre l’inflation avec le Plan Real, privatisé des entreprises publiques et ouvert davantage l’économie nationale au capital international. L’administration Lula a maintenu la même politique que son prédécesseur, FHC, à l’exception de la politique de privatisation. L’administration Dilma Rousseff a poursuivi les gouvernements FHC et Lula qui l’ont précédée en reprenant la politique de privatisation appelée partenariat public-privé.

Le modèle économique néolibéral au Brésil a entraîné une faible croissance économique et également la plus grande récession économique de l’histoire du pays qui a débuté en 2014, entraînant un vaste échec des affaires, un chômage de masse atteignant 13 millions de travailleurs, une sous-utilisation de 27 millions de travailleurs, la désindustrialisation du pays et la dénationalisation croissante de ce qui reste du patrimoine public au Brésil et, par conséquent, à une plus grande subordination du pays par rapport à l’extérieur. Le gouvernement Michel Temer, qui a remplacé Dilma Rousseff après la mise en accusation, a encore aggravé la situation économique et sociale du Brésil en adoptant des mesures qui ont aggravé la récession et empêché le Brésil de reprendre son développement. Les résultats sont les suivants: croissance économique négative, déséquilibres extérieurs, désindustrialisation du pays, dénationalisation des entreprises publiques, stagnation de la productivité, faillite généralisée des entreprises, chômage de masse, dette intérieure élevée, crise budgétaire des gouvernements fédéraux, des États et des municipalités, et maintenant également un recul dans le domaine des réalisations sociales avec l’adoption de la réforme du travail.

Les perspectives pour l’avenir du Brésil sont extrêmement négatives avec le gouvernement Jair Bolsonaro élu en 2018, dont les actions seront désastreuses pour le Brésil face à la menace qu’il fait peser sur la démocratie, les droits sociaux et l´indépendance du Brésil vis-à-vis des grandes puissances, en particulier les États-Unis, et le capital international, et radicalisera encore avec l’adoption du modèle néolibéral. À l’ère néolibérale dans laquelle nous vivons avec le gouvernement Bolsonaro, il n’y a pas de place pour la promotion de la démocratie, des droits sociaux et de l’indépendance nationale. Au contraire, il y a l’élimination de la démocratie et des droits sociaux, ainsi que la déconstruction et le déni des acquis déjà accomplis par le Brésil et les classes subordonnées. Les soi-disant “réformes” de la sécurité sociale, les lois du travail, la privatisation des entreprises publiques, etc, les “réformes” inscrites au programme du gouvernement Bolsonaro visent à rétablir de manière pure et simple les conditions propres à un capitalisme “sauvage”, dans lequel les lois du marché doivent exister sans freins.

Face au désastre que représente le gouvernement fasciste Bolsonaro pour le Brésil, le peuple brésilien doit se mobiliser dans la lutte pour la démocratie et pour le remplacement immédiat du modèle néolibéral par un modèle national développementalist adapté aux temps nouveaux pour que le Brésil réalise un plus grand développement économique et social avec l’obtention de taux de croissance du PIB de plus de 7% par an, tels qu’ils ont été atteints entre 1930 et 1980, grâce à la participation active de l’État brésilien à la promotion de son développement.

*Fernando Alcoforado, 79, a reçoit la Médaille du Mérite en Ingénierie du Système CONFEA / CREA, membre de l’Académie de l’Education de Bahia, ingénieur et docteur en planification territoriale et développement régional pour l’Université de Barcelone, professeur universitaire et consultant dans les domaines de la planification stratégique, planification d’entreprise, planification régionale et planification énergétique, il est l’auteur de ouvrages 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) et Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).

Fernando Alcoforado*

This paper aims to present the obstacles to Brazil’s economic progress throughout history and to demonstrate the need to replace the current neoliberal economic model by national developmentalist model adjusted to the new times. This need arises because the neoliberal economic model failed to bring Brazil into the current economic debacle, promoted its deindustrialization and denationalization, increased its dependence on foreign countries and aggravated its social and regional inequalities.

During its history, Brazil adopted the agrarian-export model for over 400 years, which constituted a huge obstacle to the country’s development. The agrarian-export model was structured on the latifundium and slave labor until 1888 and on the latifundium from 1888 to 1930. The agrarian-export model was replaced by the national-developmentalist model from 1930, when Getúlio Vargas came to power and began the period of industrialization in Brazil with a delay of 200 years compared to the 1st Industrial Revolution in England. This economic model promoted the development of Brazil with a policy of import substitution based mainly on government investments, especially in infrastructure, investments by state-owned companies and investments by national private capital.

Vargas based his administration on the precepts of populism, nationalism, and labor. Economic policy began to value the internal market that favored industrial growth and, consequently, the urbanization process. The Vargas Era, therefore, marks the change in the direction of the Brazilian economy, transferring the core of the political power from agriculture to industry. The Vargas administration’s economic policy and public investment made it possible to remove the main barriers to national market integration. The centralism of the Vargas period paved the way for the complete unification of the internal market, which was all the more important as the driving force of the economy became industrial activity. Until 1930, the participation of industry in the Brazilian economy was insignificant. The economic crisis of 1929 and the rise of Getúlio Vargas to power in 1930 created the conditions for the beginning of Brazil’s rupture process with the past and the takeoff of the country’s industrialization process

The political forces that took power in Brazil in 1930 supported and implemented an industrialization project with the aim of removing it from economic backwardness and propelling it towards progress with the establishment of its own industrial park, in the mold of European and from United States. It was the first time in the history of Brazil that a government made such a choice. In 1930, the ideology of nationalism with autonomous development and strong industrial base becomes victorious. Industrialization developed through the process of import substitution, that is, producing in the country what was previously imported from abroad. In the first phase of industrialization in the 1930s and 1940s, the emphasis was on the production of immediate consumer goods (non-durable goods). On October 29, 1945, under pressure from the United States government, military personnel invaded the Catete Palace in Rio de Janeiro and forced President Vargas to resign.

After the deposition of Getúlio Vargas, General Eurico Dutra was the first president elected by direct vote whose government did not continue the Vargas administration’s economic policy. During the Dutra administration, the country’s foreign exchange reserves declined, domestic industry slowed and foreign debt grew again making the country increasingly economically vulnerable. Brazil was ruled again in the first half of the 1950s by President Getúlio Vargas, who rose to power by the electoral route and, by implementing to his government the same populist and nationalist policy adopted from 1930 to 1945, became target the US government and its internal allies, who wanted it out of power. The deposition of Getúlio Vargas in 1945 and his suicide in 1954 were consequences of this process. At that historic moment in the midst of the Cold War, it was of fundamental importance for the United States, in its confrontation with the former Soviet Union, to keep under its control its areas of influence in Latin America, including Brazil, and in other parts of the world.

In the period 1951/1953, during the Vargas administration, a much more ambitious and complete planning effort was made than in the previous period (1930/1945). On this occasion, there was one of the most complete study of the Brazilian economy, besides proposing a series of infrastructure projects with their execution programs, including projects for the modernization of railways, ports, cabotage navigation, electricity generation, 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. By not accepting his deposition by the military in 1954, President Vargas committed suicide, and his attitude also represented the final act of the first ruler of Brazil who guided his action in defense of national sovereignty.

Vargas’s national developmentalist model was replaced by the dependent capitalist development model from the Juscelino Kubitschek government in 1955 and maintained until 1985 by the military rulers who took power with the 1964 coup d’état. This economic model promoted the development of Brazil with the policy of replacing imports supported by government investments, especially in infrastructure, domestic private capital investments and also foreign investment and technology, as well as financing from international banks. During the rule of President Juscelino Kubitschek (JK), elected in 1955, the broad program of public and private investments made between 1956 and 1961, when heavy industry and durable consumer goods industry were introduced, changed the pattern of market domination. national. On the one hand, it reinforced the industrial concentration that occurred in São Paulo and in neighboring regions and, on the other, demanded greater agricultural and industrial complementarity between São Paulo and the rest of the country.

In the JK government, it was believed that it would be possible to realize the development of the country from a single dynamic center (in this case, São Paulo). The policy of centralizing development in São Paulo has decisively contributed to widening the existing regional inequalities in Brazil. The expansion of the Brazilian economy was made with increasing participation of the oligopolized foreign capital that made its investments aiming at the complete conquest of the national market during the Juscelino Kubitschek government. Since the administration of Kubitschek, the denationalization of the national economy has deepened with foreign capital assuming control of the process of industrialization in Brazil and the national industry has been relegated to its own destiny because of competition external groups attracted by official incentives and benefits. In the mid-1950s, Brazilian industrialization took a new turn. Until then, during the Vargas administration, the industrialization process had advanced under the leadership of the Brazilian company. From the Juscelino Kubitscheck government, foreign capital will progressively take control of the most dynamic branches of the Brazilian economy.

Janio Quadros, who was elected to replace Juscelino Kubitschek, resigned after 7 months in office. Vice President João Goulart assumed the Presidency of the Republic in 1961 succeeding Jânio Quadros. Faced with the major structural problems experienced by Brazil and to face the economic, political and social crisis that existed in the early 1960s, the João Goulart government sought to implement the so-called Base Reforms. Under the heading of “grassroots reforms” were initiatives aimed at banking, fiscal, urban, administrative, agrarian and university reforms. It also included offering the right to vote for illiterate and subordinate ranks of the Armed Forces. The measures also sought greater state participation in economic affairs by regulating foreign investment in Brazil. Among the changes intended by the basic reforms was, first, land reform. The aim was to enable thousands of rural workers to access land in the hands of the landlord. The profit remittance law sought to reduce the very high profit rate that large foreign companies sent from Brazil to their headquarters.

The João Goulart administration’s push for the implementation of the basic reforms began on March 13, 1964 through a large rally at Brazil Central Station in Rio de Janeiro. At this rally, President Joao Goulart announced the signing of the decree nationalizing private oil refineries and the decree expropriating unproductive lands located near the roads and railways. As the proposals were influenced by leftist thinking, the defenders of capitalism, the landlord, and members of the Brazilian right were afraid of the growth of a possible communist government in the country. The rally in Brazil Central Station was the decisive moment to determine the organization of the military to initiate the coup d’état that erupted on March 31, 1964 establishing a military dictatorship in the country.

From 1968 to 1973, Brazil experienced high rates of economic growth, generating a climate of general optimism, soon dubbed “the economic miracle,” and industry constituted the main sector in the 1968 development boom. From 1968 to 1985, 3 National Development Plan (PNDs) were implemented by Garrastazu Médici, Ernesto Geisel and João Figueiredo. It was mainly in the Ernesto Geisel administration, with the II PND, that the objectives were defined as completing the Brazilian industrial structure, replacing imports of basic inputs and capital goods, overcoming the exchange rate problems resulting from the oil crisis, developing coal projects, non-ferrous products, sugarcane alcohol, electricity and oil implemented in the 1970s in various parts of the country and contribute to the deconcentration of productive activity in Brazil.

The struggle to end the presence of the military in central power was multiplying. In the last months of 1983, a campaign for direct elections for president, the “Direct Now”, began, which united several political leaders. The movement peaked in 1984, when the Dante de Oliveira Amendment was voted to reestablish direct elections for president. On April 25, the amendment, despite winning the majority of votes, failed to get the 2/3 required for its approval by the National Congress. Shortly after the April 25 defeat, most opposition forces decided to participate in the indirect presidential elections. The PMDB has launched Tancredo Neves for president and José Sarney for vice president. Once the Electoral College was assembled, the majority of votes went to Tancredo Neves, who defeated Paulo Maluf of the PDS, candidate of the military dictatorship. This ended the military dictatorship. Tancredo Neves passed away before taking office, a fact that made Vice-President José Sarney occupy the Presidency of the Republic.

From 1980 to 1989, under the João Figueiredo and José Sarney governments, there was a profound deterioration of Brazil’s economic and social situation. In the 1980s, Brazil had a balance of payments deficit that was aggravated by the second “oil shock” and the sharp rise in interest rates in the international market that aggravated the balance of payments and significantly increased the country’s external debt, a fact that made the government had to raise funds from the IMF. The development model based on the process of import substitution and dependent on technology and foreign capital, which peaked in the 1970s, was exhausted in the early 1980s and nothing has been done in this decade to restructure the Brazilian economy on new foundations. The 1980s mark the longest and most serious crisis in Brazil in its history only surpassed by the current crisis that erupted in 2014. The recession and rising unemployment of the early and late 1980s took on a hitherto unknown dimension. The most striking feature of the Brazilian economy is that the sharp drop in the pace of growth indicated the exhaustion of a pattern that gave it impressive dynamism throughout the period of modern industrialization, particularly after the mid-1950s.

It can be said that the developmental experience in Brazil from 1930 to 1985 had as its main agent the federal government and as its main support the industrialization process. Inspired by the ECLAC-Economic Commission for Latin America theses, the Brazilian rulers of the 1950s believed that import-substituting industrialization would make the economy less dependent of the central capitalist countries. The hope of achieving a greater degree of economic independence through industrialization faded because it came to the awareness that it brought a new and more complex type of dependence upon the penetration of multinational companies in the Brazilian domestic market. In addition, the coup d’état that deposed João Goulart aborted the attempt to retake the national developmentalism model initiated by Getúlio Vargas.

The main deplorable fact of this period in the history of Brazil was undoubtedly the abandonment during the Juscelino Kubitscheck administration of the national developmentalist model adopted by the Getúlio Vargas government that aimed to promote autonomous development and combat the country’s economic and technological dependence on foreign countries. Another deplorable event, too, was the replacement of the dependent capitalist development model adopted by the Juscelino Kubitschek government and the post-1964 military governments by the neoliberal economic model that led Brazil to the current economic debacle, promoted its deindustrialization and denationalization, expanded its dependence on abroad and aggravated their social and regional inequalities. The neoliberal economic model was first implemented in Brazil under the Fernando Collor government in 1990, when began the process of dismantling the existing institutional apparatus resulting from the national developmentalist model of the Vargas Era and the capitalist development model dependent on the Kubitschek government and and of the rulers of the military regime in Brazil that were characterized by the active participation of the government in conducting the development process. With the neoliberal model, the government abdicated this role by transferring it to the market.

Internal and external factors contributed to changes in this existing institutional apparatus in Brazil. Internally, the financial crisis of the Brazilian state, which made it unable to act as an investor and the insufficiency of internal private savings for investments and, externally, the cessation of financing from international banks and the reduction of foreign direct investments in Brazil from the external debt crisis of the 1980s, they put in check the financially and technologically dependent model of capitalist development from abroad hitherto in force.

Adopting the neoliberal adjustment strategy formulated by the Washington Consensus, the Itamar Franco government, which replaced Fernando Collor, and the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) government, which replaced the Itamar Franco government, began to fulfill its three steps described below: 1 ) stabilization of the economy (combating inflation); 2) structural reforms (privatization, market deregulation, financial and trade liberalization), and 3) resumption of foreign investment to leverage development. The Itamar Franco and FHC governments sued the fight against inflation with the Real Plan, privatized state-owned companies and further opened the national economy to international capital. The Lula administration maintained the same policy of its predecessor FHC, except for the privatization policy. The Dilma Rousseff administration continued the FHC and Lula governments that preceded it by resuming the privatization policy that was called the public-private partnership.

The neoliberal economic model in Brazil has brought low economic growth and also the largest economic recession in the country’s history that began in 2014, resulting in widespread business failure, mass unemployment reaching 13 million workers, underutilization of 27 million workers, the deindustrialization of the country and the increase in the denationalization of what is still left of the public patrimony in Brazil and, consequently, in greater subordination of the country in relation to the exterior. The Michel Temer government, which replaced Dilma Rousseff’s after impeachment, further aggravated Brazil’s economic and social situation by adopting measures that deepened the recession and made it impossible for Brazil to resume its development. The results are: negative economic growth, external imbalances, deindustrialization of the country, denationalization of state-owned enterprises, stagnation of productivity, widespread corporate failure, mass unemployment, high domestic debt, fiscal crisis of federal, state and municipal governments, and now also setback in the field of social achievements with the adoption of labor reform.

Prospects for Brazil’s future are extremely negative with the Jair Bolsonaro government elected in 2018 whose actions will be disastrous for Brazil in the face of the threat it poses to Brazil’s democracy, social rights and independence from the major powers, especially the United States, and international capital, and further radicalize the adoption of the neoliberal model. In the neoliberal era in which we live with the Bolsonaro government, there is no space for the advancement of democracy, social rights 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 and 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 without restrictions.

Faced with the disaster that the fascist Bolsonaro government represents for Brazil, the Brazilian people must mobilize in the struggle for democracy and for the immediate replacement of the neoliberal model with the national developmentalist model adjusted to the new times so that Brazil can achieve greater economic and social development with GDP growth rates of over 7% per year, such as those obtained in the 1930-1980 period thanks to the active participation of the Brazilian State in promoting its development.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, condecorado com a Medalha do Mérito da Engenharia do Sistema CONFEA/CREA, membro da Academia Baiana de Educação, engenheiro e doutor em Planejamento Territorial e Desenvolvimento Regional pela Universidade de Barcelona, professor universitário e consultor nas áreas de planejamento estratégico, planejamento empresarial, planejamento regional e planejamento de sistemas energéticos, é autor dos livros 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) e Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).