Na próxima semana estarei no 26. Estoril Political Forum, organizado pelo IEP-UCP, como informei nesta postagem, já colocando o meu texto à disposição:
https://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2018/06/de-la-non-democratie-en-amerique-latine.html
No ano passado, no 25. Estoril Political Forum, quando ali fui pela primeira vez, estávamos a um ano do "golpe" do impeachment, como proclamavam os companheiros, esquecendo que, pela sua extraordinária incompetência e gigantesca corrupção, foram eles que provocaram a Grande Destruição, a maior recessão de nossa história e a mais ampla deterioração das instituições públicas no Brasil, sem falar do descalabro moral, que se disseminou em todos os espaços públicos (e ate privados).
Nessa situação, eu me perguntava se o Brasil era um país em estado falimentar, ou se ele já era um Estado falido.
Aqui está o início do texto, o resto podendo ser lido na plataforma Academia.edu:
https://www.academia.edu/36866539/Brazil_as_a_Failing_State_or_is_it_already_a_Failed_State_-_Estoril_Political_Forum_2017
Brazil as a Failing State
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Political sociologist, university professor (Uniceub)
[Estoril Political Forum; Panel Brazil, June 27, 2017]
1. Brazil: the democracy that failed
2. The scenario built by the new Barbarians
3. A schizophrenic Constitution, deepening our failures
4. The conquest of the State by the political mafia of PT
5. What’s the way out of this?
6. Reforms: what is possible and what is impossible?
1. Brazil: the democracy that failed
I started this draft text, for the purpose of delivering an oral statement, some three months ago, around March, just after having accepted the invitation by the organizers to take part in the Brazil panel of the Estoril Political Forum. At that moment, the second title was not the question of Brazil being already a Failed State, but just a doubt, expressed with this almost affirmative interrogation: “will it become a Failed State?” It may be the case, judging by recent developments in the last few weeks, in the political, judicial, and police spheres, all of them very busy with too many cases of corruption, protests, and institutional impasses. So, in less than three months, I had to rephrase and strengthen my title, just to emphasize the true state of political affairs in my country: the scenario is deteriorating rapidly, to say the least.
With this new introduction, in the form of the above paragraph, I will have to be direct, sharp and may be unduly severe: Brazil is, if not already a Failed State, at least a Failing State, in many dimensions of this concept. In fact, its political system, under whatever criteria we may choose, has already failed. This is the result not only of the kleptocratic behavior exhibited by some of its members, but also because of the very well known rent-seeking attitude of many, if not all, representatives of the Brazilian elites, entrepreneurs, politicians, trade-unionists and the rest. The present scenario is on the verge of anomie, not only because of episodic factors, such as the current political crisis or economic recession, but because of a structural deterioration of Brazilian institutions, despite an apparent resiliency of its formally democratic architecture. The true Brazilian crisis nowadays is of a moral order, the very glue that maintains a nation united behind its values and principles: Brazilian citizenship today does not trust anymore any of the three branches of government, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary.
Brazil is a deteriorating polity that, in view of the lack of any real consensus around the necessary reforms in its ailing institutions, promises to continue to be weakening gradually for the next few years, towards its first two hundred years of existence as an independent nation, and irrespective of the general elections in 2018. Indeed, in 2022, income per head of the average Brazilian will be the same, perhaps even less, than its level attained ten years before; the state of its public debt will be on the verge of bankruptcy, if not already insolvent; and the ominous fragmentation of its political system will be worsening to the point of a governance disaster.
Those are threatening features that pale when confronted with the moral dereliction of our so-called political elites, together with the promiscuous capitalists and bankers that have been funding the former, in a rare neglect of duty (perhaps it was intentional) for a country formally modern, proud of its democratic institutions, and possessing one truly sophisticated State among developing countries of the Western Hemisphere, if not in the global South. Has Brazil become a toxic State?
(...)
Ler a íntegra aqui:
Na parte final, eu listo aquelas que me pareciam ser as reformas possíveis (otimista que eu era, ou seria pessimista?) e as outras, impossíveis. Aqui:
Possible reforms:
1) A radical shrinking of the weight of the State over the productive life of the nation, starting by the reduction to half in the number of ministries, with a proportional elimination of a wide range of public entities. Decrease in the Kafka-like bureaucracy of the Federal Revenue Service. End of any type of privileges linked to public functions.
2) Reduction and simplification of the fiscal charge, which is very difficult because of various levels of taxation in the federation and regional differences in fiscal repartition of the receipts; therefore, the reform could start by a linear decrease in the various rates, for instance 0.5% annually during a ten-year period, while a discussion on the quality and amount of each type of taxation, and its appropriation by states and municipalities, can take place in a orderly manner.
3) A new fiscal deal: suppression of the unconstitutional figure of conditional budget allocation by the Executive, as well as pork barrel individual additions to the budget, which has to applied and implemented exactly as approved by the Parliament;
4) Elimination of the complete machine for governmental self-propaganda, only allowed information campaigns with a true finality of public order (vaccination, and natural catastrophes, for instance); communication is well served by private channels.
5) Resumption of a general reform in the social security systems, unification of the common and public sector schemes, elimination of all residual privileges, and the establishment of a sustainable intergeneration mechanism, compatible with the moving demography and the sectorial financing of the new system.
6) A complete revision in the National Health Service, nowadays working under a fictional non-paid, universal access system, towards a market-based, multiple system of insurance companies, with subsidies only for the confirmed low income strata.
Impossible reforms:
1) A political reform aimed at the complete elimination of the Party Fund, a State sponsored stipend to every party recognized as such by the Electoral Tribunal, which is an inducement to the creation of new legends, and the fragmentation of the existing parties, giving financial support to “for-rent-parties” (or, an electoral business of the worst sort); current system allows a total segregation between the party machine and the electorate, which is, in sum, a rent-seeking approach to politics. No public financing of campaigns of any kind: parties are private law undertakings.
2) Immediate extinction of 50% of all commissioned jobs in the public sector, in all levels and spheres of governmental activities, with a concomitant establishment of a parliamentary and executive commission designed to reduce and align the remaining jobs, to be filled by open meritocratic recruitment, without the current stability at entrance; complete interdiction of reciprocal nepotism and other forms of preference.
3) Education: creation of a new class of teachers and professors, paid according to merit and benchmark results, without stability, but with a constant program for training and capacitation, proportionate to remuneration.
4) Privatization of every public or state company not linked to an essential and exclusive public service (defense and justice, for instance).
5) Elimination of all tax and fiscal exemptions, and other privileges, linked to the so-called “religious entities”, now turned into a thriving “industry”. The same applies to trade unions, another “big industry”: elimination of the “syndical taxation”, complete freedom of association, no public resources whatsoever for the “centrals”.
This is my personal list for reform in Brazil, that could be integrated to an agenda for reform during the next few years, if – and that’s a Big If – there could be any chance of real consensus among political elites and entrepreneurs in that direction. We all know that reforms, in general, are always difficult, as Tocqueville recognized in relation to the transition from the Ancien Régimeto a constitutional system in his own country, France. If not implemented as a result of a consensual governance outlook among the governing or dominant elites, reforms become disruptive, and are usually initiated after a deep societal crisis, which is perhaps not yet the case in Brazil, at least not in the same extension that those that occurred in recently in Greece, in Argentina, and currently in Venezuela.
Could Brazil descend into the chaos that those countries were, or are today? Not of this kind, at least in the foreseeable future, although disruptive events cannot be at all excluded. What instead could happen in Brazil would be a protracted crisis made of low growth, partial or imperfect sectorial reforms, and a clear loss of legitimacy of the three branches of government. Worse, the current political mess in Brazil offers plenty of raw materials for all types of dark humor, that is political jokes of a derogatory nature against government and State institutions. In fact, political humorists in Brazil do not need to invent or create anything, do not have to have any inspiration for their jokes: all they need is offered on total freedom and gratuity by the official institutions and their representatives. To be true, those public figures constitute an unfair competition and an informal concurrence to professional humorists. That’s not a joke, it’s a political tragedy!
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, June 12, 2017
Divulgado no blog Diplomatizzando(26/06/2017; link: http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.pt/2017/06/brasil-existe-uma-crise-da-democracia.html),
