Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas. Ver também minha página: www.pralmeida.net (em construção).
Um dos meus trabalhos mais recentes, ainda a ser revisto, se por acaso for publicado. Nada do que eu digo, obviamente, engaja qualquer posição oficial de qualquer país, ou certo país. Cada um decide o que for melhor para si, o que não me exime de expressar minha opinião a respeito, como sempre fiz. Paulo Roberto de Almeida 3188. “O lugar dos BRICS na
agenda brasileira e internacional: reflexões, papeis e linkages”, Brasília, 3
novembro 2017, 29 p. Texto-guia para palestra no quadro do IV CIRIPE, Congresso
Internacional de Relações Internacionais de Pernambuco (7/11/2017), a convite
da Faculdade Damas,
servindo também para livro (e-book), “O Lugar dos BRICS nas relações
internacionais contemporâneas: Anais do IV Congresso Internacional de Relações
Internacionais de Pernambuco". Inserido na plataforma Academia.edu (link: https://www.academia.edu/s/15ebecf062/o-lugar-dos-brics-na-agenda-brasileira-e-internacional-reflexoes-papeis-e-linkages).
O lugar dos BRICS na agenda brasileira e
internacional: reflexões, papeis e linkages
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Introdução:
uma sigla inventada por um economista de finanças
O BRIC, depois
convertido em BRICS a partir de demanda especificamente chinesa quando de sua
segunda cúpula, adquiriu um papel relativamente importante na agenda
diplomática do Brasil nos últimos dez anos. Uma análise dessa importância, sua
adequação ou conveniência política, no quadro de uma estratégia diplomática de
maior alcance, na atualidade e nos anos à frente, impõe o dever, que me parece
ser de simples honestidade intelectual, de abstrair a retórica oficial, sempre
positiva ou otimista em relação a empreendimentos de governos, para justamente
examinar o lugar dessa nova entidade no cenário da diplomacia regional, ou de
blocos, em função dos interesses
nacionais brasileiros, um conceito que já é, por si só, de difícil
definição e avaliação.
Para
atender à demanda formulada pelos organizadores do IV Congresso Internacional
de Relações Internacionais de Pernambuco, pretendo seguir fielmente o enunciado
proposto, qual seja, o de efetuar uma análise
de cunho pessoal, formada por reflexões próprias, sobre o papel e o lugar do
BRICS na agenda brasileira e internacional, com vinculações entre as diferentes
vertentes dessa temática. (...)
(...)
Reflexões
sobre um novo animal no cenário diplomático internacional
A primeira pergunta que
vem à mente quando se menciona esse novo bloco é a seguinte: pois não, o que
pretendem os quatro do BRIC? Ou ainda: o que pensam fazer os cinco do BRICS? Qual
é a sua proposta para o mundo atual, para a economia, para a política, para as
relações políticas e econômicas entre os membros maiores e menores da
comunidade internacional, para os problemas de desenvolvimento, para os de
sustentabilidade, de combate aos ilícitos internacionais? Ou seja, qual é a
legitimidade intrínseca do BRICS para se apresentar como grupo coeso, e esperar
que os demais membros do sistema internacional o aceite como proponente de
novas ideias, respostas, soluções para os inúmeros problemas que sobrecarregam
a agenda multilateral e de relacionamento entre seus principais atores? Em uma
palavra: para que serve o BRICS? (...)
(...)
Existe
um papel para o BRICS na atual configuração de poder?
Ao
encarar o processo de formação do BRIC, na fase imediatamente antecedente à sua
formalização diplomática, em 2008, eu continuava a encarar aquele conjunto de
quatro países com o ceticismo sadio que caracteriza as minhas análises de
caráter político em quaisquer circunstâncias, ou seja, feitas tanto no terreno
profissional, quanto nas lides acadêmicas. Minha percepção continuava a ser a
de que problemas e ambições nacionais de cada um dos países eram profundamente
distintos entre si, tanto aqueles observados retrospectivamente, quanto os projetados
para o futuro.(...)
(...)
Vínculos
e efeitos futuros: um exercício especulativo
Comecemos
por descartar uma bobagem que vem sendo repetida, de forma cada vez mais
primária, desde que Friedrich List proclamou, na primeira metade do século XIX,
que as nações avançadas – à época só existia a Grã-Bretanha – pretendiam
“chutar a escada” para impedir que nações emergentes – no caso a sua Alemanha,
dividida e ainda insuficientemente industrializada – pudessem galgar,
igualmente, o paraíso do desenvolvimento. Essa noção conspiratória da história
veio sendo requentada nos últimos tempos por um economista coreano de
Cambridge, Ha-Joon Chang, que apoiou-se nas teses de Prebisch e dos modernos
opositores do Consenso de Washington para também recomendar que os países
periféricos adotassem todo o arsenal protecionista e subvencionista que
supostamente sustentou o esforço industrializador dos países agora ricos e
poderosos. Ha-Joon Chang foi um grande aliado das teses desenvolvimentistas do
período lulopetista, influenciando inclusive sua diplomacia econômica, no
sentido aqui descrito, ou seja, de tentativa de galgar a “escada do
desenvolvimento” por meio de políticas que tomavam inspiração em Hamilton, em
List, em Manoilescu, em Prebisch, em Celso Furtado e outros luminares do
nacional-desenvolvimentismo. (...) (...)
Se tal cenário de consolidação de um
modelo não liberal de governança se confirma, não há nenhuma chance de
assistirmos a qualquer tipo de transição para um “fim da História” no sentido dado
ao termo pelo cientista político Francis Fukuyama, ou seja, o fim das
alternativas autoritárias de governança política e de intrusão ativa dos
Estados na vida econômica dos países, uma vez que o modelo do novo Império
Global, o antigo Império do Meio, representa todo o contrário, em termos de
governança democrática e de respeito aos direitos humanos. George Orwell, se
ainda estivesse vivo, teria muito material ilustrativo para uma nova edição,
revista e ampliada, do seu famoso romance 1984.
Talvez ele ainda possa inspirar romancistas do presente.
NOTA DE FALECIMENTO
Emília Viotti da Costa (1928-2017)
É com pesar que a Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em
História Econômica (ABPHE) recebeu a notícia do falecimento, no
último dia 02, da professora e historiadora Emília Viotti da Costa, aos
89 anos. Emília Viotti foi autora de livros oriundos de pesquisas sobre
o Brasil Colônia e Império, entre eles destacamos "Da Senzala à
Colônia" e "Da Monarquia à República" onde fez análises profundas
e imprescindíveis sobre a formação e o caráter da sociedade
brasileira, no período que vai da Independência até à República.
Entre suas pesquisas e publicações mais recentes está um estudo
sobre o Supremo Tribunal Federal, indo desde a fundação do
mesmo, em 1890, até os dias atuais.
Emília Viotti foi Professora do Departamento de História da USP
entre 1964 e 1969, quando foi compulsoriamente aposentada pelo
AI-5. Também lecionou a disciplina de História da América Latina na
Universidade de Yale. Ao retornar ao Brasil recebeu o título de
professora emérita da USP, em 1999.
Durante o V Congresso Brasileiro de História Econômica e 6a
Conferência Internacional de História de Empresas, realizada em
Caxambu/MG e organizado pela ABPHE em 2003, Emília Viotti
proferiu a Conferência de abertura do evento, o que muito nos honra.
A ABPHE se solidariza com seus familiares, amigos e inúmeros
discípulos e orientandos.
Brasília,
4 novembro 1997, 90 pp. Atualização do trabalho nº 346 (Brasília: 02
junho 1993, 37 pp.) sobre as grandes obras de história diplomática do
Brasil, incorporando novos trabalhos, entre outros o de José Honório
Rodrigues e Ricardo Seitenfus, Uma História Diplomática do Brasil
(1995). Incorporado ao livro Relações internacionais e política externa
do Brasil: dos descobrimentos à globalização (Porto Alegre: EdUFRGS,
1998). Relação de Publicados nº 226.
Gostaria de chamar a atenção para a VI Conferência sobre Relacões Exteriores, "O Brasil e as Tendencias do Cenario Internacional", que será realizada no Itamaraty de 8 a 10 de novembro corrente.
Inscrições e maiores informações nos seguintes endereços:
Fui informado hoje do que segue transcrito abaixo, vindo da presidência da Associação dos Diplomatas Brasileiros (ADB). Respondi em mensagem geral que também transcrevo logo abaixo: 1) ADB: presidência
On 3 Nov 2017, at 10:20, Associação dos Diplomatas Brasileiros <...> wrote:
Participei
na tarde de quarta-feira,de reunião convocada pelo FONACATE para
analisar a MP 805, que dispõe sobre o pagamento do reajuste salarial e
sobre o aumento da alíquota da previdência de 11% para 14%
Foram os seguintes os encaminhamentos da Reunião do FONACATE, ocorrida no dia 1/11, em Brasília/DF, que a ADB acompanhará:
Trabalho Parlamentar (TP) 1.
As entidades apresentarão emendas à MP 805/2017, para, em seguida, o
Fórum eleger aquelas que serão trabalhadas em conjunto. O prazo de
emendamento segue até o dia 6/11 (segunda-feira). 2. O TP será articulado de forma conjunta e deverá ocorrer em Brasília e principalmente nas bases. 3.
O material do TP será único (cartas, ofícios, material para WhatsApp,
mensagens padrão de Twitter e facebook....), em breve desenvolvido para
uso por todas as entidades; 4. O Fórum organizará uma agenda de TP em Brasília, para que o máximo de entidades participe. 5.
Todas as entidades deverão levar ao conhecimento do FONACATE as agendas
de atividade política dos parlamentares nas bases que tomarem
conhecimento, para que possa divulgar para às demais entidade e, assim,
“engrossar” a nossa presença para pressionar os parlamentares. 6.
Da mesma forma, as entidades que conseguirem agenda nas bases com os
parlamentares, deve informar ao Fonacate para ampla divulgação e
participação das demais. 7. O Fonacate contratará reforço de assessoria parlamentar para o período de tramitação da MP 805/2017. 8. O Fonacate fará um monitoramento detalhado de “como vota” cada parlamentar em relação à MP 805/2017.
Mobilização 1. O Fonacate produzirá uma nota dura contra a MP 805/2017, destacando o ataque ao serviços públicos e instituições. 2.
As entidades do Fórum chamam para o protesto nacional de 10/11 as suas
categorias. Deverão se juntar às demais entidades, não apenas do
Fonacate, mas de toda a sociedade. Atos e protestos em Brasília e nos
estados. 3. Todas as entidades do Fórum devem enviar ao Fonacate o seu calendário de atividades de mobilização. 4. O Fonacate contratará uma campanha publicitária para o período de tramitação da MP 805/2017.
Medidas Judiciais 1.
O Fonacate tomará providências para ajuizar uma ADI perante o STF,
inclusive investindo na contratação de escritório de advocacia
estratégico para a matéria. 2. Ficam as entidades livres para a proposição de suas ações coletivas.
Observações Gerais 1.
Não houve unanimidade quanto a mobilização/ paralisação, que está sendo
articulada para o dia 10 do corrente. A ADB indicou juntamente com
outras entidades, que não acompanhará a greve geral.
2.
Foi aprovada a contribuição de uma mensalidade extra para contratação
da campanha publicitária a ser empreendida durante o período de
tramitação da MP 805/2017.
-- Associação dos Diplomatas Brasileiros - ADB 2) Minha mensagem à presidência da ADB: Paulo Roberto de Almeida On 3 Nov 2017, at 11:14, Paulo Roberto de Almeida <...> wrote: Grato à nossa presidente pela sempre atenta participação nos encontros que interessam aos servidores públicos em geral, nos temas que interessam ao serviço exterior em particular.
Permito-me, antes de mais nada, cumprimentá-la pela atitude que julgo correta, ao indicar, ao final, que a ADB não participará de greve geral.
Não ficou claro, contudo, se a ADB vai participar dessa contribuição extra à Fonacate para protestar contra a MP 805/2017, que congela aumento de salário por um ano, e aumenta a contribuição previdenciária.
Não pretendo me manifestar como diplomata, ou como servidor federal, sequer como associado da ADB, mas simplesmente como cidadão brasileiro, contribuinte compulsório como todas as demais categorias de trabalhadores públicos ou do setor privado, e também como professor de economia política, acompanhando, portanto, a situação das finanças públicas, com um olhar especialmente crítico sobre o mandarinato pouco republicano representando pelo estamento burocrático do serviço público.
A propaganda que pretende fazer a Fonacate é, em princípio mentirosa e de má-fé pois considera a medida como um "ataque ao serviços públicos e instituições.”
Bobagem da grossa: se trata apenas de uma medida necessária em face do descalabro das contas públicas, num momento em que a sociedade em geral vê seu poder de compra ser reduzido em mais de 10%, pelos efeitos da recessão produzida no regime anterior, e quando o setor privado assiste a um desemprego brutal, com milhões de pessoas desempregadas, o que não ocorreu com NENHUM dos servidores públicos (salvo os infelizes de estados falidos, pelas mesmas razões de descalabro fiscal). As medidas de reajuste salarial contratadas ao final do regime desastroso que provocou a Grande Destruição no Brasil foram negociadas com uma perspectiva de inflação alta, o que obviamente não é mais o caso atualmente, o que se reflete aliás, na correção do salário mínimo, indexado ao crescimento do PIB e portanto sofrendo uma redução real pela recessão (só corrigido pela inflação real, a do IPCA).
Num momento em que a sociedade sofre as consequências de políticas econômicas equivocadas, que atingem TODOS os brasileiros, mas em circunstâncias em que os servidores públicos foram preservados dos efeitos mais nefastos daquelas políticas, me parece de uma inconsciência brutal, e de um desprezo elementar por fatos relevantes da economia, a Fonacate convocar greves e manifestações contra uma medida que visa preservar o equilíbrio das contas públicas.
Estimo que a ADB não deveria se associar a esse ativismo sindical antipático aos olhos da sociedade, e deveria deixar claro que não pretende seguir as demais entidades de servidores públicos nos movimentos grevistas com base em argumentos especiosos, quando não mentirosos.
Estimo ainda que a ADB deveria divulgar que não apenas não participará de qualquer greve, como também que se opõe a essa greve extemporânea e despropositada.
Espero que a ADB não contribua com os gastos extras do movimento contrário à MP 805/2017.
Esta é minha opinião, mas como diriam os policiais Dupond e Dupont, de Tintin, je la partage...
---------------------------- Paulo Roberto de Almeida
IN
THE summer of 1974, a 26-year-old Mayan villager lay drunk in a town
square in the Guatemalan highlands. Suddenly he heard a voice that was
to change the course of his life and that of his home town, Almolonga.
“I was lying there and I saw Jesus saying, ‘I love you and I want you to
serve me’,” says the man, Mariano Riscajche. He dusted himself down,
sobered up and soon started preaching, establishing a small Protestant
congregation in a room not far from the town’s ancient Catholic church.
Half
a millennium earlier, a 33-year-old German monk experienced something
similar. At some point between 1513 and 1517, Martin Luther had a direct
encounter with God and felt himself “to be reborn and to have gone
through open doors into paradise”. His moment of being born again was
private. The day on which he is said to have nailed a list of 95
complaints about ecclesiastical corruption to the church door in
Wittenberg, Saxony—widely thought to have been October 31st 1517—made
the private public and, soon, political. A mixture of princely
patronage, personal stubbornness and chance led what could have ended up
as just another minor protest in a remote corner of Europe to become a
global movement.
At the heart of this Protestant faith were, and are, three beliefs resting on the Latin word for “alone”: sola fide (that people are saved by faith in Jesus alone, not by anything they do); sola gratia (that this faith is given by grace alone, and cannot be earned); and sola scriptura
(that it is based on the authority of the Bible alone, and not on
tradition or the church). In a way that complemented the broader themes
of the Renaissance, Luther wanted Christianity to go back to the
“pristine Gospel”: the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. This return
offered a new sort of freedom, one centred on the individual, which
helped pave the way for modernity. “The separation of powers,
toleration, freedom of conscience, they are all Protestant ideas,” says
Jacques Berlinerblau, a sociologist at Georgetown University.
A safe stronghold
Protestantism
continues to change lives today; indeed, over the recent decades the
number of its adherents has grown substantially. Since the 1970s, about
three-quarters of Almolonga’s 14,000 residents have converted; more than
40% of Guatemala’s population is now Protestant. Its story is a
microcosm of a broader “Protestant awakening” across Latin America and
the developing world. According to the Pew Research Centre Protestants
currently make up slightly less than 40% of the world’s 2.3bn
Christians; almost all the rest are Roman Catholics. The United States
is home to some 150m Protestants, the largest number in any country.
In
Luther’s native Germany roughly half the Christians follow his
denomination. But today Europe accounts for only 13% of the world’s
Protestants. The faith’s home is the developing world. Nigeria has more
than twice as many Protestants as Germany. More than 80m Chinese have
embraced the faith in the past 40 years.
There are many ways to be
a Protestant, from the quietist to the ecstatic. The fastest-growing
varieties tend to be the evangelical ones, which emphasise the need for
spiritual rebirth and Biblical authority. Among developing-world
evangelicals, Pentecostals are dominant; their version of the faith is
charismatic, in that it emphasises the “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, held
to be a universally accessible and sustaining aspect of God. These gifts
include healing, prophecy and glossolalia. According to the World
Christian Database at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in
Massachusetts, Pentecostals and other evangelicals and charismatics
account for 35% of Europe’s Protestants, 74% of America’s and 88% of
those in developing countries. They make up more than half of the
developing world’s Christians, and 10% of all people on Earth.
Changed
lives change places. Almolonga’s Pentecostal believers have brought new
energy to their town. Where once the prison was full and drunks slumped
in the streets, there is now a buzz of activity. A secondary school
opened in 2003; it sends some of its graduates, all members of the
indigenous K’iché people, to national universities. “We want one of our
students to work at NASA,” says Mr Riscajche’s son, Oscar, who chairs
the school board.
Scholars have been surprised by the developing
world’s Protestant boom. K.M. Panikkar, an Indian journalist, spoke for
many when he predicted in the 1950s that Christianity would struggle in a
post-colonial world. What might survive, he suggested, in both
Protestant and Catholic forms, would be a more modern, liberal form of
the faith. The Pentecostal expansion proved him quite wrong. Peter
Berger of Boston University, a leading sociologist of religion (who died
this summer), saw it as a key part of a wider “desecularisation” of the
world.
To some extent, this growth of Pentecostalism among the
global poor marks a loss of faith in political and secular creeds. As
Mike Davies, an American writer and activist, put it in 2004, “Marx has
yielded the historical stage to Mohammed and the Holy Ghost.” But it is
worth noting that between 2000 and 2017 the 1.9% annual growth in the
number of Muslims was mostly due to an expanding population, whereas a
significant part of Pentecostalism’s expansion of 2.2% a year was due to
conversion. Half of Latin America’s Protestants did not grow up in the
faith.
Their emphasis on personal experience makes Pentecostalism
and similar beliefs culturally malleable; their simplicity and ability
to dispense with clergy gives them a nimbleness that suits people on the
move. They tend to erode distinctions of faith based on ethnicity or
birthplace. To Berger, that made this sort of Protestantism a
modernising force. It is, he argued, “the only major religion which, at
the core of its piety, insists on an act of personal decision.” Its
mixture of distinctive individualism and strong, supportive communities,
he wrote, makes it “a very powerful package indeed”.
It
is a bootstrapping faith. Anyone pulling himself up in the world can
join. Many of those who do are from the margins of society. Churches
provide migrants in their congregations with employment, support and the
possibility of advancement. Where the faith is not part of the
establishment, as in Latin America or China, it carries the potential
for disruption.
For some sociologists, such ideas evoke the ghost
of Max Weber, whose book, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism”, published in 1905, posited that modern capitalism was the
unintended consequence of an “inner-worldly asceticism” in early modern
Protestantism. Such people made money but did not spend it, creating a
thrifty, hard-working, literate, self-denying citizenry who drove
forward the economies of their countries.
Few economists these
days put much stock in Weber’s views. They point out that there was
plenty of proto-capitalism—in 13th-century Italian city-states, for
instance—before the Reformation, and the development of its modern form
was influenced by many other factors. Today the idea seems out of date:
the borders that once ensured an overlap between national markets and
economic moralities have given way to capital flows and a consumer
culture in which unrestricted gratification seems to be the norm.
Yet
some hear echoes of Weber’s ideas in Pentecostalism’s growing social
influence. “In Guatemala the Pentecostal church is just about the only
functioning organisation of civil society,” says Kevin O’Neill of the
University of Toronto. Almost all the drug-rehabilitation centres in
Guatemala City, of which there are more than 200, are run by Pentecostal
volunteers. Throughout Latin America, there are hints of the faith’s
socioeconomic impact. A recent study of Brazilian men by Joseph Potter
of the University of Texas and others found that Protestant faith was
associated with an increase in the earnings of male workers over a
30-year period, especially among less educated people of colour.
In
Almolonga itself, in the first decade of this century, farmers on
average earned twice as much as those in the next village, where
Protestantism had not taken off. Sceptics attribute this to the more
fertile soil or new methods of farming. But according to Berger, “Max
Weber is alive and well and living in Guatemala.”
How a turbulent monk turned the world upside down
LUTHER
was an accidental revolutionary. He was not trying to modernise his
world but to save it. Had he become a lawyer, as his father wanted,
Christendom—the European order organised by its rulers along lines
largely set by the church—might have evolved very differently. The
church might have reformed more from within; it might have fractured
even more deeply than it did.
It
was change from within that Luther wanted. Having entered an
Augustinian monastery, he went on to teach at the University of
Wittenberg. He still believed in Christendom, but his experience of God
persuaded him that the church was getting it wrong.
In 1521, at
the Diet of Worms—an assembly called to discuss Luther’s teachings
presided over by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V—Luther was asked to
recant his heretical view that men and women are saved by the grace of
God alone. He replied that he could do so only if the Bible could be
shown to prove him wrong. “My conscience is captive to the word of God. I
cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is
neither right nor safe.” He may or may not have then said the words
“Here I stand. I can do no other.” But that is the phrase that went on
to define him and his faith.
Some who of those who took Luther’s
Reformation further were better at systematising the faith. By the 1550s
John Calvin had turned Geneva into a model Protestant city. Others were
holier and shrewder. But few were such prolific agitators. Luther was
responsible for more than a fifth of the entire output of pamphlets from
the empire’s newfangled printing presses during the 1520s. “Every day
it rains Luther books,” sighed one churchman. “Nothing else sells.”
Cantankerous
and fiercely anti-Semitic, Luther was far from otherworldly. He
abandoned his vows of chastity and entered an affectionate marriage,
swore freely, drank eagerly and referred frequently to the state of his
bowels. He was by no means a democrat, but his ideas had a huge
political impact. In 1596 Andrew Melville, a Scottish Presbyterian,
explained Luther’s doctrine of the “two kingdoms” to his king, James VI.
In one kingdom James was a king, ruling in earthly pomp. But in the
other, the kingdom of Christ, James was “not a king, nor a lord, nor a
head, but a member”—the same as anyone else.
To begin with, Luther
and other Protestants were keen that church and state should continue
to be bound together—just with much clearer lines between their realms
of authority. Keeping the state out of the church’s business meant
clerics lost the power to suppress heretics by force. But Luther was
content with that. He insisted that heresy should be fought from pulpits
and in pamphlets, not by coercion. “Let the spirits collide,” he wrote.
“If meanwhile some are led astray, all right, such is war.”
The
result was a fissile movement. Protestantism’s first split was between
the “magisterial” reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, who believed in
national churches backed by state power, and the “radical” reformers,
such as Anabaptists—men and women who wanted to form their own separate,
perfect communities without waiting for the world to catch up with
them. Those in the second group were often millenarians who believed in
the imminent return of Jesus, John Milton’s “shortly expected King”. It
is partly from this wing of the faith that the Pentecostal, evangelical
and charismatic strands of modern Protestantism have grown.
The
division in Protestantism had political repercussions. The German
Peasants’ Revolt in 1524-25 was led by men who denounced serfdom as
incompatible with Christian liberty and said they would desist only if
they could be proved wrong on Biblical grounds. Luther was shocked at
what he had unleashed, penning a pamphlet entitled “Against the Robbing
and Murdering Hordes of Peasants”. But it was too late. The sects would
not do as they were told. If God had spoken to them directly through his
word, what was there to fear from kings and bishops?
Though the
magisterial reformation triumphed in the transformation of northern
European establishments from Catholic to Protestant, it was the
longer-term triumph of the radical reformation that arguably had the
deepest effects, in northern Europe and elsewhere. The new Protestant
sects’ insistence that they be free to practise their faith did not
extend to others—notably Catholics—seeking to practise theirs. But it
did open up some space for the toleration and freedom of conscience that
eventually helped create the principle of limited government. Milton’s
“Areopagitica” of 1644 urged freedom of thought and freedom to publish.
Uncensored printing offered the possibility of choice, ending the state
church’s monopoly on opinion-forming.
Protestant toleration was
good for business, too. The Calvinist Netherlands of the late 16th
century became the world’s richest society as Huguenots, Jews and other
hard-working refugees from Catholic lands flooded in. “The really
radical twist that Protestantism added was the idea of human spiritual
equality having a political consequence,” says Alec Ryrie of Durham
University, author of “Protestants”, the best recent history of the
faith.
This played out in the aftermath of the English civil war
when religious groups such as the Diggers and the Levellers demanded
universal male suffrage and common ownership of the land. In 1647 one of
them, Thomas Rainsborough, said in the Putney debates with Oliver
Cromwell, the Puritan who had led parliament, that “The poorest man in
England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he
hath not had a voice to put himself under.” The Diggers were dispersed,
but the idea that equality before God implied full democracy took root.
The dispossessed, reclaiming what was theirs
The
resistance of dissenters impressed John Locke, an English philosopher
with strong Protestant roots. Their stand influenced his writings on
freedom of conscience, which were to form the foundation for English
liberalism, and the Toleration Act of 1689, which formalised the legal
acceptance of nonconformist sects. The participatory ways in which
nonconformist churches often chose their leaders eventually filtered
through to society in general. “Churches were schools of democracy,”
says David Martin, a British sociologist of religion.
If people
were to find Bible-based salvation independent of the clergy, literacy
was indispensable. By 1760 about 60% of England’s men, and 40% of its
women, were able to read. Protestant education provided opportunities
for social mobility, improved the status of women and fostered economic
growth. Elie Halévy, an influential early 20th-century French historian,
believed that Methodism helped 18th-century England avoid a revolution
of the sort that later befell France by educating the lower classes and
bringing about social reform. This admiration was not universal:
Britain’s pioneering Marxist historian of the working class, E.P.
Thompson, considered Methodism to be a “ritual form of psychic
masturbation”.
Before
the Toleration Act and other developments made Britain and northern
Europe more amenable to radical Protestantism, many seeking religious
freedom had crossed the Atlantic to secure it. A strong tradition of
radical Protestantism became a feature of the American colonies and the
subsequent history of the United States, refreshed from time to time by
revivalist “great awakenings”. That America became the fullest example
of limited government enshrined in law is in large part a consequence of
its Protestant settlement. The truths the Founding Fathers held to be
self-evident had not seemed so to anyone before the Reformation.
Like
Roman Catholics, Protestants sought to bring their faith to other
peoples, too. The motives for this were mixed, the respect for
indigenous cultures often scant and frequently nonexistent and some of
the results disastrous. That said, Robert Woodberry of Baylor University
in Texas has mounted statistical arguments that former colonies where
evangelical (what he calls “conversionary”) Protestant missionaries were
active have become more democratic. He attributes this to mass
education, religious liberty and a legacy of voluntarism.
In the
colonies and Europe alike, Protestant Christianity brought bloodshed and
persecution aplenty. Protestants and Catholics burned each other at the
stake. During the Thirty Years War, fought mainly between Protestant
and Catholic states, 8m people died. Britain, with its established
Protestant church, did more than any other country to build up the trade
that shipped some 12m people across the Atlantic in chains; Protestant
America whipped the slaves thus delivered to work. In the 20th century
the apolitical attitude inherent in Luther’s “two kingdoms” approach led
German Protestants to believe they should not interfere with the state
even when power fell into Nazi hands. Many were “either complicit or
indifferent as unimaginable crimes were committed around them”, says Mr
Ryrie.
Throughout, Protestants had an almost comical capacity for
hypocrisy of all kinds. It could be seen not just in their vices, but
also their virtues—particularly a rather selective toleration. The
respect for their religious rights that 16th-century Mennonites demanded
from the Dutch Republic was not extended to dissenters within their own
ranks. By 1600 there were at least six Mennonite groups in the country.
They hated each other with a passion.
How far from the tree can the fruits of the spirit fall?
PROTESTANTISM’S
fissiparous tendencies persist. When searching for Mr Riscajche’s
church in Almolonga, the Evangelical Church of Calvary, your confused
correspondent thought he had arrived when he discovered the Mount
Calvary Church. Not at all the same thing, it turned out. Almolonga,
small though it is, has at least a dozen Pentecostal churches. But if
the individual congregations for each are small, their cumulative effect
is not.
Until the 1970s Guatemala was a staunchly Catholic
country. When Protestant aid agencies rushed in after a massive
earthquake in 1976, the faith gained a substantial foothold. After the
country’s bloody civil war ended in 1996 it spread as if unshackled.
Guatemalans took to the faith for many reasons, says Virginia Garrard of
the University of Texas, but upheaval had a lot to do with it. The
civil war represented a definitive break with the past: when so much had
been destroyed anyway, losing your Catholic heritage meant less. At a
time of painful economic dislocation, people who felt that Catholicism
and liberation theology had failed them turned to an aspirational faith
that promised a new upward mobility. With a low bar to entry and almost
no hierarchy, new Pentecostal churches matched the entrepreneurial
spirit of the times.
The message has resonated elsewhere. In South
Korea, the Protestantism that accompanied the country’s dizzying
economic rise was an expression of Korean nationalism. In China, a
modernising population is looking for a moral framework to go with its
new mobility. Yang Fenggang of Purdue University predicts that there
could be at least 160m Protestants in China by 2025. He expects the
country will soon be home to more Protestants than America.
As in
early modern Europe, women in developing countries have often been
especially affected by Protestantism. Having studied churches in
Colombia, Elizabeth Brusco, author of “The Reformation of Machismo”, was
surprised to find that evangelicalism was a women’s movement “like
Western feminism”, explaining that “it serves to reform gender roles in a
way that enhances female status.” Male Colombian converts had
previously spent up to 40% of their pay in bars and brothels; that money
was redirected to the family, raising the living standards of women and
children. Temperance helped employment, too. Scholars also argue that
the voice this has given women helps consolidate democracy; Mr Martin
sees parallels with England’s 19th-century Methodists.
That
does not mean the faith is egalitarian. Pentecostalism reforms
traditional gender roles rather than abolishing them; it tends to be
robustly patriarchal, and profoundly intolerant of homosexuality. But a
sober patriarch committed to a moral code that, crucially, treats
domestic violence as sinful can provide stability. An acceptance of
birth control also eases women’s lot.
More stable, economically
active households and well-knit communities have undoubtedly made places
like Almolonga more agreeable for most who live there. But what effect
do they have on a grander scale? Can they remake not just villages but
whole countries and their economies?
Pentecostals have
traditionally been suspicious of politics as too “worldly” and of
development work as too long-term. But in Guatemala and elsewhere some
are now mobilising for social change. Witness a rap battle in a
community hall in one of the areas of Guatemala City known as “red
zones”. Teenagers take it in turns to get up on stage and rap against
each other, with judges deciding who goes through to the next round. The
event has been organised by Angel, a local man who joined one of the
city’s notorious gangs when he was 14. By the age of 22, he had shot “a
lot of people”, he says. When he found himself about to be executed by a
rival gang, he called out to God for help; he escaped death and was
born again. For the past ten years, in a typically Pentecostal bottom-up
initiative, he has been saving kids from gangs.
As yet, it is
hard to see a broader impact from these individual transformations.
Guatemala remains poor and desperate. Many people do not vote or pay
tax; only a tiny fraction of murder investigations lead to convictions.
The country lags behind the rest of Latin America on many development
indicators. “Guatemala tests the limits of religion as an agent of
change,” says Kevin O’Neill of Toronto University. “It’s not that the
religion is ineffectual. It has changed a lot in society. It’s just that
it has not changed things measurable by the metrics we use, such as
security, democracy and economy.”
Perhaps the sort of change that
can be measured will arrive in due course. Guatemala’s history has left
it poor and oligarchic. “Five percent of the population controls 85% of
the wealth,” says Mr O’Neill. More than three-quarters of the cocaine
from South America heading for the United States now passes through it;
many gang members have been deported from Los Angeles. Any society,
never mind one recovering from a 36-year civil war, would struggle.
“Guatemala is like a 400lb man who has lost 100lb in weight. He is
getting better, but he is still in a bad state,” says Ms Garrard, who
first visited in 1979. She ascribes much of the progress to the
churches.
But it may also be that there are limits to 21st-century
Protestantism’s capacity for large-scale reform. For one thing, it is
largely a faith at the margins of society. In the places where
Protestantism made its clearest mark in early modern Europe it took root
in the bourgeoisie, among people of influence. A classic example is
William Wilberforce, a British politician whose legislation banning the
slave trade stemmed from his evangelical beliefs. Moreover, northern
Europe’s Protestants lived in countries that already had clear property
rights and the rule of law. By contrast, Protestants in the developing
world are often among the poorest members of society, living in places
with endemic corruption.
The otherworldly nature of Pentecostalism
does not help. Believing in imminent apocalypse militates against
strong social engagement. The ship is sinking; rather than try to fix
it, Pentecostals want to get as many people as possible into the
lifeboats. “What Guatemala needs is tax reform, voter registration,
microloans, community organising,” says Mr O’Neill. But “people are just
sitting there praying.”
That is not entirely true. “We know we
need to change the system,” says Cash Luna, pastor of Casa de Dios, one
of Guatemala’s half-dozen megachurches. “We pay our taxes and we
encourage our congregation to do the right thing,” he says. The church
also tries to mediate in the city’s gang warfare (Angel is a member) and
holds classes for policemen on how to engage better with the public.
Pentecostals took part in the anti-corruption movement that brought down
the country’s president in 2015. But Protestant involvement in
Guatemalan politics has been messy, and plentiful compromises have
dragged the faith into disrepute.
Protean politics
Unlike
Catholics, Pentecostals have no unified theology of the state, nor any
well-formulated programme for sociopolitical reform. To the extent that
they are political at all, they merely think that their co-religionists
should be elected and that their countries should be Christian.
In
many places they lean to the right. Efraín Ríos Montt, who took control
of Guatemala in a coup in 1982—and thus became the country’s first
Protestant leader—waged the civil war as a fierce anti-Communist. He was
responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, 80% of them
indigenous Mayans; for some, Protestantism became a survival strategy.
At the same time many Nicaraguan evangelicals supported the left-wing
Sandinista government. In Brazil many of the country’s new evangelicals
supported Lula, a left-wing president, in the 2000s. The movement’s
political engagement there has not gone well. One pastor talks of the
problem being “a church without a tradition…and an incapacity to think
Christianly about society.”
It might be argued that the faith has
been politically more successful in opposition than in power. Protestant
churches, in particular the historic denominations established by
missionaries, were instrumental in apartheid’s downfall in South Africa.
Similar stories abound. “In Kenya during the 1980s, when all opposition
activity was banned, the leaders of the opposition were, in effect,
churchmen,” says Paul Gifford, emeritus professor of religion at the
School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
But there were
Protestants on the other side, too: apartheid was underpinned by the
Dutch Reformed Church. Besides, the time for such opposition has largely
passed, and the churches that offered it have not themselves become
more democratic. Their leaders, including Desmond Tutu, a South African
clergyman and theologian, have admitted that they have not adapted as
well as the less hierarchical Pentecostal churches to the post-apartheid
order. “We knew what we were against,” says Mr Tutu. “It is not nearly
so easy to say what we are for.”
Early Protestantism tended to
play down possessions. Luther himself called worldly success a sign of
God’s displeasure. The wealth observed by Weber was treated to some
extent as an unintended consequence of its possessors’ Calvinist faith.
But in the “prosperity Gospel”, a recent export from the United States,
wealth is very much the intention. Many of the new generation of pastors
tell their flocks that God does not want them to be poor.
In
Africa, many Pentecostal churches are concerned with “this-worldly”
victory, says Mr Gifford. In Nigeria congregations with names like the
“Victory Bible Church” hang banners saying things like “Success is my
Birthright”. One of Nigeria’s best known pastors, David Oyedepo, whose
church has been attended by the country’s presidents, says that
Christians must be rich. Such preachers suggest that “planting seeds”
(giving money to the church) will bring a harvest of its own, and that
wealth is proof of God’s love. God must love Mr Oyedepo a lot; the
Nigerian press reports that he is worth more than $150m and owns four
private jets.
What Protestants do best is protest
IN
1882 Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher raised in Saxony as the son of a
Lutheran minister, declared that God was dead. The vibrant spiritual
lives of billions would seem to give this the lie. But in 20th-century
Europe, at least, there seemed to be some truth to it; and a fair bit of
the blame, or credit, fell to the Reformation. In helping to shape the
West, Protestantism sowed the seeds of its own destruction. In giving
people space to believe what they wanted and choose what sort of life to
lead, it allowed them to stop believing at all and choose something
else. And it has not fought as hard to resist this trend as some faiths
might. After all, the whole point of Protestantism is that, in Mr
Ryrie’s words, “it values the personal and the private over the
political and the public.”
One effect of European (and, to some
extent, American) secularisation is that old religious divisions are
healing. There is still sectarian prejudice in parts of Europe, but much
less than there was. And Protestantism is also less distinct than it
was. According to the Pew Research Centre, 46% of American Protestants
say faith alone is needed to attain salvation—the basis of Luther’s
stand—but more than half now believe that good deeds are needed, too.
As
interdenominational divisions have healed, some individual churches
have started to fall apart. In the Anglican communion, which contains
the Church of England and many of its offshoots, homosexuality is
driving a wedge between believers in the northern hemisphere, many of
whom increasingly support gay rights, and those in developing countries,
who mostly do not.
Even in America, the proportion of Protestants
is declining. Mainline, often more liberal, denominations fell from
18.1% to 14.7% between 2007 and 2014, according to the Pew Research
Centre. The proportion of evangelicals dropped less drastically, from
26.3% to 25.4%. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated rose from 16.1%
to 22.8%. In future, churches “that disdain the corruption of public
life and offer spiritual rather than political power may find that their
message resonates most,” predicts Mr Ryrie. But the faith will no doubt
continue to be used as a weapon in the culture wars.
As for the
developing world, the growth of Protestantism in Africa and Latin
America does not seem to be just a way-station on the road to
secularisation. But nor does it yet look like something that will
transform the economy or politics on a large scale. Its effects may be
strong, but they may also be largely indirect.
In some places
Protestantism may settle down, with Pentecostals perhaps shifting to
more staid denominations—or, indeed, fading into secularism. Some
Protestants have understood that when they become the dominant religion,
their faith’s power—its here-I-stand refusal to accept orders from any
source but God or conscience—tends to seep away.
The places where
Protestantism is most alive and seems politically most salient—where its
churches continue to argue about who is right and what the Bible means,
issuing statements and counterstatements just as Luther did—are often
those where it has retained its outsider status. The growth of
evangelical faith in China, for example, is taking place in a context of
disapproval from which it seems to draw strength. In 2015 Wang Yi, a
leading pastor, issued his own 95 theses on “Reaffirming our Stance on
the House Churches”—the congregations outside the control of the
government. It reiterated the need for freedom of conscience and for
house churches to be allowed their independence, while protesting
against the distortion of scripture and attacking state-approved
churches for collusion with the Communist Party authorities. Wherever
overweening rulers clash with people demanding their right to religious
freedom, Luther’s divisive, dynamic spirit will remain an inspiration
for a long time to come.
Um artigo de 22 anos atrás, mas ainda de permanente atualidade para a discussão sobre a reforma da Previdência. Grato ao Ricardo Bergamini pelo envio.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
As ichneumonidae da Previdência
Roberto Campos, 8 de novembro de 1995.
"A esperança de que o governo possa fornecer a nós todos um bom padrão de vida... e segurança contra o infortúnio, independentemente de nossos valores e habilidades, tem sido um artigo de fé das democracias ocidentais em todo este século. É agora um anacronismo fadado a desapontamentos. (James Davidson, em "The Great Reckoning")
As ichneumonidae são umas vespas que imobilizam lagartas com infecções paralisantes, e depois põem nelas os seus ovos, os quais geram larvas que se alimentam do corpo vivo que lhes é, assim, assegurado. É a situação da Previdência Pública brasileira, consumida por dentro pelo corporativismo e pelo parasitismo fisiológico.
Por ser compulsoriamente estatal, a Previdência é antidemocrática, obrigando o cidadão a confiar sua poupança a esse administrador catastrófico, o Estado. É também um "absurdo atuarial", uma "fonte de injustiças sociais" e um "megadesperdício econômico". Sob o nome pomposo de Seguridade Social, a Constituição de 1988 misturou três coisas diferentes em sua natureza e fontes de financiamento: a previdência, que deve ser financiada por contribuições individuais; a assistência social aos desvalidos, que exige cobertura orçamentária; e a saúde, que sob o aspecto preventivo é principalmente responsabilidade governamental, podendo a medicina curativa ser partilhada com o setor privado. Absurdos atuariais, injustiça social e desperdício econômico são características também de centenas de regimes especiais financiados pela União, Estados e municípios, falimentares em sua maioria.
É lícito ao Estado compelir o cidadão a um esforço de poupança para que não se torne voluntária e conscientemente um encargo para a sociedade. Mas ele não deve ser obrigado a confiar sua poupança ao "pai terrível", se preferir fundos privados de capitalização, que ofereçam serviços em regime competitivo. O indivíduo é o melhor fiscal de sua poupança previdenciária, como o faz com sua caderneta de poupança, podendo transferi-la para o operador mais eficiente. Os partidários da previdência pública compulsória são tiranos disfarçados de samaritanos...
O atual sistema é também um "absurdo atuarial", vítima de uma dinâmica perversa. Entre 1960 e 1994, a população cresceu 128% e o número de beneficiários, 1.400%. Em virtude da universalização da cobertura, cerca de 40% dos beneficiários nunca pagaram contribuição. Numa era de crescente expectância de vida, quase dois terços dos aposentados têm menos de 54 anos. São atletas residuais ou balzaqueanas aquém da menopausa... Temos 2,3 contribuintes por beneficiário, quando seriam necessários quatro para viabilizar atuarialmente o sistema. As mulheres costumam sobreviver aos maridos, mas podem aposentar-se cinco anos antes.
Finalmente, cometemos a originalidade de, no serviço público, dar aos aposentados remuneração superior à dos ativos.
A previdência pública faz justiça social às avessas. Os pobres financiam os de melhor qualidade de vida. As contribuições afluem para uma vala comum, de onde segmentos ativistas e politizados, como magistrados, congressistas e professores, saqueiam aposentadorias especiais e múltiplas. No regime geral da previdência, o valor médio do benefício rural é de um salário mínimo, subindo para 2,1 mínimos no setor urbano. Esses valores, no Judiciário e no Legislativo, alcançam mais de 36 mínimos. A contribuição é compulsória até o teto de dez salários mínimos. O resultado é que os pobres ficam escravizados à tirania do burocrata ineficiente, pois não têm dinheiro para recorrer à previdência complementar. Será justo um sistema em que as pessoas mais pobres, em 1993, se aposentavam em média com 62 anos, enquanto os beneficiários de aposentadorias especiais por tempo de serviço abandonavam o trabalho aos 53 anos? Para sancionar tais distorções, os beneficiários transformam os "privilégios extraídos" em "direitos adquiridos". Mas não há "garantias onerosas" (coisa diferente dos direitos humanos básicos) inalteráveis face à Constituição. Nem há imunidade à falência sistêmica pela inviabilização atuarial.
A previdência pública compulsória é também fator de desperdício econômico. Os custos da máquina estatal são elevadíssimos (10% dos benefícios), as greves frequentes, os serviços exasperantes. Mais importante ainda, não serve de alavancagem para o desenvolvimento, ao contrário do que sucederia com os fundos privados, obrigados a investimentos produtivos na economia para dar rentabilidade ao segurado.
A reforma previdenciária proposta pelo governo é menos uma reforma que um útil remendo. Visa a viabilizar atuarialmente o atual sistema, corrigindo várias distorções e injustiças. Mas não ataca dois problemas fundamentais: o caráter antidemocrático da gestão estatal "compulsória" de recursos privados e a necessidade de mobilização de poupança de longo prazo para a retomada do crescimento. A desculpa para a compulsoriedade estatal é que o governo exerceria uma função redistributiva. Mas na prática essa redistribuição não tem favorecido os pobres e sim grupos de pressão politicamente organizados.
A solução ideal seria a adoção do modelo chileno de privatização, ainda que em caráter opcional, podendo os estatólatras optar pela previdência pública. Seria uma mudança do eixo conceitual. A responsabilidade básica da provisão para o futuro caberia ao cidadão, que para isso deixaria de pagar contribuições ao governo. Este só teria três funções: fiscalizar os administradores dos fundos de pensão privada; garantir o patrimônio dos segurados, em caso da falência das entidades administradoras, cobrando destas para isso uma taxa de seguro de risco; complementar a renda daqueles que, ao fim de sua vida laboral, não alcançassem, pelos processos do mercado, o mínimo vital. A contribuição dos empregadores se transformaria em aumento salarial para os empregados, dando-lhes uma margem para suplementar o fundo de pensão com seguro saúde e contra invalidez. Subproduto importante do sistema chileno foi a criação de um "capitalismo do povo", pois os segurados se tornavam acionistas vigilantes das empresas financiadas por sua poupança previdenciária.
Uma proposta intermediária entre a atual previdência pública e o modelo chileno foi apresentada pelo deputado Eduardo Mascarenhas. Permite que o plano básico da previdência social ofereça modalidades diferentes de cobertura previdenciária, desde que os cálculos atuariais incluídos na Lei de Custeio e Benefícios sejam consistentes. O contribuinte pagaria de acordo com o menu de benefícios escolhido, podendo optar por contribuições menores com redução dos benefícios, o que lhe deixaria margem para complementar sua renda com seguros privados. Em favor dos optantes, o Tesouro emitiria certificados de poupança, monetizáveis nas datas previstas na modalidade do seguro, mas que poderiam ser aplicados também como moeda de privatização de estatais, substituindo-se o ativo previdenciário por um ativo acionário.
Os dois pontos de estrangulamento do desenvolvimento latino-americano são as periódicas crises cambiais e a insuficiência da poupança doméstica. Os asiáticos nos ensinaram que a orientação exportadora e a atração de investimentos diretos permitem a superação do perigo cambial. Os chilenos nos ensinaram que a privatização da previdência é o melhor instrumento para aumentar a poupança interna e alavancar investimentos produtivos. Isso exigiria abandonarmos a obsessão protecionista de substituição de importações, resultante do "pessimismo exportador", e a ilusão do "Estado Benfeitor". Essa entidade abstrata não existe. O que existe é o governo concreto, de burocratas e políticos, que convivem num Zoo social, sujeitos a incursões predatórias das ichneumonidae do corporativismo e do parasitismo fisiológico.
Se você, caro estudante de Humanidades de uma das nossas mais famosas universidades públicas, recebeu algum convite para um possível “seminário comemorativo” dos cem anos da gloriosa “Revolução Bolchevique” de outubro/novembro de 1917, talvez seja apresentado a uma ilustração deste tipo, com o camarada Lênin varrendo da face do planeta os reis, os capitalistas, os religiosos...
É menos provável, no entanto, que o seu seminário tenha este outro tipo de imagem, que, bem antes de qualquer fotografia do Holodomor — o terrível genocídio de ucranianos no quadro da coletivização forçada da agricultura em 1929-30, causando mortandade pela fome induzida, objeto do mais recente livro de Anne Applebaum, Red Famine — ou do Gulag concentracionário criado por Stalin — também objeto de um livro precedente da mesma historiadora —que simplesmente ilustra a mortandade produzida pela guerra civil e pela repressão terrível ordenada logo após a cargo da Tcheca, a polícia política do novo regime bolchevique, o que levou mesmo potências capitalistas inimigas do mesmo regime, como os Estados Unidos, a enviarem toneladas de grãos para aliviar a fome e a mortandade criadas nos anos 1920-21.
Segundo o Livro Negro do Comunismo, esse experimento de “engenharia social”, para “criar o Homem Novo”, provocou, à margem das mortes “normais” de conflitos militares, pelo menos 100 milhões de mortos,
