O artigo é populista, como os líderes políticos que estão vencendo pleitos eleitorais em diversos países, com destaque para o Reino Unido (Brexit) e EUA (eleição de Trump).
Por causa dessas vitórias,
a ordem liberal estaria fraudada?
Mas que bobagem!
Eles é que estão fraudando a ordem liberal com suas mentiras, sua demagogia política e muito populismo econômico.
Quem for atrás desses líderes idiotas vai se encontrar numa situação pior do que antes, pois eles vão deixar seus países numa situação muito pior do que a anterior ordem liberal (se é que esta existia, o que não acredito, pois todos os governos, TODOS, eram e são socialdemocratas).
Outra afirmação risível, ridícula, estúpida dos autores:
O capitalismo sequestrou a globalização?
Mas quanta bobagem!
O capitalismo mal se sustenta em pé, com tanto intervencionismo estatal, tantas deformações causados por políticas públicas. Ele não tem forças sequer para implementar políticas nacionais em favor da liberdade de mercados -- o que seria sua vocação natural -- quanto mais sequestrar essas forças impessoais embutidas na globalização (que é como a força dos ventos ou as correntes marítimas, as marés). Isto não quer dizer que os capitalistas sejam a favor dos mercados livres, ao contrário, eles gostam de monopólios, carteis, coalizões de interesses, que lhes garantam mercados cativos. Mas a lógica do capitalismo, se ela existe, é a concorrência desenfreada, ou pelo menos deveria ser.
A globalização não é controlada por nenhuma força identificada, sequer por esse monstro metafísico, por esse fantasma marxista que se chama capitalismo, pois ela se processa, basicamente em nível microeconômico -- pela força incontrolada, não controlável, totalmente não coordenada das empresas, dos indivíduos, dos inovadores -- sendo que são os governos que tentam controlá-la em nível macroeconômico, ou os tecnocratas dos grandes organismos econômicos internacionais, que pretendem "disciplinar" a globalização em nível multilateral.
A globalização passa, os cães (nacionais) ladram, mas inutilmente, ou apenas conseguem atrasá-la um pouco, em sua marcha irrefreável para a frente.
Surpreende-me que um intelectual razoável como Roberto Keohane se renda a tanta bobagem. Só pode ser o politicamente correto que está contaminando as universidades americanas e cegando mesmo os professores mais inteligentes, ou supostamente lúcidos.
Coloco o texto aqui para alimentar a discussão, mas a minha opinião já está afirmada acima.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 26/04/2017
The Liberal Order Is Rigged
Fix It Now or Watch It Wither
By Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane
Foreign Affairs essay, May-June 2017
Prior to 2016,
debates about the global order
mostly revolved around its structure and the question of whether the
United States should actively lead it or should retrench, pulling back
from its alliances and other commitments. But during the past year or
two, it became clear that those debates had missed a key point: today’s
crucial foreign policy challenges arise less from problems between
countries than from domestic politics within them. That is
one lesson of the sudden and surprising return of populism to Western countries,
a trend that found its most powerful expression last year in the United
Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU, or Brexit, and the election of
Donald Trump as U.S. president.
It can be hard to pin
down the meaning of “populism,” but its crucial identifying mark is the
belief that each country has an authentic “people” who are held back by
the collusion of foreign forces and self-serving elites at home. A
populist leader claims to represent the people and seeks to weaken or
destroy institutions such as legislatures, judiciaries, and the press
and to cast off external restraints in defense of national sovereignty.
Populism comes in a range of ideological flavors.
Left-wing populists want to “soak the rich” in the name of equality;
right-wing populists want to remove constraints on wealth in the name of growth. Populism is therefore defined not by a particular view
of economic distribution but by a faith in strong leaders and a dislike
of limits on sovereignty and of powerful institutions.
Such
institutions are, of course, key features of the liberal order: think
of the UN, the EU, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and major
alliances such as NATO. Through them,
the Washington-led order
encourages multilateral cooperation on issues ranging from security to
trade to climate change. Since 1945, the order has helped preserve peace
among the great powers. In addition to the order’s other
accomplishments, the stability it provides has discouraged countries
such as Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea from acquiring
nuclear weapons.
This peace-building aspect of the liberal order has been
an extraordinary success. So, too, is the way in which the order has allowed the developing world to advance, with billions of people rising
out of crippling poverty and new middle classes burgeoning all over the world. But for all of the order’s success, its institutions have become
disconnected
from publics in the very countries that created them. Since the early
1980s, the effects of a neoliberal economic agenda have eroded the
social contract that had previously ensured crucial political support
for the order. Many middle- and working-class voters in the United
Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere have come to believe—with a
good deal of justification—that the system is rigged.
Those of us who have not only analyzed globalization and the liberal
order but also celebrated them share some responsibility for the rise
of populism. We did not pay enough attention as capitalism hijacked
globalization. Economic elites designed international institutions to
serve their own interests and to create firmer links between themselves and governments. Ordinary people were left out. The time has come
to acknowledge this reality and push for policies that can save the liberal order before it is too late.
THE BOATS THAT DIDN'T RISE
In
2016, the two states that had done the most to construct the liberal
order—the United Kingdom and the United States—seemed to turn
their backs on it. In the former, the successful Brexit campaign focused on restoring British sovereignty; in the latter, the Trump campaign was
explicitly nationalist in tone and content. Not surprisingly, this
has
prompted strong reactions in places that continue to value the liberal
order, such as Germany: a poll published in February by the German
newspaper Die Welt found that only 22 percent of Germans believe that the United States is a trustworthy ally, down from 59 percent just three months earlier, prior to Trump’s victory—a whopping 37-point decrease.
The
Brexit and Trump phenomena reflect a breakdown in the social contract
at the core of liberal democracy: those who do well in a market-based
society promise to make sure that those disadvantaged by market forces
do not fall too far behind. But fall behind they have. Between 1974 and
2015, the real median household income for Americans without high school
diplomas fell by almost 20 percent. And even those with high school
diplomas, but without any college education, saw their real median
household income plummet by 24 percent. On the other hand, those with
college degrees saw their incomes and wealth expand. Among those
Americans, the real median household income rose by 17 percent; those
with graduate degrees did even better.
The Brexit and Trump phenomena reflect a breakdown in the social contract at the core of liberal democracy.
As political scientists such as Robert Putnam
and Margaret Weir have documented, such trends have led to different
sets of Americans living in separate worlds. The well-off do not live
near the poor or interact with them in public institutions as much as
they used to. This self-segregation has sapped a
sense of solidarity from American
civic
life: even as communications technology has connected people as never
before, different social classes have drifted further apart, becoming
almost alien to one another. And since cosmopolitan elites were doing so
well, many came to the conclusion—often without realizing it—that
solidarity just wasn’t that important for a well-functioning democracy.
Elites
have taken advantage of the global liberal order—sometimes
inadvertently, sometimes intentionally—to capture most of the income and
wealth gains in recent decades, and they have not shared much with the
middle and lower classes. Wealthier, better-educated Americans have
pushed for or accepted regressive tax policies, trade and investment agreements
that encouraged corporate outsourcing, and the underfunding of public
and higher education. The result of such policies has been to undermine
what the political scientist John Ruggie once called “embedded
liberalism”: a global order made up of free-market societies that
nevertheless preserved welfare states and labor-market policies that
allowed for the retraining of people whose skills became obsolete, compensation for those who lost out from trade liberalization, and validation of the self-worth of all citizens, even if they were not highly productive in economic terms. Elites pushed for and supported the first part of this vision—free markets, open borders, and multilateralism—but in the 1970s and even more so in the 1980s, they began to neglect the other part of the bargain: a robust safety net for those who struggled. That imbalance undermined domestic support for free trade, military alliances, and much else.
The
bill for that broken social contract came due in 2016 on both sides of
the Atlantic. And yet even now, many observers downplay the threat this
political shift poses to the liberal order. Some argue that the economic
benefits of global integration are so overwhelming
that national governments will find their way back to liberalism, regardless of campaign rhetoric and populist posturing. But the fact is that
politicians respond to electoral incentives even when those incentives diverge
considerably from their country’s long-term interests—and in recent
years, many voters have joined in the populist rejection of
globalization and the liberal order.
Moreover,
business leaders and stock markets, which might have been expected to
serve as a brake on populist fervor, have instead mostly rewarded
proposals for lower taxes with no accompanying reduction in government
spending. This is shortsighted. Grabbing even more of
the benefits of globalization at the expense of the middle and working
classes might further undermine political support for the integrated
supply chains and immigration on which the U.S. economy depends. This
position is reminiscent of the way that eighteenth-century French aristocrats refused to pay taxes while indulging in expensive
foreign military adventures. They got away with it for many years—until
the French Revolution suddenly laid waste to their privilege. Today’s elites risk making a similar mistake.
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Some portion of the blame for the liberal order’s woes lies with its
advocates.
Policymakers pursued a path of action favored by many academics,
including us: building international institutions to promote cooperation.
But they did so in a biased way—and, for the most part, we
underestimated the risk that posed. Financial firms and major
corporations enjoyed privileged status within the order’s institutions,
which paid
little attention to the interests of workers.
WTO rules emphasized openness and failed to encourage measures that
would cushion globalization’s effects on those disadvantaged by it,
especially
workers in the traditional manufacturing
sectors in developed countries. Meanwhile, investment treaties signed in
the 1990s featured provisions that corporate lawyers exploited to favor
big business at the expense of consumers. And when China manipulated
trade and currency arrangements to the disadvantage of working-class Americans, Washington
decided that other issues in U.S.-Chinese relations were more important, and did not respond strongly.
Working-class Americans didn’t necessarily understand the details of global
trade deals, but they saw elite Americans and people in China and other
developing countries becoming rapidly wealthier while their
own incomes stagnated or declined. It should not be surprising that
many of them agreed with Trump and with the Democratic presidential
primary contender Bernie Sanders that the game was rigged.
Much ink has been spilled on the
domestic causes of the populist revolt:
racism, growing frustration with experts, dysfunctional economic
policies. But less attention has been paid to two contributing factors
that stemmed from the international order itself. The first was a loss
of national solidarity brought on by the end of the Cold War. During
that conflict, the perceived Soviet threat generated a strong shared
sense of attachment not only to Washington’s allies but also to
multilateral institutions. Social psychologists have demonstrated the
crucial importance of “othering” in identity formation, for individuals
and nations alike: a clear sense of who is not on your team makes you
feel closer to those who are. The fall of the Soviet Union removed the
main “other” from the American political imagination and thereby reduced
social cohesion in the United States. The end of the Cold War generated
particular political difficulties for the Republican Party, which had
long been a bastion of anticommunism. With the Soviets gone, Washington
elites gradually replaced Communists as the Republicans’ bogeymen.
Trumpism is the logical extension of that development.
In Europe, the end of the Cold War was consequential for a related reason.
During the Cold War, leaders in Western Europe constantly sought to
stave off the domestic appeal of communism and socialism. After 1989, no
longer facing that constraint, national governments and officials in
Brussels expanded the EU’s authority and scope, even in the face of a
series of national referendums that expressed opposition to that trend
and should have served as warning signs of growing
working-class
discontent. In eastern Europe, anti-Soviet othering was strong during
the 1980s and 1990s but appears to have faded as memories of the Cold War have become more distant. Without the specter
of communist-style authoritarianism haunting their societies, eastern Europeans have become more susceptible to
populism and other forms of illiberalism. In Europe, as in the United States, the disappearance of the Soviets undermined social cohesion and a common sense of purpose.
The
second force stirring discontent with the liberal order can be called
“multilateral overreach.” Interdependence requires countries to curb
their autonomy so that institutions such as the UN and the World Bank can facilitate cooperation and solve mutual problems. But the
natural tendency of institutions, their leaders, and the bureaucracies
that carry out their work is to expand their authority. Every time they
do so, they can point to some seemingly valid rationale. The cumulative
effect of such expansions of international authority, however, is to
excessively limit sovereignty and give people the sense that foreign forces
are controlling their lives. Since these multilateral institutions are
distant and undemocratic—despite their inclusive rhetoric—the result is public alienation, as the political scientist Kathleen McNamara has
documented. That effect is compounded whenever multilateral
institutions reflect the interests of cosmopolitan elites at the expense
of others, as they often have.
SYSTEM UPDATE
Derigging
the liberal order will require attention to substance but also to
perceptions. The United States has made only feeble attempts to sustain
something like Ruggie’s embedded liberalism, and even those attempts
have largely failed. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have done better,
although their systems are also under pressure. Washington has a poor
track record when it comes to building government
bureaucracies that reach deep into society, and the American public is
understandably suspicious of such efforts. So U.S. officials will have
to focus on reforms that do not require a lot of top-down intervention.
To
that end, Washington should be guided by three principles. First,
global integration must be accompanied by a set of domestic policies
that will allow all economic and social classes to share the gains from
globalization in a way that is highly visible to voters. Second,
international cooperation must be balanced with national interests to
prevent overreach, especially when it comes to the use of military
force. Third, Washington should nurture a uniquely American social
identity and a national narrative. That will require othering
authoritarian and illiberal countries. Fostering U.S. opposition to
illiberalism does not mean imposing democracy by force, but it does
require more than occasional diplomatic criticism of countries such as
China or Saudi Arabia. A willing president could, for instance, make it
clear that although the United States may have an interest in
cooperating with nondemocratic countries, it identifies only with
liberal democracies and reserves its closest relationships for them.
Done properly, that sort of othering could help clarify the American
national identity and build solidarity. It might at times constrain
commercial relationships. However, a society is more than just an
economy, and the benefits of social cohesion would justify a modest
economic cost.
Like it or not, “America first” is a powerful slogan.
Developing policies that
satisfy those principles will require innovation and creativity. Some
promising ideas include tax credits to businesses that provide
on-the-job training for dislocated workers and earned-income tax credits
for individuals. Progressives have pursued such policies in the past
but in recent times have retreated or compromised for the sake of
passing trade deals; they should renew their commitment to such ideas.
Officials should also require that any new trade deals be accompanied by
progressive domestic measures to assist those who won’t benefit from
the deals. At a minimum, Congress should avoid regressive tax cuts. If,
for example, the Trump administration and its GOP allies in Congress
decide to impose a border adjustment tax on imports, the revenue raised
ought to benefit the working class. One way to make that happen would be
to directly redistribute the revenue raised by the tax on a per capita
basis, in the form of checks to all households; that would spread the
wealth and build political support for the combination of economic
openness and redistribution. Another way to benefit the working class would be to stimulate job creation
by lowering employers’ payroll tax burden. Such ideas will face an
uphill battle in the current U.S. political environment, but it is
essential to develop plans now so that, when political opportunities
emerge, defenders of the liberal order will be ready.
The
more difficult task will be developing a national narrative, broadly
backed by elites across the ideological spectrum, about “who we are”—one
built around opposition to authoritarianism and illiberalism. The main
obstacle will likely be the politics of immigration, where the tension
between cosmopolitanism and national solidarity surfaces most clearly.
Cosmopolitans argue (correctly) that immigrants ultimately offer more
benefits than costs and that nativist fears about refugees are often
based more on prejudice than fact. The United States is a country of
immigrants and continues to gain energy and ideas from talented
newcomers. Nonetheless, almost everyone agrees that there is some limit
to how rapidly a country can absorb immigrants, and that implies a need
for tough decisions about how fast people can come in and how many
resources should be devoted to their integration. It is not bigotry to
calibrate immigration levels to the ability of immigrants to assimilate
and to society’s ability to adjust. Proponents of a global liberal order
must find ways of seeking greater national consensus on this issue. To
be politically sustainable, their ideas will have to respect the
importance of national solidarity.
Like it or not, global populism has a clear, marketable
ideology, defined by toughness, nationalism, and nativism: “America
first” is a powerful slogan. To respond, proponents of
an open liberal order must offer a similarly clear, coherent
alternative, and it must address, rather than dismiss, the problems felt
keenly by working classes. For Democrats, “the party of jobs” would be a
better brand than “the party of increasing aggregate welfare while
compensating the losers from trade.”
Without
dramatic change to their messages and approach, established political
parties will fade away altogether. An outsider has already captured the
Republican Party; the Democrats are cornered on the coasts. In Europe,
the British Labour Party is imploding and the traditionally dominant
French parties are falling apart. To adapt, establishment parties must
begin to frame their ideas differently. As the social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt has argued, progressives must learn to speak of honor,
loyalty, and order in addition to equality and rights.
To
derig the liberal order and stave off complete defeat at the hands of
populists, however, traditional parties must do more than rebrand
themselves and their ideas. They must develop substantive policies that
will make globalization serve the interests of middle- and working-class
citizens. Absent such changes, the global liberal order will wither
away.
