Eu sempre desconfiei que fosse assim mesmo, e por isso passo por cima, batido, dessas matérias de imprensa que são de uma admiração beata e basbaque por algumas figuras literárias que pousam, literalmente (mas não literariamente), em Paraty, revelando apenas a ignorância jornalística e o conformismo com vedetes, vacas sagradas e outras figuras patéticas.
A badalação em torno de Flip, o Festival Literário Internacional de Paraty, deve fazer parte do empreemdimento comercial que está por trás do evento anual. Deve ser muito aborrecido, inclusive porque a cidade é mais pretensiosa do que confortável...
Enfim, apenas para introduzir a crônica de Diogo Mainardi, na Veja que começa a circular neste sábado 11 de julho de 2009.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Edna entendeu tudo
Diogo Mainardi
Veja, edição 2121, 15 de julho de 2009
"Edna O’Brien foi arrastada a um encontro entre Chico Buarque e Milton Hatoum. O que ela afirmou, assim que conseguiu escapar do encontro? Que Chico Buarque era uma fraude. O que ela afirmou em seguida, durante o jantar? Que se espantou com a empáfia e com o desconhecimento literário dos dois autores"
Edna O’Brien está fazendo um conto sobre "Chico". Ela pronuncia "Chico" com um "T" na frente, como em Chico Marx. Por isso mesmo, "Chico", em seu conto, ganhou o nome de Harpo, como em Harpo Marx. Mas o inspirador da festejada escritora irlandesa – pode bater no peito – é o nosso "Chico": Chico Buarque.
Edna O’Brien conheceu "Chico" uma semana atrás, na Flip, em Paraty. Depois de participar de um debate, ela foi arrastada a um encontro entre Chico Buarque e Milton Hatoum. O que ela afirmou, assim que conseguiu escapar do encontro? Que Chico Buarque era uma fraude. O que ela afirmou em seguida, durante o jantar? Que se espantou com a empáfia e com o desconhecimento literário dos dois autores. E o que ela repetiu para mim, alguns dias mais tarde, em outro jantar, no Rio de Janeiro? Que Chico Buarque era uma fraude, que ela se espantou com sua empáfia e com seu desconhecimento literário, e que se espantou mais ainda com sua facilidade para enganar a plateia da Flip.
No conto de Edna O’Brien, Chico Buarque – ou Harpo – é tratado como "Astro do rock". O personagem é inspirado em Chico Buarque, mas tem também umas pitadas de Bono, do U2, admirador de Edna O’Brien. A narradora – uma autora irlandesa – está numa feira literária no Brasil. De alguma maneira, ela é inserida no séquito de um cantor que, como Chico Buarque, se meteu a fazer romances. Há uma atmosfera onírica no conto. Essa atmosfera onírica foi estimulada pelo fato de Edna O’Brien, nas quatro noites que passou em Paraty, atormentada pela batucada permanente do lado de fora da janela de seu hotel, nunca ter dormido. Quando saiu de Paraty, ela se refugiou no Copacabana Palace, no Rio de Janeiro, mas continuou insone, atormentada pela festa de casamento de Pato, o jogador do Milan, com Sthefany Brito, a atriz de Chiquititas. Sthefany é com "Y", como Paraty, e "Chiquitita" tem um "T" na frente, como Chico Marx.
Eu já resenhei um romance de Chico Buarque: Benjamim. Nele, um homem à beira da morte relembra o passado, misturando realidade e sonho. Em Leite Derramado, seu último romance, um homem à beira da morte relembra o passado, misturando realidade e sonho. Chico Buarque, como Harpo, é o buzinador das letras: fon-fon. Ele está para a literatura assim como Dilma Rousseff está para as teses de mestrado. Ou assim como José Sarney está para Agaciel Maia. Edna O’Brien passou apenas uma semana no Brasil. Mas ela entendeu tudo: neste país fraudulento, o que mais espanta é a facilidade para enganar a plateia, enquanto a batucada continua do lado de fora.
sábado, 11 de julho de 2009
1213) Protecionismo brasileiro: confirmando o que já se sabe...
Brasil é um dos mais fechados ao comércio, diz Fórum Mundial
País ocupa 87ª posição no ranking de viabilidade comercial, que inclui 121 países e é liderado por Cingapura
Daniela Milanese, da Agência Estado
O Estado de São Paulo, terça-feira, 7 de julho de 2009
LONDRES - O Fórum Econômico Mundial classifica o Brasil como um dos países mais fechados do mundo para o comércio internacional. Segundo o Fórum, o País ocupa somente a 87ª posição no ranking de viabilidade comercial, divulgado nesta terça-feira, 7, em Genebra. O levantamento analisou a situação de 121 países.
"O nível de proteção no Brasil continua relativamente elevado, em particular para os produtos agrícolas", diz a entidade. A posição deixa o País atrás do Chile (19ª), Costa Rica (43ª) e México (74ª), na América Latina, superando, entretanto, a Argentina (97ª). Entre os Brics, o Brasil também perde para a China (49ª) e a Índia (76ª), mas fica à frente da Rússia (109ª).
Pesaram contra a avaliação do Brasil aspectos como a existência de barreiras tarifárias, os elevados encargos alfandegários, a má qualidade das estradas, a corrupção e a ineficiência do governo. Já as melhores notas foram obtidas pela rede de telecomunicações e serviços relacionados ao embarque de mercadorias, como a competência logística.
O Fórum Econômico Mundial acredita que o comércio global passa por um momento importante, já que a retração econômica provoca queda dos volumes ainda mais forte do que a registrada na Grande Depressão, nos anos 30. "O desafio hoje é garantir que os países não piorem a situação, restringindo o comércio", dizem Robert Lawrence e Albert L. Williams, autores do estudo, em comunicado. "Quanto maior for a promoção do comércio além das fronteiras, menores serão os efeitos da crise global."
O ranking da abertura ao comércio é liderado por Cingapura, considerada a economia mais aberta para as transações internacionais. Em seguida estão Hong Kong, Suíça, Dinamarca, Suécia, Canadá, Noruega, Finlândia, Áustria e Holanda. Os Estados Unidos ocupam o 16º lugar.
"Os resultados mostram a política de abertura de Hong Kong e Cingapura ao comércio e o investimento internacional como parte de suas estratégias bem sucedidas de desenvolvimento econômico", avalia o Fórum.
Esta é a segunda edição do ranking. No ano passado, foram analisados 118 países e o Brasil foi o 80º colocado. No entanto, os resultados não são comparáveis porque foram feitos ajustes na metodologia.
Protecionismo
Os diversos pacotes de estímulo econômico adotados pelos governos mundo afora podem acabar levando ao protecionismo, alerta o Fórum Econômico Mundial. "Com o crescente envolvimento do dinheiro público, se torna mais difícil agir de forma não discriminatória em relação às empresas e produtos estrangeiros", diz a entidade, em relatório.
Segundo o Fórum, acaba parecendo natural, por exemplo, a busca por garantias de benefícios locais, já que o dinheiro dos contribuintes está sendo gasto. "No entanto, essa postura prejudica os estrangeiros quem dependem de mercados abertos para seu sustento."
O Fórum lembra que setores com problemas em meio à crise estão recebendo grandes subsídios. Conforme a Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC), 12 países ajudaram suas indústrias automotivas. "Brasil, França e Estados Unidos distribuíram empréstimos generosos", diz a entidade, apontando ainda que a Índia impôs licença de importação para alguns produtos e a Argentina estabeleceu preços para a compra de peças estrangeiras.
Para o Fórum, é improvável que a resposta pública à crise ganhe contornos como os registrados em 1930, quando os Estados Unidos elevaram as tarifas de importação em 47%. "Entretanto, a situação atual traz perigo para o sistema aberto de comércio."
Segundo a entidade, o risco vem da adoção de medidas que individualmente parecem menores, mas com impacto cumulativo prejudicial. "Há considerável espaço para aumentar a proteção sem tecnicamente quebrar regras da OMC ou violar os acordos internacionais."
O Fórum lembra que, mesmo tendo se comprometido em não repetir os erros de protecionismo do passado, 17 países do G-20 (grupo que reúne as 20 maiores economias do mundo, representadas por 19 países desenvolvidos e emergentes e pela União Europeia) adotaram medidas para inibir o comércio, conforme levantamento do Banco Mundial. Entre elas, está a cláusula "Buy American" (compre produto norte-americano) existente no pacote de estímulo dos EUA.
Em contrapartida, o Fórum vê situações onde o protecionismo foi evitado ou até mesmo rejeitado. "Autoridades no Brasil, por exemplo, derrubaram planos de adotar um programa de licenças para importações antiquado, numa resposta de resistência ao setor privado." Além disso, o País ampliou o programa de financiamento à exportação. "Existe a necessidade tanto de medidas para evitar o protecionismo como de ações para promover o comércio", conclui o Fórum.
País ocupa 87ª posição no ranking de viabilidade comercial, que inclui 121 países e é liderado por Cingapura
Daniela Milanese, da Agência Estado
O Estado de São Paulo, terça-feira, 7 de julho de 2009
LONDRES - O Fórum Econômico Mundial classifica o Brasil como um dos países mais fechados do mundo para o comércio internacional. Segundo o Fórum, o País ocupa somente a 87ª posição no ranking de viabilidade comercial, divulgado nesta terça-feira, 7, em Genebra. O levantamento analisou a situação de 121 países.
"O nível de proteção no Brasil continua relativamente elevado, em particular para os produtos agrícolas", diz a entidade. A posição deixa o País atrás do Chile (19ª), Costa Rica (43ª) e México (74ª), na América Latina, superando, entretanto, a Argentina (97ª). Entre os Brics, o Brasil também perde para a China (49ª) e a Índia (76ª), mas fica à frente da Rússia (109ª).
Pesaram contra a avaliação do Brasil aspectos como a existência de barreiras tarifárias, os elevados encargos alfandegários, a má qualidade das estradas, a corrupção e a ineficiência do governo. Já as melhores notas foram obtidas pela rede de telecomunicações e serviços relacionados ao embarque de mercadorias, como a competência logística.
O Fórum Econômico Mundial acredita que o comércio global passa por um momento importante, já que a retração econômica provoca queda dos volumes ainda mais forte do que a registrada na Grande Depressão, nos anos 30. "O desafio hoje é garantir que os países não piorem a situação, restringindo o comércio", dizem Robert Lawrence e Albert L. Williams, autores do estudo, em comunicado. "Quanto maior for a promoção do comércio além das fronteiras, menores serão os efeitos da crise global."
O ranking da abertura ao comércio é liderado por Cingapura, considerada a economia mais aberta para as transações internacionais. Em seguida estão Hong Kong, Suíça, Dinamarca, Suécia, Canadá, Noruega, Finlândia, Áustria e Holanda. Os Estados Unidos ocupam o 16º lugar.
"Os resultados mostram a política de abertura de Hong Kong e Cingapura ao comércio e o investimento internacional como parte de suas estratégias bem sucedidas de desenvolvimento econômico", avalia o Fórum.
Esta é a segunda edição do ranking. No ano passado, foram analisados 118 países e o Brasil foi o 80º colocado. No entanto, os resultados não são comparáveis porque foram feitos ajustes na metodologia.
Protecionismo
Os diversos pacotes de estímulo econômico adotados pelos governos mundo afora podem acabar levando ao protecionismo, alerta o Fórum Econômico Mundial. "Com o crescente envolvimento do dinheiro público, se torna mais difícil agir de forma não discriminatória em relação às empresas e produtos estrangeiros", diz a entidade, em relatório.
Segundo o Fórum, acaba parecendo natural, por exemplo, a busca por garantias de benefícios locais, já que o dinheiro dos contribuintes está sendo gasto. "No entanto, essa postura prejudica os estrangeiros quem dependem de mercados abertos para seu sustento."
O Fórum lembra que setores com problemas em meio à crise estão recebendo grandes subsídios. Conforme a Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC), 12 países ajudaram suas indústrias automotivas. "Brasil, França e Estados Unidos distribuíram empréstimos generosos", diz a entidade, apontando ainda que a Índia impôs licença de importação para alguns produtos e a Argentina estabeleceu preços para a compra de peças estrangeiras.
Para o Fórum, é improvável que a resposta pública à crise ganhe contornos como os registrados em 1930, quando os Estados Unidos elevaram as tarifas de importação em 47%. "Entretanto, a situação atual traz perigo para o sistema aberto de comércio."
Segundo a entidade, o risco vem da adoção de medidas que individualmente parecem menores, mas com impacto cumulativo prejudicial. "Há considerável espaço para aumentar a proteção sem tecnicamente quebrar regras da OMC ou violar os acordos internacionais."
O Fórum lembra que, mesmo tendo se comprometido em não repetir os erros de protecionismo do passado, 17 países do G-20 (grupo que reúne as 20 maiores economias do mundo, representadas por 19 países desenvolvidos e emergentes e pela União Europeia) adotaram medidas para inibir o comércio, conforme levantamento do Banco Mundial. Entre elas, está a cláusula "Buy American" (compre produto norte-americano) existente no pacote de estímulo dos EUA.
Em contrapartida, o Fórum vê situações onde o protecionismo foi evitado ou até mesmo rejeitado. "Autoridades no Brasil, por exemplo, derrubaram planos de adotar um programa de licenças para importações antiquado, numa resposta de resistência ao setor privado." Além disso, o País ampliou o programa de financiamento à exportação. "Existe a necessidade tanto de medidas para evitar o protecionismo como de ações para promover o comércio", conclui o Fórum.
1212) Um debate com anarquistas...
...se isso é possível.
Acredito que sim, afinal de contas eles também fazem congressos, encontros, seminários, discussões, etc.
No ano passado, por exemplo, a Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro organizou um congresso ao cabo do qual divulgou um documento programático.
Como sempre estou disposto a qualquer debate, com aliados, adversários, colegas acadêmicos e defensores (racionais) de qualquer causa que seja, apresento aqui dois elementos para esse debate.
Primeiro, a divulgação do texto base dos anarquistas cariocas, cujo teor pode ser encontrado nesta mensagem da FARJ.
Mais abaixo apresento alguns comentários iniciais e muito preliminares, compreensíveis, talvez, aos que tenham lido o texto (este é longo, chato, gongórico, mas na parte que interessa, tem algumas poucas proposições que me proponho comentar, justdamente).
Comunicado da Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (FARJ):
O documento "Anarquismo Social e Organização" foi formulado durante o I Congresso da FARJ, em agosto de 2008, realizado com o principal objetivo de aprofundar nossas reflexões sobre a questão da organização e formalizá-las neste programa.
Desde 2003, este debate vem acontecendo dentro de nossa organização. Produzimos materiais teóricos, apuramos nossas reflexões, extraímos ensinamentos de erros e acertos de nossa prática política e foi se tornando cada vez mais necessário aprofundar o debate e formalizá-lo, difundindo este conhecimento, tanto interna quanto externamente.
O Programa formaliza nossas posições após todas estas reflexões. Mais do que um documento puramente teórico, ele reflete as conclusões realizadas após 5 anos de aplicação prática do anarquismo nas lutas sociais de nosso povo.
Você pode baixar o Programa em PDF neste link.
--
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro - FARJ
E-mail
Cx Postal 14576 CEP 22412-970. Rio de Janeiro/RJ
Comentários PRA (iniciais):
Suponho que, além de divulgar e vender o programa, vocês (esta foi uma mensagem que dirigi diretamente, por e-mail, aos anarquistas da FARJ) estejam interessados no debate sobre suas posições substantivas.
Para isso é preciso partir de constatações e formular diagnósticos e prescrições.
A primeira e única constatação que faco é que o movimento anarquista é tremendamente minoritário, e isto não é uma opinião, mas um fato mensurável, um dado da realidade.
A partir daí, seria preciso ver o que fazer para torná-lo majoritário, ou hegemônico, e assim contribuir com suas presumidades boas qualidades para a melhoria da vida dos cidadaos, em escala planetaria.
Se partirmos dos objetivos da FARJ, algo precisa ser feito.
Transcrevo aqui o objetivo principal:
"Entendemos o anarquismo como uma ideologia que fornece orientação para a ação no sentido de substituir o capitalismo, o Estado e suas instituições, pelo socialismo libertário – sistema baseado na autogestão e no federalismo –, sem quaisquer pretensões científicas ou proféticas."
Se isso é verdade, seria preciso que os anarquistas pudessem oferecer algo melhor do que isso que está ai, pois não há nenhum sentido que oferecer algo pior, ou que não funciona, simplesmente.
Pois bem, o capitalismo, o Estado e suas instituições cumprem determinadas funções, do contrario nao mais existiriam, ou ja teriam sido substituidas por outras.
Ora, para provar que a autogestao e o federalismo sao intrinsecamente melhores, mais funcionais e infinitamente mais positivos do que o capitalismo, os mercados e o Estado, cabe aos anarquistas provar isso.
Nao vi, no documento em questao, argumentos sólidos em defesa dessas posicoes.
Acredito que esta seja a tarefa principal.
A auto-gestão é uma forma de organização social da produção. Se ela é capaz de fazer melhor do que o capitalismo, cabe demonstrar.
O federalismo é uma forma de organização política, que também exige instituicoes semelhantes às de um Estado, ainda que descentralizado. Não vejo em que ele seria essencialmente diferente ou superior ao Estado centralizado, se a maioria das formas existentes funciona melhor na forma centralizada. Caberia provar esse ponto tambem.
Estas duas questões me parecem centrais na melhoria da mensagem anarquista e no seu progresso intelectual, na conquista de uma maioria social.
Trata-se apenas de uma contribuição ao debate...
-------------
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Acredito que sim, afinal de contas eles também fazem congressos, encontros, seminários, discussões, etc.
No ano passado, por exemplo, a Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro organizou um congresso ao cabo do qual divulgou um documento programático.
Como sempre estou disposto a qualquer debate, com aliados, adversários, colegas acadêmicos e defensores (racionais) de qualquer causa que seja, apresento aqui dois elementos para esse debate.
Primeiro, a divulgação do texto base dos anarquistas cariocas, cujo teor pode ser encontrado nesta mensagem da FARJ.
Mais abaixo apresento alguns comentários iniciais e muito preliminares, compreensíveis, talvez, aos que tenham lido o texto (este é longo, chato, gongórico, mas na parte que interessa, tem algumas poucas proposições que me proponho comentar, justdamente).
Comunicado da Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (FARJ):
O documento "Anarquismo Social e Organização" foi formulado durante o I Congresso da FARJ, em agosto de 2008, realizado com o principal objetivo de aprofundar nossas reflexões sobre a questão da organização e formalizá-las neste programa.
Desde 2003, este debate vem acontecendo dentro de nossa organização. Produzimos materiais teóricos, apuramos nossas reflexões, extraímos ensinamentos de erros e acertos de nossa prática política e foi se tornando cada vez mais necessário aprofundar o debate e formalizá-lo, difundindo este conhecimento, tanto interna quanto externamente.
O Programa formaliza nossas posições após todas estas reflexões. Mais do que um documento puramente teórico, ele reflete as conclusões realizadas após 5 anos de aplicação prática do anarquismo nas lutas sociais de nosso povo.
Você pode baixar o Programa em PDF neste link.
--
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro - FARJ
Cx Postal 14576 CEP 22412-970. Rio de Janeiro/RJ
Comentários PRA (iniciais):
Suponho que, além de divulgar e vender o programa, vocês (esta foi uma mensagem que dirigi diretamente, por e-mail, aos anarquistas da FARJ) estejam interessados no debate sobre suas posições substantivas.
Para isso é preciso partir de constatações e formular diagnósticos e prescrições.
A primeira e única constatação que faco é que o movimento anarquista é tremendamente minoritário, e isto não é uma opinião, mas um fato mensurável, um dado da realidade.
A partir daí, seria preciso ver o que fazer para torná-lo majoritário, ou hegemônico, e assim contribuir com suas presumidades boas qualidades para a melhoria da vida dos cidadaos, em escala planetaria.
Se partirmos dos objetivos da FARJ, algo precisa ser feito.
Transcrevo aqui o objetivo principal:
"Entendemos o anarquismo como uma ideologia que fornece orientação para a ação no sentido de substituir o capitalismo, o Estado e suas instituições, pelo socialismo libertário – sistema baseado na autogestão e no federalismo –, sem quaisquer pretensões científicas ou proféticas."
Se isso é verdade, seria preciso que os anarquistas pudessem oferecer algo melhor do que isso que está ai, pois não há nenhum sentido que oferecer algo pior, ou que não funciona, simplesmente.
Pois bem, o capitalismo, o Estado e suas instituições cumprem determinadas funções, do contrario nao mais existiriam, ou ja teriam sido substituidas por outras.
Ora, para provar que a autogestao e o federalismo sao intrinsecamente melhores, mais funcionais e infinitamente mais positivos do que o capitalismo, os mercados e o Estado, cabe aos anarquistas provar isso.
Nao vi, no documento em questao, argumentos sólidos em defesa dessas posicoes.
Acredito que esta seja a tarefa principal.
A auto-gestão é uma forma de organização social da produção. Se ela é capaz de fazer melhor do que o capitalismo, cabe demonstrar.
O federalismo é uma forma de organização política, que também exige instituicoes semelhantes às de um Estado, ainda que descentralizado. Não vejo em que ele seria essencialmente diferente ou superior ao Estado centralizado, se a maioria das formas existentes funciona melhor na forma centralizada. Caberia provar esse ponto tambem.
Estas duas questões me parecem centrais na melhoria da mensagem anarquista e no seu progresso intelectual, na conquista de uma maioria social.
Trata-se apenas de uma contribuição ao debate...
-------------
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
1211) Devaneio poetico
Do gênero, "descobertas arqueológicas": por um desses acasos da informatica, descobri, escondido num arquivo anódino, um atentado poetico que devo ter cometido em estado de semi-sonolencia dois ou três anos atras, a propósito de Brasilia...
Nunca é demais registrar, para que não se perca mais uma vez...
A arte de poetar impunemente
É crime da mais alta inteligência
Só perpetra esse crime quem não mente
Nem sofre de sentir qualquer ausência
O próprio crime de viver nesta cidade
Que isola e confunde tanta gente
Só comete quem persegue a impunidade
E consegue viver assim indiferente
PRA (sem data: 2006)
Nunca é demais registrar, para que não se perca mais uma vez...
A arte de poetar impunemente
É crime da mais alta inteligência
Só perpetra esse crime quem não mente
Nem sofre de sentir qualquer ausência
O próprio crime de viver nesta cidade
Que isola e confunde tanta gente
Só comete quem persegue a impunidade
E consegue viver assim indiferente
PRA (sem data: 2006)
sexta-feira, 10 de julho de 2009
1210) Senado: uma casa de horrores, para The Economist
Acredito que os horrores são todos para nós, que pagamos. Para os senadores e funcionários, aquilo é uma maravilha, um Paraíso, como dizia o finado antropólogo e senador Darcy Ribeiro.
House of horrors
The Economist, 10/07/2009
The president of Brazil's Senate sits in a fine blue leather chair designed by Oscar Niemeyer, a celebrated Brazilian architect. Comfortable it may be, but its occupants have also found it to be an insecure perch. Three senate presidents have been suspended or have resigned because of scandals in the past eight years. Now a fourth, José Sarney, a former president of Brazil and part-time novelist, is teetering.
The Senate has just 81 members but somehow they require almost 10,000 staff to take care of them. Many of these are appointed as favours to senators' friends or political supporters. One former staffer says that his fellow-employees used to say that the senate was like a mother to them. Others liken it to a country club. The benefits of membership include free health insurance for life for all senators and their families, generous pension arrangements and housing allowances. This much was already familiar to Brazilians and, perhaps, not so different from the goings on in many other legislatures around the world.
But the past few months have brought new revelations. The police are investigating some 660 “secret acts” passed since 1995 which have awarded jobs and pay rises to members of staff. Senators have given free air tickets to relatives and claimed housing allowances for houses they did not live in. Senate staff were paid overtime even when the chamber was in recess. The head of the senate administration, Agaciel Maia, was revealed to own a house worth 5m reais ($2.5m) that was registered in his brother's name and thus not declared to the tax authorities.
Lots of senators, more or less across the political spectrum, are at fault. When the leader of the opposition Party of Brazilian Social Democracy went on a jaunt to Paris, for example, the Senate paid his hotel bill. (He says this was a “loan”.) It therefore might seem unfair that Mr Sarney is under pressure to resign.
Yet he cannot plead ignorance of the Senate's workings. This is his third spell as its president. During a previous stint in the blue chair he appointed Mr Maia to his lucrative position. A grandchild of Mr Sarney's received business from the Senate (although he was not its president at the time). Mr Sarney also omitted from his declaration of assets to the federal electoral tribunal a big house he owns in Brasília.
Mr Sarney, who has spent 50 years in public life, is a survivor. He will probably keep his post. He remains a power in the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), a catch-all outfit that is an important part of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's governing coalition. Lula wants Mr Sarney to swing the weight of the PMDB, and its patronage machine, behind Dilma Rousseff, the probable candidate of the ruling Workers' Party in the presidential election next year.
Lula has said that Mr Sarney deserves more respect, and has blamed the press for whipping up scandal. But at a time when the economy is only just emerging from recession, the saga of the “secret acts” has reminded Brazilians that their politicians never impose austerity on themselves. It may also have reminded them of the flaws of some of Lula's allies, and his willingness to shut his eyes to scandal when it suits him.
House of horrors
The Economist, 10/07/2009
The president of Brazil's Senate sits in a fine blue leather chair designed by Oscar Niemeyer, a celebrated Brazilian architect. Comfortable it may be, but its occupants have also found it to be an insecure perch. Three senate presidents have been suspended or have resigned because of scandals in the past eight years. Now a fourth, José Sarney, a former president of Brazil and part-time novelist, is teetering.
The Senate has just 81 members but somehow they require almost 10,000 staff to take care of them. Many of these are appointed as favours to senators' friends or political supporters. One former staffer says that his fellow-employees used to say that the senate was like a mother to them. Others liken it to a country club. The benefits of membership include free health insurance for life for all senators and their families, generous pension arrangements and housing allowances. This much was already familiar to Brazilians and, perhaps, not so different from the goings on in many other legislatures around the world.
But the past few months have brought new revelations. The police are investigating some 660 “secret acts” passed since 1995 which have awarded jobs and pay rises to members of staff. Senators have given free air tickets to relatives and claimed housing allowances for houses they did not live in. Senate staff were paid overtime even when the chamber was in recess. The head of the senate administration, Agaciel Maia, was revealed to own a house worth 5m reais ($2.5m) that was registered in his brother's name and thus not declared to the tax authorities.
Lots of senators, more or less across the political spectrum, are at fault. When the leader of the opposition Party of Brazilian Social Democracy went on a jaunt to Paris, for example, the Senate paid his hotel bill. (He says this was a “loan”.) It therefore might seem unfair that Mr Sarney is under pressure to resign.
Yet he cannot plead ignorance of the Senate's workings. This is his third spell as its president. During a previous stint in the blue chair he appointed Mr Maia to his lucrative position. A grandchild of Mr Sarney's received business from the Senate (although he was not its president at the time). Mr Sarney also omitted from his declaration of assets to the federal electoral tribunal a big house he owns in Brasília.
Mr Sarney, who has spent 50 years in public life, is a survivor. He will probably keep his post. He remains a power in the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), a catch-all outfit that is an important part of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's governing coalition. Lula wants Mr Sarney to swing the weight of the PMDB, and its patronage machine, behind Dilma Rousseff, the probable candidate of the ruling Workers' Party in the presidential election next year.
Lula has said that Mr Sarney deserves more respect, and has blamed the press for whipping up scandal. But at a time when the economy is only just emerging from recession, the saga of the “secret acts” has reminded Brazilians that their politicians never impose austerity on themselves. It may also have reminded them of the flaws of some of Lula's allies, and his willingness to shut his eyes to scandal when it suits him.
1209) Que tal, agora, ler sobre piratas?
Também do número corrente da Foreign Affairs:
What to Read on Pirates
Max Boot
Foreign Affairs, May 6, 2009
Summary -- An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on pirates.
To defeat piracy in centuries past, governments pursued a more active defense at sea and a political solution on land. The current piracy epidemic off the coast of East Africa requires many of the same tactics.
Recent attacks off the Horn of Africa have revived interest in piracy. There is a rich literature on the subject focusing primarily on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today's piracy problems share enough characteristics with their historical precursors to make an understanding of the earlier experiences useful as well as fun.
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. By Captain Charles Johnson. Lyons Press, 2002.
This is the ur-text for piracy studies -- the one that started it all. As Charles Johnson's introduction notes, his work, which went through several editions, consists of profiles "of these desperadoes, who were the terror of the trading part of the world." A General History was originally published in London in 1724, just three years after the death of Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart), one of its most notorious subjects. No one knows who the author was. It was once assumed that Captain Johnson was a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe; now there is speculation that the author was a pirate himself, or at least an experienced seaman who met a number of pirates. In any case, he was well informed, and although some of his claims are fanciful (there was no such place as Libertalia, a supposed pirate haven), most have stood the test of subsequent historical research. Some of his most famous passages concern Captain Teach, who "assumed the cognomen of Blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face and frightened America more than any comet that has appeared there a long time."
Captain Blood. By Rafael Sabatini. Penguin Classics, 2003.
Captain Blood. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Warner Brothers, 1935.
The influence of Johnson's A General History can be seen in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, both of which helped lock in place popular images of pirates. Another student of Johnson's was Rafael Sabatini, an Anglo-Italian historical novelist whose most famous books were The Sea-Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), and Captain Blood (1922). The last remains one of the greatest historical swashbucklers, in a class with The Three Musketeers, The Prisoner of Zenda, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Sabatini's hero, Peter Blood -- loosely based on the privateer Sir Henry Morgan -- is a surgeon accidentally caught up in the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion against King James II of England. He is convicted of treason and sent to work as a plantation slave in Barbados. When Spanish privateers suddenly attack the town where he is toiling, Blood escapes, seizes the privateers' ship, and becomes a successful pirate himself. Needless to say, his reputation is redeemed in the end, his "odyssey" (the book's original subtitle) resulting in social and legal vindication for this hero forced by circumstances to operate outside the law. To get all the twists and turns along the way, read the book -- or watch the 1935 movie version, which introduced American audiences to a pair of talented young newcomers named Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. By Charles Cordingly. Harcourt Brace, 1995.
If there were a chair of piratology at an eminent university, Charles Cordingly would be a good candidate to fill it. A former curator at the National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, England, he has written several books on the subject, of which Under the Black Flag serves as the best introduction. Not a comprehensive history, it is instead a thematic study of the most famous pirates of all time -- the ones who haunted the Spanish Main from roughly 1650 to 1725. Cordingly discusses both popular culture and the historical reality behind it. If you wonder whether pirates really had peg legs and made treasure maps, he will provide the answers (yes and no, respectively). This is the place to go to learn the distinctions among pirates, privateers, and corsairs, how pirate societies organized themselves, and whether there were female pirates.
The Pirate Wars. By Peter Earle. St. Martin's Press, 2003.
A former professor at the London School of Economics, Peter Earle is another leading contemporary expert on the history of piracy. In this book, he provides an invaluable overview of the various pirate communities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and how they were eradicated. Although there is a good deal here on the Caribbean pirates, Earle also addresses the Barbary pirates (more properly, the Barbary privateers) and the "Red Sea men," who preyed on Indian Ocean shipping belonging to European and Asian merchants. (The only major groups missing are the East Asian pirates, who operated around the Malay Archipelago and southern China.) Earle's account is clear and easy to follow, and he incorporates the latest academic studies, in particular the valuable work of the University of Pittsburgh historian Marcus Rediker, author of several more specialized books and articles on the subject (such as Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age). What was the secret to defeating pirates? Different strategies were employed in different areas and at different times, but there is no escaping the brutality of anti-pirate measures. As Earle notes, between 1716 and 1726 alone, English authorities hanged at least 400 pirates, "a colossal number even in an age notorious for its love of the gallows."
The Barbary Corsairs. By Stanley Lane-Poole. T. Fisher Unwin, 1890.
Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs. By Gardner Weld Allen. Houghton Mifflin, 1905.
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of books about the United States' wars on Muslim "pirates" (really privateers), waged against Tripoli from 1801 to 1805 and against Algiers in 1815. New narratives have come out from such authors as Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Frank Lambert, Frederick Leiner, Joshua E. London, Ian Toll, Joseph Wheelan, and Richard Zacks. Nevertheless, these two accounts, published more than a century ago and available for free on Google Books, remain classics worth reading. Stanley Lane-Poole presents the general background of the Barbary States and their sea-raiding, focusing in particular on the Barbarossa brothers, who became known as the scourges of Christian Europe in the sixteenth century. Gardner Allen devotes his attention to the wars fought against the Barbary States by the early American Republic. One of the highlights is the story of how young Stephen Decatur led a small crew of Americans into Tripoli harbor in 1804 to destroy the captured USS Philadelphia beneath the guns of the enemy. It reads like something out of a Patrick O'Brian novel, but it really happened.
Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas. By John S. Burnett. Plume, 2003.
There aren't a lot of books on modern piracy. John Burnett's volume is already a bit dated but is probably the best primer on the subject. A former reporter and congressional staffer, Burnett is a veteran sailor whose own sloop was briefly seized by pirates in 1992 off the coast of Indonesia. The hijackers took a pair of binoculars and a carton of Marlboros before leaving. The incident sparked Burnett's interest in the subject, so he traveled aboard a pair of oil tankers transiting the pirate-infested Malacca Strait and spent time with the Royal Malaysian Marine Police, observing its attempts to nab pirates. Somalian pirates were not a big threat when he was writing, so the book does not cover them. But Burnett's reporting shows why cargo vessels were and remain vulnerable: the automation of vessels has reduced crew levels dramatically, civilian ships have no significant defenses, and owners instruct crews not to resist attacks. Local naval forces that are supposed to protect shipping, meanwhile, either lack the resources to cover vast stretches of ocean or, as in the case of Somalia, simply do not exist. No wonder piracy remains a flourishing business.
MAX BOOT is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
What to Read on Pirates
Max Boot
Foreign Affairs, May 6, 2009
Summary -- An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on pirates.
To defeat piracy in centuries past, governments pursued a more active defense at sea and a political solution on land. The current piracy epidemic off the coast of East Africa requires many of the same tactics.
Recent attacks off the Horn of Africa have revived interest in piracy. There is a rich literature on the subject focusing primarily on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today's piracy problems share enough characteristics with their historical precursors to make an understanding of the earlier experiences useful as well as fun.
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. By Captain Charles Johnson. Lyons Press, 2002.
This is the ur-text for piracy studies -- the one that started it all. As Charles Johnson's introduction notes, his work, which went through several editions, consists of profiles "of these desperadoes, who were the terror of the trading part of the world." A General History was originally published in London in 1724, just three years after the death of Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart), one of its most notorious subjects. No one knows who the author was. It was once assumed that Captain Johnson was a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe; now there is speculation that the author was a pirate himself, or at least an experienced seaman who met a number of pirates. In any case, he was well informed, and although some of his claims are fanciful (there was no such place as Libertalia, a supposed pirate haven), most have stood the test of subsequent historical research. Some of his most famous passages concern Captain Teach, who "assumed the cognomen of Blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face and frightened America more than any comet that has appeared there a long time."
Captain Blood. By Rafael Sabatini. Penguin Classics, 2003.
Captain Blood. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Warner Brothers, 1935.
The influence of Johnson's A General History can be seen in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, both of which helped lock in place popular images of pirates. Another student of Johnson's was Rafael Sabatini, an Anglo-Italian historical novelist whose most famous books were The Sea-Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), and Captain Blood (1922). The last remains one of the greatest historical swashbucklers, in a class with The Three Musketeers, The Prisoner of Zenda, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Sabatini's hero, Peter Blood -- loosely based on the privateer Sir Henry Morgan -- is a surgeon accidentally caught up in the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion against King James II of England. He is convicted of treason and sent to work as a plantation slave in Barbados. When Spanish privateers suddenly attack the town where he is toiling, Blood escapes, seizes the privateers' ship, and becomes a successful pirate himself. Needless to say, his reputation is redeemed in the end, his "odyssey" (the book's original subtitle) resulting in social and legal vindication for this hero forced by circumstances to operate outside the law. To get all the twists and turns along the way, read the book -- or watch the 1935 movie version, which introduced American audiences to a pair of talented young newcomers named Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. By Charles Cordingly. Harcourt Brace, 1995.
If there were a chair of piratology at an eminent university, Charles Cordingly would be a good candidate to fill it. A former curator at the National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, England, he has written several books on the subject, of which Under the Black Flag serves as the best introduction. Not a comprehensive history, it is instead a thematic study of the most famous pirates of all time -- the ones who haunted the Spanish Main from roughly 1650 to 1725. Cordingly discusses both popular culture and the historical reality behind it. If you wonder whether pirates really had peg legs and made treasure maps, he will provide the answers (yes and no, respectively). This is the place to go to learn the distinctions among pirates, privateers, and corsairs, how pirate societies organized themselves, and whether there were female pirates.
The Pirate Wars. By Peter Earle. St. Martin's Press, 2003.
A former professor at the London School of Economics, Peter Earle is another leading contemporary expert on the history of piracy. In this book, he provides an invaluable overview of the various pirate communities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and how they were eradicated. Although there is a good deal here on the Caribbean pirates, Earle also addresses the Barbary pirates (more properly, the Barbary privateers) and the "Red Sea men," who preyed on Indian Ocean shipping belonging to European and Asian merchants. (The only major groups missing are the East Asian pirates, who operated around the Malay Archipelago and southern China.) Earle's account is clear and easy to follow, and he incorporates the latest academic studies, in particular the valuable work of the University of Pittsburgh historian Marcus Rediker, author of several more specialized books and articles on the subject (such as Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age). What was the secret to defeating pirates? Different strategies were employed in different areas and at different times, but there is no escaping the brutality of anti-pirate measures. As Earle notes, between 1716 and 1726 alone, English authorities hanged at least 400 pirates, "a colossal number even in an age notorious for its love of the gallows."
The Barbary Corsairs. By Stanley Lane-Poole. T. Fisher Unwin, 1890.
Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs. By Gardner Weld Allen. Houghton Mifflin, 1905.
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of books about the United States' wars on Muslim "pirates" (really privateers), waged against Tripoli from 1801 to 1805 and against Algiers in 1815. New narratives have come out from such authors as Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Frank Lambert, Frederick Leiner, Joshua E. London, Ian Toll, Joseph Wheelan, and Richard Zacks. Nevertheless, these two accounts, published more than a century ago and available for free on Google Books, remain classics worth reading. Stanley Lane-Poole presents the general background of the Barbary States and their sea-raiding, focusing in particular on the Barbarossa brothers, who became known as the scourges of Christian Europe in the sixteenth century. Gardner Allen devotes his attention to the wars fought against the Barbary States by the early American Republic. One of the highlights is the story of how young Stephen Decatur led a small crew of Americans into Tripoli harbor in 1804 to destroy the captured USS Philadelphia beneath the guns of the enemy. It reads like something out of a Patrick O'Brian novel, but it really happened.
Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas. By John S. Burnett. Plume, 2003.
There aren't a lot of books on modern piracy. John Burnett's volume is already a bit dated but is probably the best primer on the subject. A former reporter and congressional staffer, Burnett is a veteran sailor whose own sloop was briefly seized by pirates in 1992 off the coast of Indonesia. The hijackers took a pair of binoculars and a carton of Marlboros before leaving. The incident sparked Burnett's interest in the subject, so he traveled aboard a pair of oil tankers transiting the pirate-infested Malacca Strait and spent time with the Royal Malaysian Marine Police, observing its attempts to nab pirates. Somalian pirates were not a big threat when he was writing, so the book does not cover them. But Burnett's reporting shows why cargo vessels were and remain vulnerable: the automation of vessels has reduced crew levels dramatically, civilian ships have no significant defenses, and owners instruct crews not to resist attacks. Local naval forces that are supposed to protect shipping, meanwhile, either lack the resources to cover vast stretches of ocean or, as in the case of Somalia, simply do not exist. No wonder piracy remains a flourishing business.
MAX BOOT is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
1208) Uma selecao de leituras sobre Estados e mercados
Reading Lists
What to Read on States and Markets
Mark Blyth
Professor of International Political Economy
at Brown University
Foreign Affairs, July 1, 2009
Summary:
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on states and markets.
As governments around the world have responded to the global economic crisis, questions about the appropriate relationships between states and markets are once again a matter of intense public and policy debate. As the discussion proceeds, the subject's long history is worth bearing in mind. The canonical authors one might think to start with --Adam Smith and Karl Marx -- are not actually all that helpful. Smith's writings on the state should be read against his indictment of the mercantilist system, not in relation to the modern world, and Marx's writings on the state, despite some notable epigrams, are also not particularly relevant to the contemporary era. The texts that follow, in contrast, offer readers a deep historical and theoretical understanding of the relationship between states and markets over time.
Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. By Charles Tilly. Basil Blackwell, 1990.
Going back a thousand years, Charles Tilly describes how European societies developed differently by relying on various combinations of coercion (force) and capital (cash). He distinguishes between coercion-intensive empires, capital-intensive cities and city states, and a third, hybrid option, "capitalized coercion," which generated the modern nation states that ultimately survived. Countries such as Britain and France, he argues, sought to enhance the fiscal capacity of their states in response to competitive pressures, and in doing so, they built a set of institutions (the modern state) that transformed society's class structures and paved the way for capitalist development.
The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph. By Albert O. Hirschman. Princeton University Press, 1977.
Possibly the most beautiful and enjoyable book in all of political economy, Albert Hirschman's The Passions and the Interests is a tour de force that takes readers from St. Augustine and Machiavelli to the French physiocrats and the Scottish Enlightenment. Along the way, Hirschman shows that the idea that markets are "natural" was put forward not as a description of reality but rather as a political argument in their favor. He also details how the invention of capitalism depended on the creation of a new type of political actor -- an individual liberal subject who was the product of a liberal state. This is magical stuff -- Foucault without the long words and in less than 120 pages.
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times. Karl Polanyi. Beacon Press, 1944.
If Hirschman presents capitalism as a "revolutionary ideology" tied to a specific form of state, Karl Polanyi's classic shows how the development of markets has been a political project pioneered by the state (as opposed to something that emerged in opposition to it). "Laissez faire was planned," he writes. "Planning was not." The creation of markets, that is, has been a violent process involving the wrenching of society from its traditional norms and institutions -- a process that has generated a natural reaction of society against the market itself ("planning"). The limited liberal state has spread the market, Polanyi argues, but its very success has called forth other sorts of states charged with protecting the society that markets have dislocated: fascist, communist, and social democratic.
Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective. By Ha-Joon Chang. Anthem Press, 2000.
Economists since David Ricardo have seen states that practice free trade (rather than trade controlled by the state) as the engine of development in the global economy. Ha-Joon Chang disagrees. He develops Friedrich List's mercantilist idea that free trade between equally developed and differentially factored states may be welfare improving, but free trade between unequally developed states locks in the advantages of the more developed ones, thus "kicking away the ladder" from those beneath. Drawing on extensive data from the nineteenth century, Chang shows how the United States had the highest tariffs in the world during its period of exceptional growth; how the United Kingdom's practice of free trade was selective at best; and how the much-trumpeted Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 effectively halted French industrialization for 50 years.
Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. By Peter Evans. Princeton University Press, 1995.
In the modern era, only some poor countries have managed to achieve strong, continued economic growth and development. Those that have succeeded (primarily in East Asia and, more recently, South Asia) are outnumbered by also-rans (in Latin America) and chronic cases of underdevelopment (in sub-Saharan Africa). Peter Evans argues that the explanation for this pattern lies in the difference sorts of states countries have been saddled with or acquired. Where the state has "embedded autonomy" -- that is, where it can rise above societal interests and implement long-term projects but remains embedded in society's networks and information flows -- it can foster growth and development. Such "developmental" states avoid klepto-patrimonialism, corrupt clientelism, and stagnation. The take-home lesson is that certain kinds of state can be developmental hindrances but other kinds can help promote growth and development.
States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s. By Eric Helleiner. Cornell University Press, 1994.
Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance. By Rawi Abdelal. Harvard University Press, 2007.
Eric Helleiner gives the clearest historical account of how the world moved from restricted capital flows in the 1950s to open and integrated financial markets by the 1980s. He takes readers through the emergence of the "embedded liberal order," the challenges it faced in the 1960s, and its denouement in the 1970s and 1980s. Combining economic and political analysis, Helleiner shows how the neoliberal order that has emerged is not a turnaway from the state but rather dependent on the state for its deployment and operation. Privatization, deregulation, and openness, he argues, mark less the withdrawal of the state than its redeployment in support of a pro-market position. Rawi Abdelal's book builds upon Helleiner's, explaining why the neoliberal order took the form it did. For Abdelal, what is most striking about the current open financial order is the number of rules it has. Far from seeing a "flat" world where economic forces run roughshod over powerless governments, Abdelal sees a rule-governed world where globalization has a French, not an American, accent. He argues that a group of French politicians operating within the "more state than market" institutions of the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the IMF constructed the rules for global capital, institutionalizing on a global level the types of practices usually associated with the state on sovereign and domestic levels.
One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth. By Dani Rodrik. Princeton University Press, 2007.
Neoclassical economists are known for their distrust of the state. It is a surprise, then, for a leading member of the club to come out in favor of the legitimacy of "national policy choices" and admit the utility of industrial policy. Dani Rodrik's book thus marks a watershed in mainstream economic thinking about the role of the state in generating growth and development. Rodrik's main argument is that good growth policies are always context specific, dependent on local knowledge, and implemented by conscious reform rather than happy accident. Laissez faire, accordingly, makes little sense as a general policy package. The world may be globalized, but political actors need to choose and act within that world to maximize their own communities' prosperity -- something that might involve a much greater role for the state than is often admitted in mainstream policy circles.
Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century. By Giovanni Arrighi. Verso, 2007.
Finally, for something completely different, one might try Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing. It can be read as a warning to the United States that the flowering of finance heralds the end of global dominance, as an analysis of the rise of China, and even as a political geography of late capitalism. Indeed, it is all three. But where the book truly excels is how Arrighi puts China rather than the West at the heart of his developmental narrative. His basic claim is that the East Asian state system has led to something different from the type of predatory and destructive capitalism found in European history, where capitalists took over the state and remade it in their image. Add all the markets you want to a country, he says, and it still won't amount to capitalism so long as it lacks the dominance, intellectually and materially, of a capitalist class. The relationship between state and market in China, he claims, where the state "rules" and the capitalist merely "earns," points to a system outside the familiar categories of communist, capitalist, liberal democratic, and so forth. The book is macro-historical sociology on the order of Tilly that places the other readings in a political context.
What to Read on States and Markets
Mark Blyth
Professor of International Political Economy
at Brown University
Foreign Affairs, July 1, 2009
Summary:
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on states and markets.
As governments around the world have responded to the global economic crisis, questions about the appropriate relationships between states and markets are once again a matter of intense public and policy debate. As the discussion proceeds, the subject's long history is worth bearing in mind. The canonical authors one might think to start with --Adam Smith and Karl Marx -- are not actually all that helpful. Smith's writings on the state should be read against his indictment of the mercantilist system, not in relation to the modern world, and Marx's writings on the state, despite some notable epigrams, are also not particularly relevant to the contemporary era. The texts that follow, in contrast, offer readers a deep historical and theoretical understanding of the relationship between states and markets over time.
Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. By Charles Tilly. Basil Blackwell, 1990.
Going back a thousand years, Charles Tilly describes how European societies developed differently by relying on various combinations of coercion (force) and capital (cash). He distinguishes between coercion-intensive empires, capital-intensive cities and city states, and a third, hybrid option, "capitalized coercion," which generated the modern nation states that ultimately survived. Countries such as Britain and France, he argues, sought to enhance the fiscal capacity of their states in response to competitive pressures, and in doing so, they built a set of institutions (the modern state) that transformed society's class structures and paved the way for capitalist development.
The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph. By Albert O. Hirschman. Princeton University Press, 1977.
Possibly the most beautiful and enjoyable book in all of political economy, Albert Hirschman's The Passions and the Interests is a tour de force that takes readers from St. Augustine and Machiavelli to the French physiocrats and the Scottish Enlightenment. Along the way, Hirschman shows that the idea that markets are "natural" was put forward not as a description of reality but rather as a political argument in their favor. He also details how the invention of capitalism depended on the creation of a new type of political actor -- an individual liberal subject who was the product of a liberal state. This is magical stuff -- Foucault without the long words and in less than 120 pages.
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times. Karl Polanyi. Beacon Press, 1944.
If Hirschman presents capitalism as a "revolutionary ideology" tied to a specific form of state, Karl Polanyi's classic shows how the development of markets has been a political project pioneered by the state (as opposed to something that emerged in opposition to it). "Laissez faire was planned," he writes. "Planning was not." The creation of markets, that is, has been a violent process involving the wrenching of society from its traditional norms and institutions -- a process that has generated a natural reaction of society against the market itself ("planning"). The limited liberal state has spread the market, Polanyi argues, but its very success has called forth other sorts of states charged with protecting the society that markets have dislocated: fascist, communist, and social democratic.
Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective. By Ha-Joon Chang. Anthem Press, 2000.
Economists since David Ricardo have seen states that practice free trade (rather than trade controlled by the state) as the engine of development in the global economy. Ha-Joon Chang disagrees. He develops Friedrich List's mercantilist idea that free trade between equally developed and differentially factored states may be welfare improving, but free trade between unequally developed states locks in the advantages of the more developed ones, thus "kicking away the ladder" from those beneath. Drawing on extensive data from the nineteenth century, Chang shows how the United States had the highest tariffs in the world during its period of exceptional growth; how the United Kingdom's practice of free trade was selective at best; and how the much-trumpeted Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 effectively halted French industrialization for 50 years.
Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. By Peter Evans. Princeton University Press, 1995.
In the modern era, only some poor countries have managed to achieve strong, continued economic growth and development. Those that have succeeded (primarily in East Asia and, more recently, South Asia) are outnumbered by also-rans (in Latin America) and chronic cases of underdevelopment (in sub-Saharan Africa). Peter Evans argues that the explanation for this pattern lies in the difference sorts of states countries have been saddled with or acquired. Where the state has "embedded autonomy" -- that is, where it can rise above societal interests and implement long-term projects but remains embedded in society's networks and information flows -- it can foster growth and development. Such "developmental" states avoid klepto-patrimonialism, corrupt clientelism, and stagnation. The take-home lesson is that certain kinds of state can be developmental hindrances but other kinds can help promote growth and development.
States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s. By Eric Helleiner. Cornell University Press, 1994.
Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance. By Rawi Abdelal. Harvard University Press, 2007.
Eric Helleiner gives the clearest historical account of how the world moved from restricted capital flows in the 1950s to open and integrated financial markets by the 1980s. He takes readers through the emergence of the "embedded liberal order," the challenges it faced in the 1960s, and its denouement in the 1970s and 1980s. Combining economic and political analysis, Helleiner shows how the neoliberal order that has emerged is not a turnaway from the state but rather dependent on the state for its deployment and operation. Privatization, deregulation, and openness, he argues, mark less the withdrawal of the state than its redeployment in support of a pro-market position. Rawi Abdelal's book builds upon Helleiner's, explaining why the neoliberal order took the form it did. For Abdelal, what is most striking about the current open financial order is the number of rules it has. Far from seeing a "flat" world where economic forces run roughshod over powerless governments, Abdelal sees a rule-governed world where globalization has a French, not an American, accent. He argues that a group of French politicians operating within the "more state than market" institutions of the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the IMF constructed the rules for global capital, institutionalizing on a global level the types of practices usually associated with the state on sovereign and domestic levels.
One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth. By Dani Rodrik. Princeton University Press, 2007.
Neoclassical economists are known for their distrust of the state. It is a surprise, then, for a leading member of the club to come out in favor of the legitimacy of "national policy choices" and admit the utility of industrial policy. Dani Rodrik's book thus marks a watershed in mainstream economic thinking about the role of the state in generating growth and development. Rodrik's main argument is that good growth policies are always context specific, dependent on local knowledge, and implemented by conscious reform rather than happy accident. Laissez faire, accordingly, makes little sense as a general policy package. The world may be globalized, but political actors need to choose and act within that world to maximize their own communities' prosperity -- something that might involve a much greater role for the state than is often admitted in mainstream policy circles.
Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century. By Giovanni Arrighi. Verso, 2007.
Finally, for something completely different, one might try Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing. It can be read as a warning to the United States that the flowering of finance heralds the end of global dominance, as an analysis of the rise of China, and even as a political geography of late capitalism. Indeed, it is all three. But where the book truly excels is how Arrighi puts China rather than the West at the heart of his developmental narrative. His basic claim is that the East Asian state system has led to something different from the type of predatory and destructive capitalism found in European history, where capitalists took over the state and remade it in their image. Add all the markets you want to a country, he says, and it still won't amount to capitalism so long as it lacks the dominance, intellectually and materially, of a capitalist class. The relationship between state and market in China, he claims, where the state "rules" and the capitalist merely "earns," points to a system outside the familiar categories of communist, capitalist, liberal democratic, and so forth. The book is macro-historical sociology on the order of Tilly that places the other readings in a political context.
Assinar:
Comentários (Atom)
Postagem em destaque
Livro Marxismo e Socialismo finalmente disponível - Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Meu mais recente livro – que não tem nada a ver com o governo atual ou com sua diplomacia esquizofrênica, já vou logo avisando – ficou final...
