O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.

quinta-feira, 2 de agosto de 2012

Simon Kuznets: os judeus e a economia (book review)

----- EH.NET BOOK REVIEW ------

Published by EH.Net (August 2012)

Simon Kuznets, Jewish Economies: Development and Migration in America and Beyond – Volume I: The Economic Life of American Jewry (edited by Stephanie Lo and E. Glen Weyl). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012. liv + 239 pp. $50 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-4128-4211-2.

Reviewed for EH.Net by Daniel A. Schiffman, Department of Economics and Business Administration, Ariel University Center.

Simon Kuznets (1901-1985), the 1971 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is renowned for his contributions to development economics and national income accounting. This book documents a less well known aspect of Kuznets' career – his pioneering contributions to Jewish economic history.

This is the first volume of a two-volume set. The set consists of six papers, four of which were previously unpublished, published in Hebrew, or published in abridged form. The contents of Volume I are as follows:
1. "Preface" (Lo), a brief description of all six papers;
2. "Introduction: Simon Kuznets, Cautious Empiricist of the Eastern European Jewish Diaspora," (Weyl), a forty-page essay which places the six papers within the context of Kuznets' life and work;
3. "Economic Structure and Life of the Jews," a draft that was published in abridged form in 1961, by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York;
4. "Economic Structure of U.S. Jewry: Recent Trends," a lecture delivered at the home of Israel's President, originally published in Hebrew;
5. "Economic Growth of U.S. Jewry," an unfinished, previously unpublished manuscript.

In these papers, Kuznets describes the economic transformation of world Jewry in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on immigration, human capital accumulation, occupational structure and income distribution. Readers who are familiar with Kuznets will recognize his unique methodology, which is characterized by careful definition of concepts, meticulous empirical analysis and fact-based theoretical insights. Kuznets' findings include the following:
a. Jews have paid a heavy economic price to preserve their cohesion and identity.
b. Discrimination against Jews is highly irrational.
c. Waves of immigration generate significant inequality, accompanied by cultural gaps, between veteran immigrants and newer arrivals.
d. In a pre-World War II sample of 12 nations, Jews were overrepresented in trade and finance and (to a lesser extent) industry and handicrafts. Jews were underrepresented in agriculture, transportation, communications and personal services.
e. In the early 1950's, Israel integrated its immigrants by allowing them to consume more than they produced. This policy, combined with a high rate of investment in physical capital, necessitated large capital inflows from abroad.
f. In 1957, American Jews were highly urbanized and educated, relative to the general U.S. population. Between 1910 and 1957, Jewish males shifted from industrial occupations to professional and technical occupations. In the 1950's and 1960's, Jewish females married later and had a lower birth rate, relative to the general population. Jewish females had a high labor force participation rate before marriage, but tended to leave the labor force after marriage. The distribution of income among Jews had a higher mean, greater rightward skewness and greater inequality than the general distribution of income.

Why did Simon Kuznets devote time and energy to the study of Jewish economic history? Kuznets emigrated from Russia to the U.S. in 1922. As a secular Jew and staunch Zionist, he affirmed his Jewish loyalties by studying Jewish economic history and by promoting economic research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. However, he was ambivalent about his Jewish-oriented writings. In a 1973 letter, he declined Martin Feldstein's proposal to disseminate "Economic Growth of U.S. Jewry" as a Harvard economics department working paper. Kuznets explained that his Jewish-oriented writings were less than fully objective, because the topics reflected his "interests and associations as a Jew."

What motivated Weyl and Lo to edit Jewish Economies? In 2007, Weyl, who is now an economic theorist at the University of Chicago, wrote a term paper on Kuznets for an undergraduate history course at Princeton. Weyl consulted Kuznets' personal papers and interviewed his children, Paul Kuznets and Judith Stein. After completing his Ph.D. in economics at Princeton in 2008, Weyl joined the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he collaborated with research assistant Stephanie Lo (currently an analyst at DC Energy). Weyl explains that he is drawn to Kuznets by virtue of their common background and challenges. Like Kuznets, Weyl was born into a secular Jewish family; like Kuznets, Weyl strives to create the proper balance between universalism and Jewish identity.

Weyl's introduction is very enlightening. Using archival material and interviews, Weyl uncovers new facts about Kuznets' personal and professional lives. Weyl also ventures into the realm of intellectual biography: He explores the connection between Kuznets' background and his economic thought, and demonstrates the existence of important parallels between Kuznets' general and Jewish-oriented works. For example:
• Kuznets emphasized the role of culture and institutions in Jewish economic life. This parallels his emphasis on culture and institutions in development (which was highly unconventional in the 1950's).
• Kuznets hypothesized that over time, income inequality among Jewish immigrants would rise and then fall. This parallels the famous Kuznets curve, which posits an inverted-U relationship between development and income inequality.
• In the Middle Ages, European Jews were excluded from all professions except moneylending. This historical fact may have inspired Kuznets to assert (in Income from Independent Professional Practice, coauthored with Milton Friedman) that occupational licensure reduces competition.
• Kuznets saw immigration as a leading factor in Israel's economic development. He also recognized the disastrous effect of U.S. immigration restrictions in the pre-Holocaust years. Not surprisingly, Kuznets' general work is strongly pro-immigration.

Weyl suggests that some of Kuznets' most famous (general) economic insights were inspired by his Jewish-oriented works. Unfortunately, conclusive evidence is lacking; Kuznets deliberately concealed his motivations, and maintained a strict separation between his general and Jewish-oriented works.

I have two minor quibbles with Jewish Economies. First, there is a small but growing post-Kuznets literature on Jewish economic history; contributors include Barry Chiswick, Carmel Chiswick, Maristella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein and Cormac Ó Gráda. Weyl and Lo do not bring this literature to the attention of the reader. Second, the introduction is marred by occasional typographical errors and incorrect cross-references.

In conclusion, Jewish Economies is an important scholarly contribution. It should be required reading for specialists in the fields of economic development, human capital and history of economic thought. Weyl and Lo have contributed to the economics literature in three ways: They have collected Kuznets' virtually forgotten writings on Jewish economic history, revealed previously unknown aspects of Kuznets' identity and worldview, and demonstrated important parallels between Kuznets' general and Jewish-oriented works. Hopefully, the publication of Jewish Economies will stimulate further research on Jewish economists of the twentieth century.

Daniel A. Schiffman is a lecturer in economics at Ariel University Center in Israel. He specializes in economic history and history of economic thought. He has published articles on Jewish monetary thought and is a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Economics (2010). E-mail: daniels@ariel.ac.il

Copyright (c) 2012 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (administrator@eh.net). Published by EH.Net (August 2012). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.

Geographic Location: Europe, Middle East, North America
Subject: Development of the Economic History Discipline: Historiography; Sources and Methods, Education and Human Resource Development, Historical Demography, including Migration, Labor and Employment History
Time: 19th Century, 20th Century: Pre WWII, 20th Century: WWII and post-WWII

===============

Comment by E. Roy Weintraub (Economic History List)

As I noted in another place (in HOPE 2011, no. 1), 27 of the first 62 Nobel Laureates in economics (to 2009) were Jewish. One would suppose that historians of economics would be interested to interrogate/problematize this fact. Feminist historians of economics have written about the underrepresentation of women economists in the history of economics canon. Afro-American historians of economics have written freely and effectively about the underrepresentation of Afro-American economists in canonical histories of especially American economics. One would have expected, by any symmetry thesis, that historians would be equally interested in overrepresentation of a particular ethnic or diaspora community as they would in the underrepresentation of such a community in the community of economists. This however has not occurred.

The difficulty is quite real and reflects a strange sensibility. The first economist who wrote about these matters was Thorstein Veblen who, in 1919, wrote a paper called “The Intellectual Pre-Eminence Jews in Modern Europe” in the Political Science Quarterly. In that paper Veblen sought to explain what he regarded as the overrepresentation of “the chosen people” in the sciences and in fields of scholarship and intellectual inquiry. His own explanation was that habits of scholarship and learning within the community set the stage for young Jews, breaking free of the ties of their established communities, and living among gentiles, to bring a skeptical and inquiring mindset to the intellectual problems in which they worked, and that mindset was particularly suited to the kinds of scientific explanations that the modern age seemed to need.

Leaving Veblen’s rumination, which is hardly evidence based or convincing, to one side, any discussion of the place of Jews in the learned professions has proceeded without the contributions of historians of economics. Intellectual historians, like the preeminent David Hollinger, have examined questions about the role of Jews, and anti-Semitism, in the academic community in the United States. Hollinger’s discussions about the anti-Semitism in the pre-World War II period and the secularization of the universities from the war onward, which permitted the rapid influx of Jewish scholars after World War II, are well known. Intellectual historians, and historians of the university, have seen fit to raise these questions and to seek both data and insight. Social scientists have found publication outlets about the role of Jews in the American universities in primarily Jewish publications. The work by Seymour Lipset and Lewis Feuer is typical. These kinds of studies are both well known, and apparently unknown to historians of economics. Historians of physics like Daniel Kevles have written about these matters in their own histories for many, many years. Historians of mathematics (per the centenary of the American Mathematical Society) have written with care and detail about such matters.

Not so historians of economics. If one examines the work of economists and historians of economics, I am aware of exactly one article in English, written by a historian of economics, that addresses this subject, and that article appeared not in an economics journal or a history of economics journal but in the journal Judiasm. Its author was Mark Perlman.

Why was it left to an economic theorist, a non-historian of economics, the remarkable Glen Weyl, to broach these issues?

E. Roy Weintraub

Professor of Economics

Fellow, Center for the History of Political Economy

Duke University

www.econ.duke.edu/~erw/erw.homepage.html

Milton Friedman: o homem que salvou o capitalismo?

Exagero do articulista: o capitalismo nunca esteve para morrer e não precisa de ninguém que lhe salve. Ele se salva a si próprio, e de toda forma ele é flexível o bastante para ir se adaptando às novas externalidades e condições ambientais da economia mundial e mesmo às políticas econômicas nacionais claramente contrárias a seu espírito inovador e sua flexibilidade produtiva.
Na verdade, o capitalismo não é um modo de produção, como queria Marx, nem um sistema produtivo, como pretendem vários outros economistas.
O capitalismo é um processo, contínuo, regular e constante de organização dos fatores de produção com o objetivo de produzir bens e serviços que sejam úteis ao maior número possível de consumidores, e cujos efeitos indiretos são a criação e a distribuição de renda e riqueza para o maior número possível de habitantes, dada sua vocação de disseminação da produção.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The Man Who Saved Capitalism

Stephen Moore

The Wall Street Journal, August 1st, 2012

It's a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It's perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world's greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.

terça-feira, 31 de julho de 2012

Friedman: o baixinho mais influente do pensamento econômico do seculo XX

OK, eu sei que o teórico mais influente do pensamento econômico no século XX foi o "altinho" John Maynard Keynes, mas este era um semi-aristocrático pensador, ligado ao mundo das artes e da alta finança, e talvez não tenha conhecido a economia real dos homens que trabalham com seus braços e suor, como fez Milton Keynes, filho de imigrantes pobres que se converteu do New Deal ao liberalismo clássico, que ele enriqueceu com seu pensamento inovador. Keynes saiu da economia neoclássica -- com algumas tinturas de socialismo fabiano -- para o intervencionismo salvacionista, que Friedman rejeitava com base em seus raciocínios e a experiência de vida, ao registrar tantos fracassos do dirigismo estatal.
Um homem que ainda não triunfou totalmente, mas que vai triunfar ainda mais, ao assistirmos por ele ao fracasso dos experimentos keynesianos.
Alguns anos atrás, eu também escrevi uma homenagem a ele e a Roberto Campos, o economista brasileiro provavelmente mais próximo das ideias de Milton Friedman; ver aqui: http://www.pralmeida.org/05DocsPRA/1686FriedmanBobFields.pdf
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

DANIEL J. FLYNN

Monetarism and the Man

Remembering Milton Friedman on his 100th birthday

The City Journal, 31 July 2012 (Summer 2012, vol. 22, n.3)

After Milton Friedman’s death on November 16, 2006, the diminutive intellectual cast such a long shadow that even as staunch an adversary as Paul Krugman begrudgingly remembered him as “a man of intellectual courage who was one of the most important economic thinkers of all time, and possibly the most brilliant communicator of economic ideas to the public that ever lived.” But upon his birth to immigrant parents 100 years ago today, the chances of Friedman’s becoming an academic, let alone one of the century’s most influential, seemed remote. And yet it’s Friedman’s obscure beginnings—not the months he spent on the bestseller list in 1980 or the day in 1976 when he shook hands in Stockholm with the King of Sweden—that best explain his impact.

Milton Friedman changed the world. The University of Chicago professor touted floating exchange rates, an end to wage-and-price controls, legalization of private gold ownership, dramatic tax reductions, and an end to conscription. And all of these things came to pass. Friedman the monetarist warned in the 1960s of “inflationary recessions” and rejected a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment presumed by the Phillips Curve. Fellow economists laughed at him before the 1970s laughed at them. Fledgling market economies from Europe to South America to Asia relied on Friedman as a guide.

How did this small man make such big changes? The answer lies as much in his story as it does in his solutions.

Friedman’s economics worked because he had worked. Friedman explained to fellow economists in the 1950s that “theory is to be judged by its predictive power for the class of phenomena which it is intended to ‘explain.’” He rejected ideas that worked in smart men’s heads but failed in working men’s lives. Former Obama cabinet member Austan Goolsbee (Skull & Bones ’91) can afford his bad ideas; his most famous forebear on the University of Chicago faculty couldn’t. The future Nobel Prize winner scooped ice cream in his parents’ in-home parlor, sold fireworks by the roadside, waited tables in exchange for lunch, and peddled clothing and books to his fellow Rutgers undergraduates. Friedman came from the real world. So did his economics.

Friedman sought to persuade adversaries, not demonize them. Friedman shifted from New Dealer to libertarian. If he could be won over, then others could, too. He converted without condemning, and he debated adversarieswith unfailing patience and graciousness. When conversing with progressives, the modern-liberal-turned-classical-liberal found it easier to offer counterproposals (e.g., a negative income tax to replace welfare) than to use a word—“no”—that progressives don’t appreciate. “If someone wants to achieve something, it’s easier to say ‘here is a better way of achieving your objectives’ than to say ‘you’re wrong,’” Friedman’s son David, also an economist, told me. “He made arguments that people found hard to answer. He made them politely, and without implying that the people who disagreed with him were stupid or wicked.”

A product of the concrete jungle didn’t retreat into an idealist’s fantasyland. Friedman was an odd creature: a pragmatic libertarian. Instead of arguing for the privatization of schools, a position that might have made him feel good but would have done no public good, he advocated vouchers, so that parents could choose among competing public and private institutions. Some communities adopted the policy. His arguments appealed to his opponents’ sympathies, which left friends and foes exasperated. Consider some quotes from his fascinating, lengthy 1973 Playboy interview: “Under free enterprise, a person who has a prejudice has to pay for that prejudice”; “the minimum-wage rate is the most anti-Negro law on the books”; “you tax the people of Watts to send children from Beverly Hills to college.” In life and work, the ever-practical Friedman approached the world as it was. He earned a state scholarship to a state college, worked for the federal government during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, and propagated his ten-part 1980 documentary series, Free to Choose, via public television.

“If my fellow citizens are going to be so foolish as to establish these [programs], there is no reason I shouldn’t benefit from them,” he explained to the Associated Press on the eve of Free to Choose’s PBS premiere. “I was long an enemy of rent control, but that did not prevent me from living in a rent-controlled apartment.”

The son of immigrants appropriately judged ideas on merit, not connections. At a time when pundits often echo party talking points, Friedman’s principled public intellectualism was bracing. He opposed the Iraq war, the drug war, and the draft. He didn’t mute his criticisms of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, or even Fed chairman Arthur Burns—his former professor—when they ran afoul of his principles. Friedman embodied the Aristotelian wisdom: “Where both are dear, it is right to prefer truth to friends.” Good ethics proved a good career move. When honesty talks, people listen.

Friedman spoke the everyman’s language so well because it was his native tongue. Economists do numbers; words, not so much. Friedman spoke with the authority, but not the pedanticism, of an academic. “Professors sometimes have the habit of writing only for other professors, but your book is written in a way that the man on the street will understand and get your message,” Senator Barry Goldwater observed on the eve of Capitalism and Freedom’s 1962 publication. Every three weeks, from 1966 to 1984, Friedman descended from the ivory tower, and readers ascended from the style section, to tackle complex matters accessibly in his Newsweek column. So relaxed with his ideas was Friedman that he spoke to viewers of Free to Choosewithout a script. TV, glossy magazines, pamphlets—Friedman took his ideas to the people. The banker’s suit and geeky glasses may have deluded some into thinking that he was raised in an economics department; he grew up in Rahway, New Jersey. Coming from the masses made him better equipped to speak to them.

Ironically, Friedman regarded biography as nothing; ideas, everything. Behind the scenes, Friedman confessed to the Free to Choose producers that he was “unhappy with any [narrative] string that is not primarily intellectual.” The proposed reliance on the star’s compelling life story made him uneasy in the extreme. The documentary had to be about his ideas, not him.

That was part of his decency. But in reflecting on the economist’s influence on the 100th anniversary of his birth, biography matters. A good man is the best salesman of great ideas. Knowing how Milton Friedman remade the world requires knowing Milton Friedman.

Daniel J. Flynn is the author of Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America, which explores, among others, Milton Friedman.

Ensino Medio no Brasil: a situacao mais dramatica

O verdadeiro estrangulamento da educação brasileira -- não considerando o fato de que os alunos saem do fundamental sem serem alfabetizados -- encontra-se no ensino médio, que simplesmente não prepara os alunos para nada, nem para uma profissão, nem para a universidade.
E a situação piorou muito com os companheiros, que ficaram inventando bobagens ideológicas nos últimos dez anos. Esperemos que comece a melhorar, mas eu não conto com isso, não pelo menos enquanto as saúvas freireanas e os companheiros ideológicos continuarem dominando aquele dinossauro que é o MEC.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Comissão especial vai propor um novo modelo para o ensino médio no País

Agência Câmara, 31/07/2012

Para deputado, sistema atual não atende às demandas da economia nem às expectativas dos jovens.

A cada 100 alunos que entram no ensino fundamental, apenas 44 continuam nos bancos escolares até o ensino médio. Desses 44, metade abandona as salas de aula e somente 12 chegam à universidade, conforme dados coletados no ano passado pelo Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (Inep). Um dos principais motivos para esses índices, segundo o deputado Reginaldo Lopes (PT-MG), é a inadequação do ensino médio à realidade dos jovens. Uma comissão especial da Câmara pretende ajudar a resolver o problema.

Instalada no dia 23 de maio, a Comissão Especial da Reformulação do Ensino Médio reúne até o momento 24 deputados de 13 partidos para encontrar um modelo melhor para a última fase da educação básica no País. "O problema é que o modelo atual é uma etapa meramente intermediária para que aluno possa chegar à universidade. Por isso, não responde às demandas da economia brasileira nem às expectativas de nossos jovens", argumenta Lopes, que preside o grupo.

O relator, deputado Wilson Filho (PMDB-PB), explica que o colegiado deve realizar, a partir de agosto, reuniões com o ministro da Educação, Aloizio Mercadante, com técnicos da pasta, secretários de educação, gestores de centros de ensino, pesquisadores nacionais e estrangeiros, além de representantes de entidades que atuam na área. Um relatório preliminar, a ser elaborado até novembro, deverá nortear discussões a respeito do tema em diversos estados. A ideia é que o grupo chegue a uma proposta de alteração da legislação atual sobre o ensino médio até o final do próximo ano.

Conteúdos obrigatórios - Amanda Feitoza é aluna de uma grande escola em Brasília, o Setor Leste. A menina, que pretende estudar medicina, reclama das aulas de física: "Não vou usar essa disciplina para nada, tenho certeza de que isso não fará parte do meu futuro profissional". Para Roger Vila Nova, colega de Amanda, o problema está nas aulas de química: "Além de não entender todo o conteúdo, sei que nunca irei usá-lo".

As queixas não são isoladas e boa parte dos estudantes não entende o porquê de determinados conteúdos escolares serem obrigatórios. O problema é que nem todos os alunos pretendem frequentar um curso superior e, além disso, muitas matérias são imediatamente esquecidas após a entrada na universidade. "O conflito aumenta a cada dia: a carga horária é intensa e a maior parte do conteúdo vira uma grande decoreba. Consequência disso é o desinteresse cada vez maior pelo ensino médio", avalia o doutor em Educação e professor da Universidade de Brasília (UnB) Remi Castioni.

Uma saída possível é a estruturação das aulas a partir de áreas de conhecimento, como ciências, cultura, tecnologia e esporte. Cada estudante deveria, portanto, escolher a sua área de interesse, que seria priorizada na grade horária, sem deixar de lado os outros conteúdos. A medida já é implementada, com particularidades, em outros países, como a França, e recebe elogios de alguns alunos, como a Amanda: "A partir do momento em que escolhemos o que vamos estudar, damos valor para aquilo".

A opção, no entanto, não é unânime. O professor de história Luiz Guilherme Batista acredita que a segmentação do ensino médio pode diminuir a qualidade do aprendizado e, pior, limitar as escolhas profissionais dos estudantes. "Um adolescente não pode definir com 15 anos o que será para o resto da vida. O atual ensino, apesar de seus defeitos, permite que o aluno tenha a chance de fazer uma opção mais ampla. Se ele não tiver acesso a informações gerais em boas aulas, que chance terá de gostar de filosofia, por exemplo?", questiona.

Ensino profissionalizante - O trabalho da comissão especial que discute o futuro do ensino médio no Brasil passa também pela educação profissionalizante. Exemplo de sucesso entre as políticas do setor, a rede federal de ensino técnico atende hoje a 400 mil alunos, segundo dados do Ministério da Educação (MEC). São oferecidos cursos de agronomia, mecânica, secretariado, entre outros, em conjunto com o currículo básico da etapa.

Reginaldo Lopes (PT-MG) acredita que o número deveria ser maior. "Ainda há 8,4 milhões de alunos fora desse sistema. A meta do Executivo deveria ser de pelo menos 2,5 milhões de alunos atendidos", afirma o presidente do colegiado da Câmara.

A vantagem do ensino profissional ou técnico é que os jovens já saem dos bancos das classes, em sua maioria, empregados. Esse modelo interessa ao indivíduo que precisa logo entrar no mercado de trabalho e, portanto, os índices de abandono são menores do que no ensino médio convencional.

Apesar de elogiado, o ensino técnico tem seus limites. É o que avalia o doutor em Educação e professor da Universidade de Brasília (UnB) Remi Castioni. "A educação profissionalizante é uma possibilidade, mas não deve ser a única. As escolas devem estar preparadas para diversas realidades. Por esse motivo, devem ser desenvolvidas as redes profissional e propedêutica [preparatória para o ensino superior]", argumenta.

Outros temas - O debate sobre o melhor modelo para o ensino médio no Brasil ainda deverá passar por temas como sistema de ensino, formação dos professores, grade curricular, carga horária em sala de aula, infraestrutura das escolas e até verbas necessárias para o setor.

Segundo o relator da comissão especial, deputado Wilson Filho (PMDB-PB), a discussão promete ser longa. "Analisaremos os melhores exemplos do Brasil, de outros países e os maus exemplos também. A ideia é garantir que os alunos saiam do ensino médio sabendo o que fazer com o conteúdo aprendido, seja no mercado de trabalho ou na universidade", diz.

Hugo Chavez no Mercosul: um novo produto no comercio regional?

Perdão: deveria ser a Venezuela no Mercosul, mas é que uma coisa se confunde tanto com a outra que acabamos confundindo todos. Mais confusos ficamos, ainda, com as notícias sobre o trânsito de drogas pela Venezuela, majoritariamente voltada para o norte, mas eventualmente podendo dirigir-se também ao Brasil, como já acontece com o produto boliviano, talvez tão importante quanto na balança bilateral e na composição do comércio livre do Mercosul.
Se considerarmos que a Venezuela é muito maior e tem mais dinheiro do que a Bolívia, a situação pode ficar realmente crítica.
Em todo caso, bem-vindo ao Mercosul...
Quem? Ou o quê?
Não importa, vocês saberão distinguir uma coisa da outra e não ficar tão confusos quanto eu...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

O que Chávez esconde

Editorial, O Estado de S.Paulo, 31 de julho de 2012

O presidente venezuelano, Hugo Chávez, chegou ontem ao Brasil para a cerimônia, hoje em Brasília, na qual seu país será calorosamente recebido como sócio pleno do Mercosul. O esforço do Brasil para incluir a Venezuela - numa manobra à revelia do Paraguai, que, como se sabe, foi colocado de castigo por ter afastado seu presidente conforme manda a Constituição - vai premiar um governo que, além de autocrático, tem uma sinistra relação com o negócio das drogas, como mostra reportagem do New York Times (27/7).

Chávez tem se jactado de ser um campeão na luta contra o narcotráfico. Ele diz que seus soldados destruíram pistas para transporte de drogas, que laboratórios clandestinos foram desmontados e que muita pasta de coca foi apreendida. Além disso, a seu pedido, foi aprovada uma lei que, em tese, facilita a interceptação de aviões dos narcotraficantes. O New York Times, porém, revela que o narcotráfico não só vai muito bem na Venezuela, como o país cedeu um pedaço de território para que as Farc, a narcoguerrilha colombiana, atuem sem serem incomodadas.

A Venezuela responde por nada menos que 24% do trânsito da cocaína sul-americana destinada aos EUA, segundo um relatório americano. Na região onde as Farc intermedeiam a passagem da droga que vem da Colômbia, o New York Times constatou que as pistas destruídas na alardeada ação do Exército foram todas recuperadas pelos narcoguerrilheiros, porque os soldados não tomaram nenhuma medida para evitar sua rápida reconstrução. Ou seja: a ação contra o tráfico serviu apenas para a foto que interessava a Chávez.

Mais da metade da cocaína que transita pela Venezuela passa pelo Estado de Apure, na fronteira com a Colômbia, desde que Chávez interrompeu oficialmente sua colaboração com o governo americano no combate às drogas, em 2005. Em boa parte dessa região, o controle das Farc é absoluto. Moradores contam que os narcoguerrilheiros praticam extorsão e ocupam propriedades. E os venezuelanos dizem ter medo de denunciar a atividade criminosa às autoridades porque sabem que há conluio entre elas e as Farc.

Esse receio tem fundamento, segundo a Casa Branca. Para Washington, a "permissividade corrupta" do governo venezuelano dá total liberdade de ação para o narcotráfico. Mas a promiscuidade é ainda mais profunda, porque altos funcionários chavistas estão envolvidos até o pescoço com as Farc.

Dois ex-magistrados venezuelanos, Eladio Ramón Aponte Aponte e Luis Velásquez Alvaray, vêm contando detalhes sobre essa relação. Aponte, que foi presidente da Suprema Corte e um dos homens fortes do regime chavista, acusou quase toda a cúpula do poder venezuelano, abaixo de Chávez, de fazer parte de uma grande rede sul-americana de narcotráfico.

Velásquez Alvaray, por sua vez, afirmou que a Venezuela recebe da China armas e equipamentos militares como forma de pagamento por petróleo e que uma parte desse arsenal vai para as Farc. A operação, segundo ele, é comandada por Hugo Carvajal - atual vice-ministro do Interior, recém-nomeado por Chávez justamente para o combate às drogas. O Departamento do Tesouro americano afirma que Carvajal é importante colaborador da operação de narcotráfico das Farc. Além dele, o ministro da Defesa venezuelano, Henry Rangel Silva, também é acusado por Washington de ajudar a guerrilha colombiana a traficar cocaína. Com gente desse naipe em funções tão estratégicas, não admira que as Farc controlem tranquilamente uma parte do território venezuelano e tenham total liberdade para fazer dali sua plataforma de negócios ilícitos.

Mas o chavismo não se envergonha disso. Ao contrário: um dos líderes das Farc, Iván Ríos, disse que o narcotráfico, principal fonte de financiamento da guerrilha, era uma forma de "resistência à opressão", uma maneira de confrontar o capitalismo do "império". É desse gangsterismo dialético que se alimenta o projeto "bolivariano".

A realidade é que o Mercosul, cujas normas demandam democracia e transparência, está se abrindo a um país cujo governo tem dado reiteradas mostras de que tem muito a esconder.

Venezuela no Mercosul (2): bloco desestruturado (Reuters)

Analysis: Venezuela joins trade bloc big on politics, protectionism

By Guido Nejamkis Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (front L) applauds after giving Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro a portrait of President Hugo Chavez painted by Argentine artist Norberto Filippo as a souvenir during the annual summit of the Mercosur trade bloc in Mendoza, June 29, 2012. REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (front L) applauds after giving Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro a portrait of President Hugo Chavez painted by Argentine artist Norberto Filippo as a souvenir during the annual summit of the Mercosur trade bloc in Mendoza, June 29, 2012. REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian

BUENOS AIRES | Mon Jul 30, 2012 3:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - The South American trade group Mercosur welcomes Venezuela as its newest member this week but growing protectionism in the bloc's leading economies and political posturing have reduced it to a shadow of its former self.

When regional heavyweights Argentina and Brazil teamed up with Paraguay and Uruguay to form the customs union in 1995, they hoped to boost regional trade and investment by forging a bigger market along the lines of the European Union.

Trade within Mercosur has since quadrupled to $51 billion in 2011 but with economic growth slowing and Argentina and Brazil locked in a series of trade disputes over everything from cars to olives, analysts expect it to fall this year.

"Argentina is seen as hostile to foreign capital, Paraguay is fragile and unstable, Uruguay has an open economy but it's very small, and Brazil continues to draw investment. Mercosur, as a whole, does not," said Jose Botafogo Goncalves, a former Brazilian diplomat and representative to the bloc.

The decision last month to allow Venezuela's entry into Mercosur stirred further controversy within the group and fueled criticism that it has become little more than a political club for left-leaning leaders who harbor ambitions of Latin American unity.

Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez shares such ideals but his country's membership, pending since 2006, had been blocked because it did not have the support of Paraguay's Congress, dominated by rightist parties.

When the same Congress ousted leftist President Fernando Lugo in a lightning-quick impeachment trial in June, the other Mercosur countries suspended Paraguay from the trade bloc and took advantage of its absence to let Venezuela in.

Mercosur will formally welcome Venezuela into the fold at a presidential summit in Brasilia on Tuesday.

GRUMBLING AND REPRISALS

When Mercosur got its start, the only products that were exempted from free trade were automobiles and sugar.

All other goods were supposed to be traded freely within the bloc or gradually stripped of duties, a goal that was largely met until Argentina expanded the use of non-automatic import licenses in 2011 and imposed a new system to pre-approve nearly all purchases abroad in February.

Last month, Brazil and Argentina got Mercosur's approval to raise import tariffs on up to 200 products of their own choosing, further diluting the objective of a common tariff, on the grounds that each nation must protect its industry as economies get hit by fallout from Europe's debt crisis.

Trying to safeguard its cherished trade surplus, Argentina has used the non-automatic licenses and new approvals system to block imports, affecting goods such as farm machinery and textiles from Brazil and shoes and food products from Uruguay.

It is a clear violation of Mercosur norms, but the response from within Mercosur has been muted grumbling and a raft of reprisals by Brazil's government, which like Argentina is under pressure to revive flagging local industry.

Brazil has sporadically restricted the entry of some Argentine goods, including fruit, olive oil and cookies.

The decision by Argentina and Brazil to virtually abandon the common external tariff - the backbone of Mercosur - allows individual members to raise tariffs as high as 35 percent, compared with current levels of about 10 percent to 12 percent.

"Argentina has a protectionist model, taking tariffs to 35 percent. It doesn't allow imports and it's methodology differs greatly from the original spirit of Mercosur," said Sergio Abreu, a former government minister in Uruguay.

WREAKING HAVOC

For international companies using regional bases to supply the Mercosur market, the protectionist hurdles among member states are wreaking havoc.

"In the new Mercosur, foreign investment is discouraged," Abreu said.

Canada-based McCain Foods, the world's largest producer of French fries, laid off hundreds of workers at its Buenos Aires plant last month because Brazilian trade barriers were preventing it from supplying Burger King and McDonald's branches across the border.

"They had to supply the Brazilian market from Canada and Europe and rent warehouse space to store some of the production that they couldn't sell," a spokesman in Buenos Aires said.

The squabbles between Mercosur's two heavyweights have also proved a headache for the bloc's smaller members.

All three of Uruguay's car assembly plants - run by Chery Socma, Nordex SA and Effa Motors - have threatened to close and have laid off hundreds of employees since October, when import restrictions in Argentina and Brazil began taking a toll on their shipments.

McCain set up shop in Argentina in 1995 with an eye on the lucrative market in Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy with a population of about 200 million.

Access to Brazil's market once allowed Argentina to attract investment that would not have landed there otherwise, particularly in the food-processing and automotive sectors.

"But the way things are now, Argentina will probably have more trouble getting investments that were aimed at tapping a bigger market," said Mauricio Claveri, a trade expert at Abeceb consulting group in Buenos Aires.

Last year, Brazil received $66.66 billion in foreign direct investment compared with Argentina's $7.24 billion. In the 1990s, when Mercosur was created, Argentina received one dollar for every four dollars that entered Brazil, U.N. data shows.

"Argentina would never have been able to become a top 20 automobile manufacturer if it hadn't belonged to Mercosur," said Marcelo Elizondo, an international trade specialist at Argentine consulting firm DNI Negocios Internacionales.

For the first time since Mercosur's creation, the new protectionist measures are hitting trade flows. Trade between Brazil and Argentina slumped 12 percent in the first half of the year and shrank 32 percent in June alone.

And while Venezuela's Chavez hails his country's membership in the bloc after a six-year wait, producers in the Caribbean nation are skeptical about the potential benefits.

The target dates for reducing tariffs that were set in 2006, when Venezuela's incorporation was first agreed in principle, must be overhauled and details governing its membership will take a long time to hash out.

Trade between the Caribbean country and the bloc totaled $8.76 billion in 2011, with Mercosur tallying a roughly $5 billion trade surplus.

"From the point of view of manufacturing or agriculture ... we can't compete," said Manuel Heredia, president of Venezuela's National Federation of Ranchers, or Fedenaga.

(Additional reporting by Alejandro Lifschitz in Buenos Aires, Eyanir Chinea in Caracas and Hugo Bachega in Brasilia; Writing by Helen Popper and Hilary Burke; Editing by Kieran Murray; Desking by Vicki Allen)

Venezuela no Mercosul: otimistas, pessimistas, e os outros...

O problema não está em ser pessimista ou otimista em relação à Venezuela: esse é um problema de seus dirigentes e de seu povo. Do ponto de vista do Mercosul, resta saber se o país vai cumprir seus requisitos formais.

Venezuela en el Mercosur: optimistas, pesimistas y todos los demás

Abraham Zamorano

BBC Mundo, Caracas

Martes, 31 de julio de 2012

Hugo Chávez concreta una de sus metas: el acceso de Venezuela al Mercosur.

Lo último que se esperaban los parlamentarios paraguayos cuando depusieron a Fernando Lugo era que servirían en bandeja el acceso de Venezuela al Mercosur, pero así fue, casi a trompicones.

El presidente Hugo Chávez certifica este martes en Brasilia la entrada de Venezuela al bloque mientras en su país está abierto un intenso debate entre optimistas y pesimistas.

Chávez, a la cabeza de los optimistas, habla de "una bendición" que va a generar cientos de miles de empleos y que puede atraer la instalación en su país de grandes empresas brasileñas y argentinas atraídas por la energía y la materia prima barata con puertas al Caribe.

Los más pesimistas, economistas e internacionalistas –muchos de oposición– lo dudan porque recuerdan que Venezuela es una economía monoexportadora de petróleo (que representa hasta el 95% de lo que vende al exterior) y muy dependiente de las importaciones (hasta el 70% de los alimentos que consume viene de fuera). Aseguran que el ganador evidente es Brasil.

Más allá de ese debate, están las dudas en torno a cómo van a encajar en el Mercosur los acuerdos económicos de Caracas con China, dónde queda la Alianza Boliviariana de las Américas (ALBA) o las intenciones del presidente Chávez de salirse del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos.

En cualquier caso, por delante quedan largas negociaciones pues el protocolo de adhesión, firmado en 2006, contempla que Caracas tendrá cuatro años para adaptarse a los muchos cambios que derivarán de incorporarse al bloque sudamericano.

Quienes reciben con satisfacción la entrada de Venezuela al bloque destacan que la superpotencia petrolera, en tanto una economía de tamaño medio, aportará energía y equilibrios a lo que hasta ahora eran dos grandes (Argentina y Brasil) ante dos pequeños (Paraguay y Uruguay). "Su incursión en el bloque regional rompe ese círculo vicioso", afirmó el brasileño Emir Sader.

Según el analista e internacionalista Nícmer Evans, "Venezuela entra en un momento perfecto para ser además, dentro de la polaridad entre las dos grandes potencias, ser un punto medio perfecto, una bisagra que va a permitir estabilizar aún más, generar más equilibrio".

"Mercosur nace con esencia neoliberal, no lo podemos negar, pero ha evolucionado como consecuencia de las disparidades, los mecanismos de integración han tenido que irse afinando para evolucionar de una estructura de competencia y libre mercado a una solidaridad y complementariedad que toma en cuenta las asimetrías, si no fuese así, ya Uruguay y Paraguay estarían quebrados y no tendrían beneficios de mantenerse", le dijo Evans a BBC Mundo.

Evans no niega la debilidad del sector exportador no petrolero de Venezuela, pero se muestra optimista ante el hecho de que "se abre un mercado de 400 millones de personas". "Y de principio podemos potenciar energéticamente al granero del mundo en función de las búsquedas de los equilibrios".

"El Estado está empezando a asumir la inversión para la expansión de la capacidad productiva y tener capacidad de exportación. Eso no va a pasar de un día para otro, tendrá que pasar un mediano tiempo, pero se abre la posibilidad", comentó.

"Los que critican el ingreso al Mercosur son los que aplaudirían el ingreso al ALCA. ¿Qué es más perjudicial entrar a competir con EE.UU. o tratar de generar un mercado de equilibrios y compensaciones con Argentina, Brasil, Uruguay y Paraguay? Sin duda alguna, nuestros vecinos y hermanos son la alternativa lógica".

Breve Perfil

Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Doutor em Ciências Sociais, com vocação acadêmica voltada para os temas de relações internacionais, de história diplomática do Brasil e para questões do desenvolvimento econômico. Profissionalmente, sou membro da carreira diplomática desde 1977. Minhas preocupações cidadãs voltam-se para os objetivos do desenvolvimento nacional, do progresso social e da inserção internacional do Brasil. Entendo que cinco das condições básicas para que tais objetivos sejam atingidos podem ser resumidas como segue: macroeconomia estável, microeconomia competitiva, boa governança, alta qualidade dos recursos humanos e abertura ao comércio internacional e aos investimentos estrangeiros. Este blog serve apenas de divertissement. Para meus trabalhos mais sérios, ou pelo menos de caráter acadêmico, ver o site http://www.pralmeida.org/.

Uma reflexão...

Recomendações aos cientistas, Karl Popper:
Extratos (adaptados) de Ciência: problemas, objetivos e responsabilidades (Popper falando a biólogos, em 1963, em plena Guerra Fria):
"A tarefa mais importante de um cientista é certamente contribuir para o avanço de sua área de conhecimento. A segunda tarefa mais importante é escapar da visão estreita de uma especialização excessiva, interessando-se ativamente por outros campos em busca do aperfeiçoamento pelo saber que é a missão cultural da ciência. A terceira tarefa é estender aos demais a compreensão de seus conhecimentos, reduzindo ao mínimo o jargão científico, do qual muitos de nós temos orgulho. Um orgulho desse tipo é compreensível. Mas ele é um erro. Deveria ser nosso orgulho ensinar a nós mesmos, da melhor forma possível, a sempre falar tão simplesmente, claramente e despretensiosamente quanto possível, evitando como uma praga a sugestão de que estamos de posse de um conhecimento que é muito profundo para ser expresso de maneira clara e simples.
Esta, é, eu acredito, uma das maiores e mais urgentes responsabilidades sociais dos cientistas. Talvez a maior. Porque esta tarefa está intimamente ligada à sobrevivência da sociedade aberta e da democracia.
Uma sociedade aberta (isto é, uma sociedade baseada na idéia de não apenas tolerar opiniões dissidentes mas de respeitá-las) e uma democracia (isto é, uma forma de governo devotado à proteção de uma sociedade aberta) não podem florescer se a ciência torna-se a propriedade exclusiva de um conjunto fechado de cientistas.
Eu acredito que o hábito de sempre declarar tão claramente quanto possível nosso problema, assim como o estado atual de discussão desse problema, faria muito em favor da tarefa importante de fazer a ciência -- isto é, as idéias científicas -- ser melhor e mais amplamente compreendida."

Karl R. Popper: The Myth of the Framework (in defence of science and rationality). Edited by M. A. Notturno. (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 109.

Diplomatizzando