Jeffrey Sachs contestado por Paul Ryan: um livro que poderia ser melhor...

Jeffrey Sachs é um exemplo raro de como bons economistas podem degringolar para o populismo barato. Em sua companhia eu não hesitaria em colocar Paul Krugman e Joseph Stiglitz, dois prêmios Nobel que podem até ter merecido a distinção pela obra teórica feita anteriormente ao prêmio, mas certamente não pelos artigos demagógicos feitos na imprensa desde alguns anos. Eles são aqueles que Napoleão designava por ideologos, e que Saint-Simon estimava serem os engenheiros sociais.

Paul Ryan demonstra como ele pode estar enganado em seu novo livro. Com certeza, pessoas assim fazem mais mal do que bem à sociedade.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Bookshelf

America's Enduring Ideal

Jeffrey Sachs is only the latest in a long line of thinkers to reject the values of our commercial republic

By Paul Ryan

The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2011

The Price of Civilization

By Jeffrey Sachs
Random House, 324 pages, $27

Free enterprise has never lacked for moral critics. In the mid-18th century, for instance, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected the proposition that the free exchange of goods and services, and the competitive pursuit of self-interest by economic actors, result in general prosperity—ideas then emanating from Great Britain. In a commercial society, according to Rousseau, the people are "scheming, violent, greedy, ambitious, servile, and knavish . . . and all of it at one extreme or the other of misery and opulence." Only a people with "simple customs [and] wholesome tastes" can be virtuous.

In "The Price of Civilization," Jeffrey Sachs carries Rousseau's argument into the 21st century. Mr. Sachs, a development economist at Columbia University, believes that "at the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite." The book's veneer of economic analysis cannot conceal what is essentially a crusade against the free enterprise ethic of our republic.

Only through a reshaping of our principles and a reordering of the American economy, Mr. Sachs believes, can we become "a mindful society." We must abandon a culture that is defined by hard work and the striving for upward mobility and an economy that has unleashed unparalleled prosperity. Hard work impedes leisure. Ambition is a vice. Economic growth hurts the planet.

The corporation is the antagonist in this morality play. Mr. Sachs refers early and often to widespread "suffering from the decline in corporate tax rates" and properly identifies a pernicious trend that both political parties have fallen victim to over the years: crony capitalism. But it is not just the rapaciousness of corporate interests that disturbs the author. He sees a deeper conspiracy at play. The marketing industry is referred to as the "dark arts of manipulation," and television has been dangerously left "almost entirely to the private sector." Our commitment to limited government and free enterprise has allowed "market values [to] trump social values." We are scolded time and again for letting business interests encourage our faults and fallibilities.

"Through clearer thinking," Mr. Sachs writes, "we can become more effective both as individuals, and as citizens, reclaiming power from corporations." This reclamation will come primarily from punitive tax and regulatory measures. Mr. Sachs is undaunted by any thought that such a regime might worsen unemployment. The trained economist assures us: "Economic theory indeed supports the view that high tax rates can actually spur, rather than hinder, work effort." He argues that financial incentives ought not to matter in a mindful society and is confident that well-intentioned social engineers can suspend the laws of economics.

Enlarge Image

Corbis

Text of the Declaration of Independence

The Price of Civilization

By Jeffrey Sachs
Random House, 324 pages, $27

One need not look far to find the inspiration for the America that Mr. Sachs seeks. He is explicit about his ideal, and it is Europe. America should match the high tax and "active labor market policies" found in the German and Scandinavian economies. The Constitution imposes too many restrictions on government interference for Mr. Sachs, and we'd be better served if we moved toward a "French-style" constitution that consolidated the executive and legislative branches and empowered experts to help us manage the "complexity of our economy." On the most effective means of petitioning one's government, Mr. Sachs sounds eerily Greek (A.D. 2011, not 500 B.C.): "A new political party can be combined with other forms of political agitation—consumer boycotts, protests, media campaigns, and social networking efforts—to put the most egregious leaders of the corporatocracy on notice."

Advocating for the European model seems particularly ill-advised at the moment, given the current state of affairs across the Atlantic. Yet Mr. Sachs is untroubled by the contradictions between the Europe of his imagination and the crisis-ridden continent as it exists today. He writes: "The countries that failed to raise taxes adequately—such as Greece—are now paying the price in a massive fiscal crisis, as in the United States." Too many industrialized countries, in his view, have fallen victim to the "race to the bottom" mentality of lowering corporate tax rates and depriving their governments' coffers of the money needed to pay their mounting bills.

The "price" of civilization, we find out, is quite steep.

A "civilized" society will cost Americans roughly $12 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade. Mr. Sachs concedes that he could lower the bill if the economy were to grow fast enough to stabilize the debt, at which point a roughly $8 trillion tax hike would suffice. The proposed means by which the federal government can expand as the economy shrinks: raise corporate tax rates (and plead with our global competitors to stop reducing their business taxes); raise the top individual income tax rate; raise taxes on investment, energy, bank balance sheets and financial transactions; and impose a national sales tax.

Mr. Sachs is honest enough to acknowledge that the "rich" are not nearly rich enough to pay for his ever-expansive vision of government. We're told that "each of us with an above-average income" (i.e., $50,000 per household) must "understand that if we are prudent, we can make do with a little less take-home pay."

Such appeals to the citizenry to make sacrifices might be more compelling if Mr. Sachs coupled them with calls for spending restraint in Washington. Instead, his budget proposal insists on the need to "augment" government spending by trillions of dollars in the years ahead. Thus the sacrifices of citizens are to be made to increase the size and scope of a federal government that Mr. Sachs admits has demonstrated little aptitude for allocating resources efficiently or even fairly. This conundrum leads him to a conclusion that would be comical if he were not deadly serious: "Yes, the federal government is incompetent and corrupt—but we need more, not less, of it."

Yet at its core "The Price of Civilization" is not about taxes or economics. It is about the "pursuit of happiness" as one academic understands it.

Enshrined in the country's founding documents, "the pursuit of happiness" has long been recognized in America as a natural right to be secured by good government. As the Founders understood it, "happiness" referred to human fulfillment, to a well-lived life of virtue in this world and ultimate fulfillment in the next. In ensuring that its citizens are free to seek their happiness, government was to promote neither hedonism nor materialism. It was to secure the right to pursue happiness by not interfering with either normal commercial transactions or freedom of worship.

In "The Price of Civilization," Mr. Sachs is asking the right questions. What is a life well lived? What should our government's role be in building a more virtuous society? What policies should it pursue to promote fulfilling lives for its citizens? If such questions direct us to the moral wisdom of our cultural traditions, they can indeed help to balance the excesses of capitalism and so help us to extend its benefits to all.

Yet Mr. Sachs's gospel of happiness draws not on the inspired tradition of the Founders but rather on the Utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. In the 1780s, Bentham proposed that "happiness," which he equated with "pleasure," could be mathematically measured. It was not sufficient, he thought, for government to protect our rights if it was to vouchsafe our pursuit of happiness. Government must instead quantify "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and set policies and goals accordingly. There was a science to satisfaction, Bentham claimed, and it was a puzzle that trained experts could solve.

Channeling Bentham, Mr. Sachs calls for the establishment of a national metrics for life satisfaction and sets a 10-year goal to "raise America's happiness." Although the specific measures are hazy, the steps are clear: For people to be happy, their government must increasingly shield them from the challenges of life. The good life is thus defined as one of ever-more pleasure at the expense of work.

But happiness in this world results not from avoiding challenges but from meeting them. Happiness is the recompense of real effort, whether intellectual or physical, and of earned success. It comes from achievement—from doing something of economic, artistic or emotional value. The satisfaction to be taken in producing valuable things brings with it a lasting sense of personal fulfillment. Mr. Sachs's design for paternalistic government will only impede the pursuit of happiness.

Mr. Sachs is more accurate when he argues that economics is not merely about making money. It must serve the higher cause of human well-being and moral development. He is right to dislike the greed and vulgarity that can accompany bourgeois life. But he is wrong to attribute these phenomena to capitalism uniquely. Discord and imperfection arise from human nature. The question is how they can be contained and redirected. Capitalism, together with our moral traditions, has long offered a solution consistent with individual freedom. Mr. Sachs's approach does not.

Mr. Sachs likely overstates Americans' enthusiasm for restrictions on work, for the denial of constitutionally protected freedoms or for government controls over media and technology. His conception of the good life could perhaps be mutually agreed to in a small, isolated and homogeneous society. But here in the United States it would have to be imposed on a diverse and globally integrated nation of more than 300 million people. That is neither possible nor desirable.

The freedom and independence of the American population can best be guaranteed by allowing the people to govern themselves through their elected representatives; by keeping limits on the size of government; and by encouraging each of us to take responsibility for our own well-being. We can best be aided by our families, communities, churches and local institutions—and by the government only as a last resort.

For, ultimately, Mr. Sachs's quarrel is with our founding principles of equality and liberty. Underlying the arguments in "The Price of Civilization" is a contention that the Constitution is too conducive to freedom, that it endorses an economic system too friendly to growth and the satisfaction of appetite, that it creates political institutions too inattentive to our national character.

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson defined "a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." The contrast with Mr. Sachs's idea of "good government" could not be more stark.

The Founders thought of America as exceptional, but Mr. Sachs thinks that this claim is a myth and that the country's present greatness a historical aberration. Our decline is, thankfully, inevitable, he says: "America will not again dominate the world economy or geopolitics as it did in the immediate aftermath of World War II. That was a special historical moment; we can be glad that economic progress throughout the world is rapidly creating a more balanced global economy and society."

It is through this prism of decline that we may better understand Mr. Sachs's calls for an overbearing government to take more earnings from you and make more decisions for you, as well as his instructions for hard-working Americans to restrain their ambitions and accept their current place in life. He seeks nothing less than to replace the vision of the Founders—the ideals of individual liberty that have enabled America to achieve the unrivaled social, material and spiritual flourishing of the past two and a quarter centuries—with one that relies almost solely on the wisdom and beneficence of an intrusive, unlimited government.

The dialogue between capitalism and its critics is an old one, and it will continue. But as citizens of a self-governing nation, Americans must choose from time to time between alternative visions for our future. This book's budget proposals and economic policies are profoundly revealing. They lay bare the real agenda of those who wish us to abandon the American idea and consign our nation to the irrevocable path of decline. If only in that sense, "The Price of Civilization" is a useful contribution to the conversation we must have in order to make informed political choices in the years ahead.

—Mr. Ryan represents Wisconsin's First Congressional District and is chairman of the House Budget Committee.

O Imperio hesita, fica em duvida, senta e comeca a pensar - Niall Ferguson

A única crítica mais consistente que o autor da resenha faz ao livro do historiador Niall Ferguson, sobre o império americano (empire in denial, segundo o britânico), segundo a qual, a "maior vulnerabilidade do livro é a pouca importância que o autor dá ao papel da Organização das Nações Unidas e à legislação internacional", está errada, pois o império não teria porque atribuir maior importância a um dinossauro ineficiente como a ONU, e portanto o historiador britânico não pode ser culpado de não dar muita importância ao que Charles De Gaulle chamava de "grand machin".
No resto ele apresenta mal o que seriam as virtudes do império americano, mas passa por uma resenha mal feita que serve apenas para chamar a atenção para este livro.
As traduções brasileiras são tardias, geralmente mal feitas, e as edições nacionais de livro não valem o papel em que são impressas: muito caras.
Recomendo comprar um exemplar em pocket book da Abebooks.com: vai sair por UM dólar, e mesmo pagando 10 ou 12 de frete, ainda assim sempre vai custar três a quatro vezes mais barato do que a edição brasileira (com a vantagem de estar no original).
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Geopolítica:
Tarefas para um gigante liberal de pouca disposição
Oscar Pilagallo
Valor Econômico, 02/08/2011 – pág. D12

"Colosso - Ascensão e Queda do Império Americano"
Niall Ferguson. Trad. de Marcelo Musa Cavallari. Planeta. 444 págs., R$ 44,90

Se há algo que não falta a Niall Ferguson é a coragem da clareza. Enquanto intelectuais conservadores preferem chamar os EUA de líder, potência ou poder hegemônico, o autor britânico dispensa os eufemismos e usa o termo que considera historicamente mais correto: império.
A palavra tem forte conotação negativa. Quem a utiliza em geral quer criticar o país assim qualificado, e não é por outro motivo que ela não integra o léxico dos governantes americanos. A coragem de Ferguson está justamente em se referir a império como algo bom, e em defender, em "Colosso", que os EUA assumam de vez tal condição.
O historiador só não é transparente ao sugerir que ocupa uma posição equidistante dos polos ideológicos, afirmando ter sido criticado à direita e à esquerda. Muitos conservadores, de fato, não endossam sua tese, por preferirem uma política isolacionista para os EUA, o que é incompatível com o papel de poder imperial. Mas as maiores críticas vêm, naturalmente, da esquerda. Embora Ferguson talvez rejeitasse a etiqueta, ele ficaria mais à vontade na companhia dos neoconservadores.
Ferguson afeta uma candura que parece na medida para provocar os críticos dos EUA. "Minha tese", afirma o historiador, "é de que muitas partes do mundo se beneficiariam de um período de domínio americano." Ele não vê nada errado com a noção de "soberania limitada", e acha que o império propugnado deveria intervir em países irremediavelmente pobres ou politicamente instáveis, a exemplo do que aconteceu com a Alemanha e o Japão depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Ação de tamanha envergadura não ficaria a cargo de um império qualquer, mas de um "império liberal". O que significa isso? "Um império que não apenas subscreva a livre troca internacional de mercadorias, trabalho e capital, mas também crie e mantenha as condições sem as quais os mercados não podem funcionar", como a paz e a ordem. Caberia também a esse império "prover bens públicos, como infraestrutura de transporte, hospitais e escolas, que não existiriam de outra maneira".
A defesa enfática de um império americano é contrabalançada pelo ceticismo de seu advogado. Ferguson não acha impossível que os EUA se pautem por seu prognóstico, mas admite que as dificuldades seriam grandes. Entre os obstáculos à frente, ele identifica o que chama de três déficits: econômico, pessoal e de atenção.
Os dois primeiros - o elevado custo de se manter um império nas bases propostas e a insuficiência de soldados - poderiam ser contornados, segundo o historiador. Os recursos econômicos existem; a questão, política, é como distribuí-los no orçamento. Quanto aos recursos humanos, também estariam disponíveis, desde que o país recorresse ao exército de desempregados, à enorme população carcerária ou instituísse o serviço militar obrigatório. O terceiro obstáculo, o déficit de atenção, seria ainda maior, segundo Ferguson. Trata-se da falta de disposição de investir pelo tempo que for necessário nos países sob intervenção. Para o autor, essa característica faz dos EUA um "império em negação".
Vencer tais barreiras significaria promover drásticas mudanças estruturais no comportamento, na cultura, na política e na economia dos EUA. É um esforço que não parece estar nos planos dos governos americanos nem no horizonte do país. Hoje, na metáfora de Ferguson, os EUA são um "colosso sedentário", "um gordo no sofá estratégico". A pergunta é: por que ele haveria de abandonar o conforto e se mexer? Porque, responde o autor, a alternativa seria aterradora.
Como o poder não admite o vácuo, diz ele, a relutância dos EUA em desempenhar seu papel de império permitiria a volta de um mundo multipolar, com a tensão militar que lhe é inerente, ou, pior ainda, criaria um universo apolar. Ferguson carrega nas tintas ao se referir à ameaça: "Apolaridade pode acabar se mostrando não a utopia pacifista conjeturada na chorosa 'Imagine', de John Lennon, mas uma nova Idade das Trevas anárquica".
Não se trata de recurso retórico. O historiador prevê mesmo que, sem o tal império liberal assumido, haveria uma volta ao ambiente dos séculos IX e X, com renascimentos religiosos e recuos para cidades fortificadas. A experiência seria potencializada pelas novas tecnologias, disponíveis a tiranos e terroristas.
Para evitar a materialização desse cenário, Ferguson sugere que os EUA aprendam com os erros dos impérios anteriores. Em sua contabilidade, houve, até hoje, 70 impérios. O americano, apesar de suas peculiaridades, tem algo em comum com vários deles. O Império Romano oferece um parâmetro recorrente, mas Ferguson prefere o exemplo do império britânico, do qual ironicamente os EUA se libertaram.
A maior vulnerabilidade do livro é a pouca importância que o autor dá ao papel da Organização das Nações Unidas e à legislação internacional. Ele afirma apenas que "o velho sistema pós-1945 de Estados soberanos, frouxamente ligados por um sistema em evolução de direito internacional, não pode lidar facilmente com essas ameaças porque há nações-Estados demais em que a escrita da 'comunidade internacional' simplesmente não vale". Se o diagnóstico está correto, isso não significa necessariamente que o melhor remédio seria um império. Redobrar o poder das instituições multilaterais poderia ser uma terapia menos polêmica e igualmente eficiente.
Escrito em 2004, o livro não vai além da primeira fase da invasão do Iraque, no ano anterior, que Ferguson apoia com críticas pontuais, ao mencionar, por exemplo, a invenção do pretexto da guerra, de que Saddam Hussein teria armas de destruição em massa. Embora a defasagem não altere a essência do argumento de "Colosso", a edição ganharia com a inclusão de notas que dessem conta dos principais desdobramentos desde então. Mas nada compromete a fluência da exposição; concebido para embasar um documentário de uma TV britânica, o livro mantém o leitor acordado.
Oscar Pilagallo, jornalista, é autor de "A Aventura do Dinheiro" (Publifolha).

Book: The New Brazil - Riordan Roett

The New Brazil
Roett, Riordan
Published By: Brookings Institution Press
Published Date: 1 July 2011

The New Brazil tells the story of South America’s largest country as it evolved from a remote Portuguese colony into a regional leader; a respected representative for the developing world; and, increasingly, an important partner for the United States and the European Union.In this engaging book, Riordan Roett traces the long road Brazil has traveled to reach its present status, examining the many challenges it has overcome and those that lie ahead. He discusses the country’s development as a colony, empire, and republic; the making of modern Brazil, beginning with the rise to power of Getúlio Vargas; the adventof the military government in 1964; the return to civilian rule two decades later; and the pivotal presidencies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio (Lula) da Silva, leading to the nation’s current world status as one of the BRIC countries.Under newly elected President Dilma Rousseff, much remains to be done to consolidate and expand its global role. Nonetheless, as a player on the world stage, Brazil is here to stay.“In part the [country’s] success is due to external factors such as the high demand for Brazilian exports, particularly in China and the rest of Asia. But it also reflects sophisticated policy choices, including inflation targeting and maintenance of an autonomous central bank.”— from the Introduction

Read online (Amigo Reader)

Brazil: A Century of Change; book edited by Duke University Press

Pode-se dizer que eu estive na origem da edição deste livro em inglês.
Quando trabalhava na Embaixada do Brasil em Washington e cogitávamos, o embaixador Rubens Barbosa e eu, de formas de incrementar o conhecimento do Brasil nos EUA, uma das propostas sugeridas foi justamente a tradução em inglês de livros suficientemente representativos de uma boa síntese econômica, política, histórica e social sobre o Brasil. Isso em torno de 2000-2001.
Tinha acabado então de ser publicado este livro, Brasil: Um Século de Transformação, que eu sugeri fosse traduzido com alguma ajuda da Embaixada, já que se tratava de uma obra "pesada".
Conseguimos algum financiamento no Banco do Nordeste do Brasil (eu telefonei dezenas de vezes e mandei muitas mensagens para efetivar a transferência de dinheiro) e entendi-me com colegas acadêmicos da Duke University e tocamos adiante o processo.
A edição americana tem um excelente prefácio, ou apresentação, do meu amigo Jerry d'Avila e uma nota do tradutor, que explica suas dificuldades com certos termos e definições, ademais do estilo frequentemente barroco ou gongórico dos acadêmicos brasileiros para escrever.
Em todo caso, é um prazer poder recomendar este livro a todos vocês.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brazil: A Century of Change
By: Sachs, Ignacy; Wilheim, Jorge; Pinheiro, Paulo Sérgio
Published By: University of North Carolina Press
PDF for Digital Editions: US$ 65.00
Read Online

Preview

Brazil, the largest of the Latin American nations, is fast becoming a potent international economic player as well as a regional power. This English translation of an acclaimed Brazilian anthology provides critical overviews of Brazilian life, history, and culture and insight into Brazil's development over the past century. The distinguished essayists, most of whom are Brazilian, provide expert perspectives on the social, economic, and cultural challenges that face Brazil as it seeks future directions in the age of globalization.All of the contributors connect past, present, and future Brazil. Their analyses converge on the observation that although Brazil has undergone radical changes during the past one hundred years, trenchant legacies of social and economic inequality remain to be addressed in the new century. A foreword by Jerry Davila highlights the volume's contributions for a new, English-reading audience.

Ler apresentação, nota do tradutor e prefácio dos organizadores neste link.

Emily Dickinson: mais uma poesia sobre livros, um livro...

A book

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.

He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

Emily Dickinson
Poems
(Edison: New Jersey: Castle Books, 2006; ISBN-13: 978-0-7858-2159-5), p. 28

[Printed in China]

A utopia do desarmamento nuclear - Book by Michael E. O’Hanlon

Drop the Weapons

By JACOB HEILBRUNN

The New York Times, October 29, 2010

A SKEPTIC’S CASE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

By Michael E. O’Hanlon

174 pp. Brookings Institution Press. $26.95

Since the detonation of nuclear weapons over Japan, American presidents haven’t learned to love the bomb, but rather have worried about it. In 1946, the Truman administration presented the United Nations with the Baruch Plan for international control of nuclear weapons, which Stalin, working on his own bomb, rejected. Four decades later, Ronald Reagan almost signed a deal with Mikhail Gorbachev to eliminate nuclear weapons, but this time missile defense proved an insuperable stumbling block. Now that President Obama and senior statesmen like George Shultz and Henry Kissinger have endorsed the abolition of nuclear weapons, the issue has assumed a fresh ­prominence.
In “A Skeptic’s Case for Nuclear Disarmament,” Michael E. O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the liberal Brookings Institution who has attracted much controversy on the left for supporting the Iraq war, joins the debate. O’Hanlon expertly unravels the myriad threads of the often abstruse disputes about nuclear weapons and disarmament. He seeks to chart a middle ground between the nuclear abolitionists and the proponents of retaining the bomb in perpetuity. His solution is to advocate full dismantlement — but only if the United States and other major powers can reconstitute nuclear weapons rapidly if, say, menaced by a foreign foe who had secretly kept them. Like many attempts to cope with the problem of nuclear proliferation, however, O’Hanlon’s proposal is unpersuasive. His book is better at outlining the problems surrounding disarmament than at solving them.
According to O’Hanlon, pushing for disarmament without retaining the right to reconstruct nuclear weapons is sheer utopianism. He also notes that no major power is about to defer to the United Nations Security Council for authorization to rebuild these weapons. So he suggests the creation of a “contact group for each country that wishes to preserve the right to build or rebuild a nuclear arsenal under extreme conditions.” But this defies credibility. What commander in chief would ever put America’s national security in the hands of a “contact group”?
Still, as O’Hanlon sees it, one advantage of pushing for disarmament is simply that it might promote more general enthusiasm for arms reduction. “Tired of incrementalism,” he states, “the American public has long since lost its real interest in arms control.” But did it ever have any such interest in the first place? O’Hanlon himself doesn’t seem to have all that much interest in full disarmament.
His suggestion is that the United States should pursue a rather Machiavellian policy: On the one hand, it should “endorse a ­nuclear-free world with conviction.” On the other, “it should not work to create a treaty now and should not sign any treaty that others might create for the foreseeable future.” Only when Iran, North Korea, the status of Taiwan and Kashmir, and a host of other issues are settled will the great powers be able to cooperate on moving toward a world truly free of nuclear weapons. Of course, setting world peace as a precondition for nuclear disarmament is tantamount to saying it will never occur.
Even the act of disarming, O’Hanlon notes, could throw America’s relations with its allies into turmoil. Japan continues to rely on American nuclear assurances. So does Europe. In short, the American nuclear umbrella extends far and wide — indeed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested last year that a “defense umbrella” now extends to shield Middle East states like Saudi Arabia from a potential Iranian strike.
Rather than seeking the utopian dream of ridding the world of nuclear weapons, keeping a small arsenal on hand as a deterrent is far more likely to preserve the peace than abandoning them completely. The fundamental problem is that nuclear weapons are not the source of international tensions but an expression of them.

Jacob Heilbrunn is a senior editor at The National Interest.

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Os interessados em ler largos extratos do livro para conhecer as teses do autor, podem percorrer estas páginas no Google Books, que aliás segue o sistema da Amazon: dá para ler, mas não para copiar.

Excerpt by Google Books

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Transcrevo abaixo um comentário recebido e minha resposta a ele: 

Julian Farret disse...

A questão nuclear é um tema em voga. E não poderia ser diferente. Há algumas semanas, Roger Noriega denunciou o apoio de Hugo Chavez a o programa nuclear iraniano. Aparentemente, através de um acordo de "troca de tecnologia", a Venezuela forneceria urânio ao Irã, ao arrepio das Resoluções da ONU que tentam impedir que o país se arme. Apesar de neste caso tratarmos de governantes que, claramente, compõem sistemas autoritários de governo (e isso bastaria para que alguém repudiasse meus questionamentos), não posso deixar de me ansiar com um fator. Um aspecto, acredito, paradoxal ao paradigma da não-proliferação. Me refiro à utopia do absoluto desarmamento nuclear, tema do livro deste post. Posso estar equivocado, e sobre isso gostaria muito de ouvir o que pensa o estimado blogueiro, mas me parece que o armamento nuclear, quando em mãos de Estados de Direito, democráticos são excelentes "instrumentos da paz". Parecem garantir uma espécie de "isonomia" entre os Estados. Em sentido oposto, a insegurança surge, creio, ao passo que "esse" ou "aquele" país é detentor de uma arma tão poderosa. Isso faz surgir, sem dúvida alguma, uma hegemonia militar que em nada contribui para a segurança internacional. Não faço votos de proliferação das bombas atômicas, mas compreendo os governos que investem forças nesse sentido. Aproveito a oportunidade para registrar minha profunda admiração pelo autor do blog. Não é de hoje que o acompanho, apesar de não ser 'follower' nem ter antes me manifestado. Sucesso! Um forte abraço. Julian.

Resposta de Paulo Roberto de  Almeida:

Julian,
Discordo ligeiramente de sua analise. A questão da arma nuclear não tem tanto a ver com a natureza do regime -- democrático ou ditatorial -- e sim com sua capacitação tecnológica e industrial. Democracia e ditaduras, totalitarismos, enfim, qualquer tipo de regime, desde que dotado de capacitação adequada, pode chegar à manufatura de artefatos nucleares. A sequência é exatamente esta: EUA, URSS, UK, França, RP China, Israel, India, Africa do Sul (que depois voltou atrás), Paquistão e Coréia do Norte.
Podem fazer um artefato nuclear em menos de um ano, se assim o desejarem: Alemanha, Canadá, Japão, Suécia, Espanha, Itália, Ucrânia, Suíça e vários outros.
Demorariam um pouco mais mas poderiam também fazê-lo: Irã, Coréia do Sul, Africa do Sul, Indonésia, México, Argentina, e vários outros.
A natureza do regime não tem nada a ver com a capacidade nuclear.
Não diria que os artefatos nucleares são instrumentos de paz, e sim que são elementos estratégicos suficientemente desestabilizadores, e tremendamente destruidores, para atuar como fatores de dissuasão estratégica e obstáculos de ordem prática a uma guerra global, ou seja, entre potências detentoras desse tipo de armamento. Nesse sentido, ele garantiu, não a paz, mas a "não-guerra", que continuou a existir por outros meios: proxy wars, guerra fria, espionagem, desestabilização, guerras regionais com sistemas de alianças, e todos os tipos de golpes baixos, alguns ainda em curso e se reforçando.
Tampouco é uma isonomia completa, pois há outras maneiras de se projetar poder, mas de certa forma equaliza as chances de destruição mútua (caso ambos tenham meios de delivery, pois não adianta ter a ogiva ou a bomba, sem meios de entregá-la no lugar "certo").
Claro, quando a bomba é detida por líderes perfeitamente malucos, como alguns que existem por aí, a insegurança aumenta, pois outros vão procurar se armar nuclearmente também.
Governos que investem nesse sentido, estão simplesmente cometendo um crime contra seus povos, e jogando dinheiro no lixo.
Mas, não tenho espaço aqui para desenvolver todas as ideias.
Paulo R. Almeida 

Brazil on the Rise - Larry Rohter

Brazil: The view from Rio
The Economist, August 18, 2010

Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed
By Larry Rohter
Palgrave Macmillan; 304 pages; $27 and £18.99.

Political strategists sometimes say that voters can hold only three things in their minds about a candidate. So candidates spend quite a bit of time determining what those three will be; once they have become known as a technophobe, an arugula muncher or a flip-flopper, the perception is hard to shift. The same might be true of countries. For Brazil, the three are forests, sex and football.

That the world's fifth-largest country (by population) and eighth-largest economy (in real terms) is often perceived by foreigners as a giant Club Med resort is partly thanks to foreign correspondents reporting on Brazil, who often feel they have to start with what readers back home know about the place and go from there. Larry Rohter, the New York Times correspondent from 1999 to 2007, used to be an exponent of this approach. The only trouble with it is that it explains only part of the country, part of the time.

"Brazil on the Rise" is an attempt to go deeper, putting the country as it is now in the context of Brazil's recent history, with anecdotes from Mr Rohter's notebooks sprinkled on top. These are the best thing in the book. "I have found soccer fields even in the poorest and most remote places, including tribal reservations in the Xingu where Indians wear nothing but a penis sheath and a T-shirt with the colours of a popular team, such as Flamengo or Palmeiras," writes Mr Rohter. This is worth far more than the surrounding passages of cod sociology on why football is like sex.

The book begins by posing three questions about Brazil that interest both foreigners and Brazilians. Why is the place so tolerant? Why is there so much inequality? And is there racism in Brazil?

To answer the first two it is necessary to peel away layers accumulated over 510 years since a band of Portuguese explorers landed in what is now Bahia state. But "Brazil on the Rise" is not a history book. Mr Rohter does, however, make a determined attempt to answer the third, arguing that Brazil has the same sort of racism that America suffered from. People who say otherwise, he suggests, are making the problem worse by burying it.

In support of his view, he cites the horrible case of Luciano Ribeiro, a cyclist who was run over and killed by a white driver in 1996. The motorist later told witnesses that he had run over "a black guy on a stolen bicycle". This might be evidence of racism, or it might be evidence of a sneering attitude made more common by extreme income inequality. Without recourse to some data it is hard to know. Some Brazilian employers may discriminate against people with darker skin. But the kind of hard racism that blighted America is foreign to Brazil.

Mr Rohter's other judgments on the causes of Brazil's current good fortune are hard to argue with. He rightly castigates President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the shortcomings of his foreign policy (which include a bizarre wish to acquire a nuclear-powered submarine to defend the country's oil rigs), while praising him for keeping in place the reforms of his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

One topic where Mr Rohter leaves the consensus behind (and rightly so) is in his assessment of Fernando Collor, president from 1990 until he was impeached in 1992. Mr Collor tends to be remembered for his good looks, loopy economic policies and the giant scams run by his bagman, Paulo César Farias, that brought him down. Yet in his brief time in office Mr Collor began the opening up of Brazil's economy, ran an enlightened environmental policy and thwarted the army's plans to develop a nuclear weapon.

For some time there has been a gap in the market for a good English book on Brazil. "Brazil on the Rise" tells the reader a lot while managing to reinforce many clichés. The author is great on popular culture and beaches, less inspired on the nuts and bolts of economics and politics. The best bits are where he dusts off his old notebooks and finds stories that bring Brazil alive. But his book does not quite plug that gap.

Um livro de que participei: Emerging Powers (Canada)

Percorrendo a web para buscar outras coisas, acabei caindo sobre o anúncio de um livro de uma editora canadense do qual participei, como abaixo.

Emerging Powers in Global Governance: Lessons from the Heiligendamm Process
edited by Andrew F. Cooper and Agata Antkiewicz
(Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008)
Studies in International Governance
$39.95 Paper, 285 pp.
ISBN13: 978-1-55458-057-6
Release Date: October 2008

Table of Contents
Foreword | Dirk Messner

Preface | Yoginder Alagh

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and Acronyms

1 The Heiligendamm Process: Structural Reordering and Diplomatic Agency | Andrew F. Cooper

2 The Logic of the B(R)ICSAM Model for Global Governance | Timothy M. Shaw, Agata Antkiewicz, and Andrew F. Cooper

3 From G8 2003 to G13 2010? The Heiligendamm Process’s Past, Present, and Future | John Kirton

B(R)ICSAM CASE STUDIES

4 China’s Evolving G8 Engagement: Complex Interests and Multiple Identity in Global Governance Reform | Gregory T. Chin

5 India and the G8: Reaching Out or Out of Reach? | Abdul Nafey

6 Brazil and the G8 Heiligendamm Process | Denise Gregory and Paulo Roberto de Almeida

7 South Africa: Global Reformism, Global Apartheid, and the Heiligendamm Process | Brendan Vickers

8 A Break with the Past or a Natural Progression? Mexico and the Heiligendamm Process | Duncan Wood

9 ASEAN and the G8: Potentially Productive Partners or Two Ships Passing in the Night? | Paul Bowles

THE EVOLVING ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGE

10 Germany and the Heiligendamm Process | Thomas Fues and Julia Leininger

11 Why Is the OECD Involved in the Heiligendamm Process? | Richard Woodward

12 Russia and Evolution of the Heiligendamm Process | Victoria V. Panova

13 The United States and Summit Reform in a Transformational Era | Colin I. Bradford, Jr.

14 Enhanced Engagement: The Heiligendamm Process and Beyond | Alan S. Alexandroff

List of Contributors

Index

CONTRIBUTORS
Alan S. Alexandroff is a Research Director at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. He recently launched the Global Institutional Reform (GIR) Workshop at CIGI, a project designed to evaluate the adequacy of institutional reform proposals for the international system, leading to his edited volume, Can the World Be Governed? Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism (WLUP, 2008). In collaboration with Andrew F. Cooper, he is working on a second volume, Can the World Be Governed? Rising States; Rising Institutions.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida is Professor of International Political Economy at Uniceub-Brasilia, and Associate Professor at Instituto Rio Branco, the Brazilian diplomatic academy. He is also a career diplomat since 1977 and previously served as Minister-Counselor at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington (1999—2003). He holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University of Brussels and an M.A. in International Economy from the University of Antwerpen. Besides his professional duties, he has engaged in academic activities in Brazil and abroad. Dr. Almeida is also a researcher in economic history and international economic relations of Brazil, and has authored many books in those areas.

Agata Antkiewicz is Senior Researcher and Program Leader at CIGI, where she oversees the Shifting Global Order research theme as well as the BRICSAM and economic governance projects. She holds an M.A. in Economics, specializing in International Trade and International Relations, from the University of Economics in Wroclaw, Poland. Ms Antkiewicz’s authored or co-authored articles have been published by: The World Economy, Review of International Organizations, Journal of European Integration, Third World Quarterly, International Studies Review, Canadian Public Policy Journal, and National Bureau of Economic Research.

Paul Bowles is Professor of Economics at the University of Northern British Columbia. He is a past-President of the Canadian Society for the Study of International Development and is also affiliated with universities in China and Mexico. He specializes in globalization, regionalism, and East Asian development. His most recent book is Globalization and National Currencies: Endangered Species? (Routledge, 2008). His current research projects include the political economy of China’s currency choices and the political economy of labour and globalization.

Colin I. Bradford, Jr., is Research Professor of Economics and International Relations at American University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and at CIGI. He has held several positions, including Chief Economist at the United States Agency for International Development, Head of Research of the Development Centre of the OECD, Senior Staff of the Strategic Planning Unit of the World Bank, and Associate Professor in the Practice of International Economics and Management at the School of Organization and Management, Yale University.

Gregory T. Chin teaches global politics, comparative politics, and East Asian political economy in the Department of Political Science and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University. He is a Senior Fellow at CIGI, and a member of the Advisory Board of the North Korea Research Group at the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Rowman & Littlefield’s New Millennium Books Series, and an academic member of the Editorial Board of the China and International Organization Books Series, jointly published by Shanghai People’s Press and Shanghai International Studies University. He has held a visiting fellowship at Peking University (1997—98). His forthcoming book is entitled China’s Automotive Modernization: Industrial Policy and Rival Firms (Palgrave, 2009).

Andrew F. Cooper is Associate Director and Distinguished Fellow at CIGI and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, where he teaches in the areas of International Political Economy, Global Governance, Comparative and Canadian Foreign Policy, and the Practice of Diplomacy. He has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard University, the Australian National University, and in 2009 a Fulbright Visiting Chair of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. Dr. Cooper’s recent publications include Global Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? (Palgrave, 2008), Celebrity Diplomacy (Paradigm, 2007), and Regionalisation and Global Governance: The Taming of Globalisation? (Routledge, 2007).

Thomas Fues is Senior Research Fellow at the German Development Institute (DIE). His main research interests are global governance, emerging powers, United Nations, and international development cooperation. Recent publications include articles on G8 reform, the role of China and India in the global system, the UN development sector, as well as human rights and global governance. In addition to his research tasks, Dr. Fues is responsible for the Global Governance School at DIE as part of the training and dialogue programme “Managing Global Governance” with young professionals from governments and think tanks of emerging economies.

Denise Gregory is a specialist in international relations and business administration, with experience in the areas of foreign trade, integration, and international trade negotiations. She was named Executive Director of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI) in December 2004. Previously, she acted as Institutional Relations Director of Investe Brasil, and was Chief of Staff to the President of the Brazilian Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES). Ms. Gregory has also held positions with the Executive Secretariat of the Foreign Trade Chamber (CAMEX), and Department of Foreign Trade Policy within the Foreign Trade Secretariat.

John J. Kirton is a professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, where he is a Fellow of Trinity College. Dr. Kirton is the director of the G8 Research Group, established at the University of Toronto in 1987. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for International Studies, where he leads the Program on Global Health Diplomacy and the G20 Research Group. He has advised the Canadian and Russian governments and the World Health Organization on G7/8 participation, international trade, and sustainable development, and has written widely on G7/G8 summitry.

Julia Leininger is Research Fellow at the German Development Institute (DIE) in the Competitiveness and Social Development department. She is also an associate of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt as part of the PRIF/ Research Associate Project: Democracy Promotion through International Organisations. She has also held research positions with both the German Federal Ministry For Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the United Nations Development Programme. Her current research activities are in global governance, international institutions, and democracy promotion.

Abdul Nafey is Professor at the Centre for Canadian, US and Latin American Studies, Jawaharal Nehru University (JNU). Before joining JNU, Dr. Nafey taught at the Universities of Delhi and Goa. He was Head of the Centre for Latin American Studies, Goa University in 1989—90. His areas of research include dynamics of democratic development in Latin America, state and civil society, structural adjustment and its consequences, social movements, political and cultural dynamics of Indian diaspora in the Caribbean, regional integration in Latin America, and security and foreign policy dynamics of major Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Victoria Panova is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Foreign Policy at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. She is also Regional Director for Russia of the G8 Research Group based at the University of Toronto. Dr. Panova is a member of the National Working Group of the Advisory Council of the Civil G8 project, and was responsible for the substance and organization of the Civil G8 working group on Human Security during Russia’s 2006 G8 presidency. Her research focuses on regional conflicts, non-proliferation, terrorism, energy security and sustainability, as well as global governance (notably the G8) in relation to Russian civil society.

Timothy M. Shaw is Director and Professor at the Institute of International Relations, the University of the West Indies St. Augustine. He previously directed the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies and International Development Studies programmes at Dalhousie University, where he taught for three decades. Dr. Shaw holds degrees from three continents and is visiting professor in South Africa and Uganda. His latest monograph is Commonwealth: Inter- and Non-State Contributions to Global Governance (Routledge, 2007). He is general editor for the International Political Economy series for Ashgate and for Palgrave Macmillan.

Brendan Vickers is Senior Researcher in the multilateral programme at the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD). Prior to joining the IGD, he was employed as the Deputy Director responsible for International Relations and Trade in the Office of the President of South Africa. He recently completed a Ph.D. with the University of London, focusing on international trade. Dr. Vicker’s research interests are international trade, the WTO, trade law and diplomacy, regional integration, South African foreign policy, and international relations.

Duncan Wood is Director of the Undergraduate Program in International Relations and Acting Head of the Department of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). He is a member of the Mexican National Research System, a member of the editorial board of Foreign Affairs en Español and has been an editorial advisor to Reforma newspaper and was a non-resident Fulbright Fellow. Dr. Wood’s research focuses on the Mexican energy sector, Latin American energy policy, migration and remittances, the political economy of international finance, and Canada-Mexico relations. In 2009 he will direct the Energy Policy Studies Center, to be based at ITAM.

Richard Woodward is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Hull. He has written extensively on different facets of the OECD’s role in global governance and his book on the organization will shortly be published by Routledge. Currently he is finalizing his Ph.D. thesis on the governance of the City of London’s financial markets since 1997 and is co-writing (with Simon Lee) Understanding States and Markets: An Introduction to the History of Ideas in Political Economy (Palgrave, 2009). His other research interests include the financial crime, offshore financial centres, and development in small states.

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