Dear RN list, feb. 3
Below is another posting from César Roberto, where he argues that what is
happening in Brazil is certainly revolution; whether the revolution ends up
delivering Brazil as yet another jewel in the crown of Corporate
Globalization or whether it will be a revolution to protect Brazil from the
world's wealthy and powerful thieves depends on how much suport for the
latter outcome we can organize.
Brazil's struggle is really the struggle of us all:
CR: "The present Brazilian situation ---a crisis within a permanent crisis
that comes back to 1978--- is one more step in the general crisis of the
last stage of world capitalism, under which the financial capital assumes
full control over the economic system. Its main feature is the so called
"social exclusion": the end of the labor system based upon wages
(salaries) and the widespread, growing and irreversible mass unemployment
all over the world (I prefer to use __unoccupation__ or
__disocuppation__ , both of them horrendous English neologisms of mine that
avoid the juridical narrowness of the word "unemployment")"
Jan: What is it we want? A revolution, one that would make use of the
resources we already have to create a livable future for humanity, one that
would recognize that these resources are limited and would strive to keep
humanity from over-taxing those resources.
CR:" Revolutions, either peaceful or violent ones, are the
best way to improve the political culture and the life of whichever people.
Better saying: they are THE improvement itself.
Brazil is going backwards pretty well under the neoliberal governments,
beginning with Collor and now under Cardoso. Camargo, forget everything else
and think, for instance, about a sole thing: epidemic diseases that had
been throughout eliminated around the year 1900 by the great sanitarian
doctor Osvaldo Cruz ---malaria, yellow fever and cholera morbus--- are
back in full glamour 100 years later and with new sisters (dengue and
AIDS), and as a special gift, a mass upsurge of that old disease of the
romantic poets, tuberculosis (today meaning, as in Russia, malnutrition and
not poetry)."
Jan:More evidence of the backwards revolution now gripping Brazil:
CR:"For instance, flats and houses are left by their former tenants who are
forced to live in slums for having no money to pay rents. Slums in the
city of Rio de Janeiro increased about 50 times ---I said fifty, not
five--- between 1992 and 1997 (good years, according to the neoliberal
standards!). In this city alone more than 800 thousand dwellings, pieces
of land and business premises (that is to say the most part of the city)
are subject to mandatory public auction for paying the real estate tax on
arrears ---but even so they will hardly find buyers!"
Jan: Before e-mail, I really did not know Brazil, did not realize that it
has a real tradition of tolerance, respect for fundamental rights, of
democracy. Sure, it had a military dictatorship once but the resistance to
that dictatorship was strong and delightfully saucy! ... I think the
resistance is still strong, something we in the relatively well-off "north"
could all learn from.
all the best, jan
PS to César Roberto: You mention the Brazilian popular dictatorships of 1889
and 1930. The idea of a popular dictatorship is a new one on me; can you
explain a bit more about what happened, how a popular dictatorship would
work in the present context?
****************************************************************
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 06:31:07 -0200
To: •••@••.•••
From: •••@••.••• (R. Magellan)
Subject: How can we stand in solidarity with Brazil and Argentina?
I answer below to a dialogue under the same subject that took place in
another international list which I am not a subscriber to. I think that you
will find some interesting information about the present Brazilian situation.
It is also a good example of a plague that is not specifically Brazilian,
but that is growing everywhere: how people with a certain progressive
inclination may harbor reactionary thoughts, how a new world that is not
born yet is so tied up to the old world that refuses to die. How Gramscian
this sounds!
Oh, before reading it, please cease to call the Brazilian currency as
__rial__ for its name is __real__. Calling it "rial" makes me feel
like a Saudi potentate, since rial is the Saudi currency. It is not a
coincidence of names: it is the same name spelled in two different ways.
Remember that __real__ is an ancient coin of the Iberian peninsula and
that the Cordoba Caliphate was the center of the Islamic world between the
VIII and XI th centuries.
What is the biggest problem of Brazil today?
The coming impeachment or resignation of FHC (president Fernando Henrique
Cardoso)
****************************************************************************
Paulo César de CAMARGO is a Brazilian that read the first part of my message
whose subject is "Desastre brasileiro // Brazilian disaster" without the
accompanying article by Chossudovsky (parts 2nd and 3rd). Eric Fawcett is a
Canadian subscriber to that list.
Chossudovsky's excellent piece is among the top 3 articles about the
Brazilian crisis that I have ever read in the latest 14 months. He shows
that he knows Brazil better than Brazilian economists and politicians whose
heads lie at 700, 19th Street, Washington (the headquarters of IMF) and who
are organically linked to the dominant classes and very specially to the
financial system.
.
CAMARGO. I found the text below a bit naive and I do not believe FHC team is
the kind of people that are considering to go to Miami if things go wrong.
Probably the biggest problem in Brazil nowadays is the lack of political
tradition.
FAWCETT. I agree that the lack of a political tradition in Brazil makes the
situation far worse, but in countries with a long tradition things aren't so
good. In particular, the USA itself is almost ungovernable, let alone
competent to act responsaibly as the world's sole superpower.
MAGELLAN. One may see ahead that Camargo has distorted what I wrote. The
text was wrote in a hurry in two foreign languages and the most part is
composed by citations of Chossudovsky. Is Camargo referring to
Chossudovsky being naive?
Is "the biggest problem in Brazil nowadays the lack of political
tradition"? Oh, what a naive fool I really am ! Just a second ago I
thought that the biggest problems of Brazil nowadays --- and growing
ones---- are hunger, disease, homelessness, and mass unemployment.
Aren't them anymore, Camargo?
What do you, Camargo, mean as "political tradition"? Every people on
Earth has its own political tradition for the simple reason that men
necessarily live in society. Brazil, as you know quite well, is a giantic
continent-country of 160 million people with a very rich political and
cultural history that comprises at least 4 different countries within
herself, each of them with their own history, tradition and cultural frames.
Each one of these inner "countries" moves this piebald mastodont called
Brazil at different paces.
Things are changing swiftly and the social movements (either spontaneous or
organized ones) are now surpassing organized institutions and parties,
including the vacillant PT (Workers Party). Pay attention, for instance, to
the growing movement of solidarity towards the fight of the 7,000
autoworkers (minimum number) that were already fired by GM, Ford and
Volkswagen or are menaced to be fired.
Is the FHC team not the kind of people that are considering to go to Miami
if things go wrong? Well, the first neoliberal emperor, dom Fernando I
(Fernando Collor), who was outsted by the Parliament on corruption charges,
now lives in a golden exile in Miami. I concede that the main rascal of
today is a very sophisticated guy and will rather prefer Paris to the
nouvelle-riche Miami.
Pedro Malan (the present Finance Minister) and Gustavo Franco (the former
president of the Central Bank) will become well paid employees of IMF or of
the banks (they already are by their deeds!), as it is very common in
Brazil. Remember, Camargo, that even right wing politicians often refer to
the scandalous permanent promiscuity ("promiscuidade permanente", as they
derisorily say) between the high federal financial officers and the banking
system. I would like very much that dom Fernando II and all the rest of
them go to hell, and I hope that it be Camargo's wish too.
Don't bet your devaluated money on FHC political survival, Camargo! The
dominant classes have already realized that a very heavy social turmoil lies
ahead and they need "to make the revolution before the people does it", in
the best Brazilian tradition... Cardoso is soon to play the role of
scapegoat, as Collor did some years ago. They already are beginning to
promote the impeachment of Cardoso on charges of mismanagement and
political irresponsability (and perhaps on corruption charges, related to
the Telebrás/Telefónica de España affair and to the mysterious Cayman funds).
Take the following examples. Last Friday, the editorial of the conservative
and monarchist newspaper "Jornal do Brasil" was short of saying "Cardoso,
step down!" The mild reactionary newspaper "Folha de São Paulo" is now
turning its batteries against Cardoso. The president of the Rio de Janeiro
Stock Exchange declared that if Cardoso insists in remaining loyal to the
IMF policies (what he will certainly do) he should go away.
To the Brazilian people is of no interest to overplace Cardoso with
vice-president Marco Maciel. Maciel is a very reactionary politician that
served quite well to the military dictatorship of 1964/1985 and he is linked
to the archreactionary great landlords of the impoverished Brazilian
Northern-East. The whole gang of bankers and latifundists must go and a
popular government endowed with dictatorial powers, as in 1889 and 1930,
must take the necessary steps to reverse the worst features of the
neoliberal chaos. A popular dictatorship, however a transient one, is needed.
Alternatives // There already is a general moratorium in Brazil
**************************************************************************
CAMARGO. I understand that global economy is not run for the well being of
people in general, as it is very clearly exposed by Marilyn Waring in her
video Who's Counting , but it is also clear that the options to oppose
neoliberalism are not presented with clear basis. It is not enough to say
moratorium is the solution
FAWCETT. You are of course right to say there is no clear solution to the
chaos of the "new world order". The best hope is that MANY people are
questioning it.
MAGELLAN. Oh, it is damn good to know that globalism (the present stage of
capitalism, better saying) "is not run for the well being of people in
general". But... in general? Camargo, would this mean that there are
exceptions which sometimes make the global economy DOES RUN "for the well
being of people"? Who runs it in such philantropic occasions and how it is
so managed?
I never said that "moratorium is the solution". Camargo is putting words
in my mouth What I clearly said in two languages was:
We must clearly say to the people that the coming situation, even with a
government of the present opposition, will be very difficult. The general
default on debts (moratorium) must be decreed, both internal and external,
as well as the mandatory reduction of debts and the confiscation of the
financial system. A harsh repression against economic and social saboteurs
and speculators must be launched. .
.
The accumulation of public wealth in the hands of the financial
speculators, both Brazilian and foreign, has backlashed on the economy
causing assets and people standing idle and increasing business closures,
layoffs and corporate bankruptcies. As it necessarily happens in such
situations, there is an accompanying collapse in the standard of living that
feedbacks the vicious circle of permanent crisis.
For instance, flats and houses are left by their former tenants who are
forced to live in slums for having no money to pay rents. Slums in the
city of Rio de Janeiro increased about 50 times ---I said fifty, not
five--- between 1992 and 1997 (good years, according to the neoliberal
standards!). In this city alone more than 800 thousand dwellings, pieces
of land and business premises (that is to say the most part of the city)
are subject to mandatory public auction for paying the real estate tax on
arrears ---but even so they will hardly find buyers!
Quite ironically, financial institutions are being backfired by their own
behavior. Bankers think that interest grows in trees... A __de facto__
moratorium is already a reality in Brazil, but Camargo seems to ignore it.
Let's see:
a) the level of nonperforming loans to companies (including big ones) and to
individuals is by far the highest in our history and keeps growing;
b) the bad debts allowances also are the highest, according to auditors;
c) a growing number of employers are paying only part of salaries or are
illegally reducing them and are delaying the payment of taxes;
d) other companies are illegally paying salaries with their own goods, so
turning workers into sellers;
e) several State governors are saying that from March on they will not be
able to pay the wages of civil servants, even in those cases that wages are
already in arrears;
f) in many places public hospitals are without fuel for their ambulances,
police cars are kept permanently parked, children are without schools, etc.,
because States and Municipalities must give priority to the payment of interest;
g) the courts are overflooded with judicial suits against usury and
anatocism and now against payments with dollar-indexation clauses.
It is a Russian-like situation ! A formal and generalized moratorium
decree, both on internal and external debts, will solely recognize a
situation that has already became a snowball and will legally give everybody
a pause to breathe. It will be the only means to put the economy back to
work in a higher level. Moratorium already is an economic necessity. Of
course, the Shylocks, both Brazilian and foreign, must pay for the crisis.
That is the minimum that a decent government would do, but this is not the
case of Cardoso and of the financial gangsters around him.
The options to oppose neoliberalism are quite clear: they lie in opposing
the social formation that has liberalism embodied in its working logic, what
means to oppose capitalism, be it private capitalism or state capitalism.
There is no clear __path__ to sort out from the chaos of the New World
Disorder, but the solution is clear: ENTWEDER SOZIALISMUS, ODER BARBAREI !
The privatization scam // Revolution //
Cardoso's dictatorial backwardness
**********************************************
CAMARGO. The wild privatization is one of the aspects where one can clearly
see the contradictions. At one side are the people against privatization for
reasons that goes from private interest to philosophycal conviction, at the
other side are also people with the same kind of reasons, together with
neoliberalism. The final result being Bad Privatization because no one
really care about the format of privatization. The essencially question
being to gain or to loose politically. We do not need to go backwards
with a revolution which needs strong government, we ought to improve our
political culture and in this sense the oposition has the most relevant
contribution to give, showing how privatization has to be done, what
conditions must be imposed.
MAGELLAN. Why a revolution would make Brazil goes backward, dear Camargo?
Are revolutions backward movements or they are rather movements against
backwardness? Liberté, égalité, fraternité ! The Brazilian people is
awakening and they themselves will decide in the streets, as they are
already deciding in a revolutionary way in the countryside, with MST (the
Landless Movement). Revolutions, either peaceful or violent ones, are the
best way to improve the political culture and the life of whichever people.
Better saying: they are THE improvement itself.
Brazil is going backwards pretty well under the neoliberal governments,
beginning with Collor and now under Cardoso. Camargo, forget everything else
and think, for instance, about a sole thing: epidemic diseases that had
been throughout eliminated around the year 1900 by the great sanitarian
doctor Osvaldo Cruz ---malaria, yellow fever and cholera morbus--- are
back in full glamour 100 years later and with new sisters (dengue and
AIDS), and as a special gift, a mass upsurge of that old disease of the
romantic poets, tuberculosis (today meaning, as in Russia, malnutrition and
not poetry).
Camargo forgets that the Cardoso government has been up to now a strong
government, practically in the dictatorial sense. He has ruling since 1994
under decree-laws, which are often being used in an unconstitutional way
(what is also happening in Argentina). He has been successful into making
the 1988 Constitution, that was the most progressive bourgeois constitution
in the world, in a mockery of dozens of casuistic amendments dictated by the
financial capital, and at least one of them through bribery. Cardoso has
transformed the ordinary Federal Congress (parliament) into an incredible
permanent constitutional assembly, what is in itself completely
unconstitutional ! We already live under the neoliberal dictatorship,
Camargo! It is a common saying in Brazil, do you forget?
Even the freedom of speech is denied, since the press (both the common and
the specialized press), the book industry, radio and TV lie in the hands of
some great private monopolies. Among them the nefarious Globo group, one of
the world's largest and surely the most shameful manipulator of them all.
These Big Brother monopolies have been able in keeping the people ill
informed on purpose, as Camargo himself is an example.
Camargo, I don't believe that you write that the "opposition has the most
relevant contribution to give, showing how privatization has to be done,
what conditions must be imposed". Hell, why the mission of the left-wing
parties would be to help the bourgeoisie, both Brazilian and foreign? Why
our mission should be to enrich the plunderers of the Brazilian people by
supporting the criminal process of privatization, that is throwing away at
vile prices more than 50 years of building an industrial economy, that is
reducing us to a new colonial status and that is eliminating the chances of
social advancement of the workers?
You can't put as equals those who favour privatization of the state
functions (even police and schools !!) and of state-owned enterprises with
those who oppose it. Yours is not a political judgement. You are
completely ill informed when you say "no one really care about the format
of privatization". The PT (Workers Party) proposal ---ironically,
with the silent support of the Armed Forces-- opposed the privatization of
the strategic sectors, as electricity, oil and communication. Since
privatization seemed to be politically invincible, there was another
proposal written by Tarso Genro and other PT leaders together with experts:
to turn the state-owned companies (many of them were partially
state-owned) into really public companies, under the direct control of
organized workers and representative institutions.
Privatization in the whole world has probably been the most massive
transfer of state and public wealth in short term to the purses of big
capitalists at bargain prices. It began in the days of Thatcher, the Milk
Snatcher, as the children of the British working class referred to her. In
certain cases, as in the enormous privatization processes of Russia and
Brazil, privatization was rather a scam.
The sale of the Telebrás group in the mid-98 (a mixed-owned corporation)
was an example. It was said to be the largest single privatization ever in
the world. Its selling price fell suddenly, without intelligible
explanation, to about 1/3 of the initial target price. The federal
ministers practiced actively and shamelessly the sponsorship of the opposing
bidders. The great winner, Telefónica de España, will be financed with
Brazilian federal resources at low interest rates ---- a true colonial
dealing! The price of the sale disappeared in less than a week during the
first great flight of speculative capital, in September, 1998. Now,
Telefónica paid the second instalment __after__ the devaluation of the
real, what in practice meant a 40% discount. Jurists said that the
federal government could revert the unexpected loss in the courts based on
the __rebus sic stantibus__ doctrine of keping the equilibrium among the
contracting
parties, but the Cardoso government is too much colonially-minded to act
accordingly.
One must keep in mind that the privatization is just a feature of the
colonial dominantion of the world by the big corporations. Gustavo
Franco, the former arrogant president of the Brazilian Central Bank, dared
to say in an interview that the Real Plan has made great private Brazilian
corporations too cheap and so they should be bought by foreign investors
(well, the Plan led many of them to become technically broken). So,
privatization also means the expropriation of the local entrepeneurs. Let's
finish with Chossudovsky lessons on this issue:
"The programmed bankruptcy" of domestic producers has been
instrumented through the credit squeeze (ie. extremely high interest rates),
not to mention the threat by Finance Minister Pedro Malan to allow for trade
liberalisation and (import) commodity dumping with a view to "freezing
price increases" and obliging domestic enterprises "to be more
competitive" Combined with interest rates above 50 percent, the
consequence of this policy for many domestic producers is tantamount to
bankruptcy, -- ie. pushing domestic prices below costs..."
"This ruthless demise of local industry --engineered by
macro- economic reform-- has also created an "enabling environment" which
empowers foreign capital to take over the internal market, reinforce its
stranglehold over domestic banking and enable it to pick up the most
profitable productive assets at bargain prices..."
"In other words, the financial crisis (evolving from the
inception of the Real Plan in 1994) has created conditions which favour the
rapid recolonisation of the Brazilian economy. The depreciation of the Real
will
speed up the privatisation programme as well as depress the book value (in
Reales) of State assets. The IMF's "up- front fiscal adjustment" --combined
with mounting debt and continued capital flight-- spells economic disaster,
fragmentation of the federal fiscal structure and social dislocation."
The present Brazilian situation ---a crisis within a permanent crisis
that comes back to 1978--- is one more step in the general crisis of the
last stage of world capitalism, under which the financial capital assumes
full control over the economic system. Its main feature is the so called
"social exclusion": the end of the labor system based upon wages
(salaries) and the widespread, growing and irreversible mass unemployment
all over the world (I prefer to use __unoccupation__ or
__disocuppation__ , both of them horrendous English neologisms of mine that
avoid the juridical narrowness of the word "unemployment")
In solidarity,
Roberto Magellan
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans (....)
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand PARTI DES TRAVAILLEURS. (L' Internationale)
