Um livro interessante, mas que padece, como muitas outras obras de cientistas políticos americanos, dessa mania de querer modelizar, estilizar todos os tipos de eventos e processos históricos, criando categorias ou tipos-ideais de "tiranos" enquanto líderes políticos ou militares, e seu sucesso relativo em sua tirania.
Acho interessante que se estudem os tiranos da História, e os regimes autoritários, de modo geral, mas eu seria mais circunspecto quanto a essa mania de modelizar a história para encaixar os exemplos concretos disponíveis numa determinada categoria estanque, numa célula do modelo formal, para encaixar tudo bonitinho.
A História é muito mais caótica e imprevisível do que isso, mas esse tipo de exercício não deixa de ter sua utilidade para os estudiosos acadêmicos, e apenas para eles.
Nós, os cidadãos comuns, queremos apenas entender, e eventualmente impedir, que o mesmo aconteça com o nosso país.
Por exemplo, os "tiranos potenciais" que comandam o Brasil desde 2003: não tenho nenhuma dúvida de que são peronistas de botequim, mas se fossem outras as circunstâncias e as condições, estariam se comportando como esses caudilhos do Caribe, como os fascistas de Mussolini, como os nazistas de Hitler, nas suas tentativas de tomar o poder (vários conseguiram), e de levar suas respectivas sociedades para o desastre humano, político e social que sempre constroem.
No caso do Brasil, o que temos são mafiosos travestidos em líderes políticos.
Vale a leitura do livro aqui apenas resenhado.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
H-Net
Greetings Paulo Almeida,
New items have been posted in H-Diplo.
Table of Contents
McKoy on Weeks, 'Dictators at War and Peace' [review]
by System Administrator
Jessica L. P. Weeks. Dictators at War and Peace. Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Series. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014. 264 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8014-7982-3; $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8014-5296-3.
Reviewed by Michael McKoy (Wheaton College)
Published on H-Diplo (September, 2015)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach
Western victory in the Cold War produced a flood of triumphalist literature on Western liberal-democratic exceptionalism. American social scientists produced a myriad of arguments and hypotheses explaining how and why liberal democracies outlasted and triumphed over its ideological competitors. Authoritarian regimes, in turn, were cast as mere foils and given little analytical attention. However, in the past decade, as nascent democracies stumbled, authoritarian regimes persisted, and Chinese and Iranian ascent threatened US hegemony, political scientists have begun to give authoritarian politics more attention.
Dictators at War and Peace by Jessica L. P. Weeks is one of the most significant contributions to this literature. Weeks argues that not all authoritarians are created equal, and this difference affects their likelihood of initiating and winning military conflicts. Building on research from Barbara Geddes and Brian Lai and Dan Slater, Weeks organizes a typology for authoritarian regimes, categorizing them as either “machines” (civilian leaders constrained by civilian elites), “juntas” (military leaders constrained by military elites), “bosses” (unconstrained civilian leaders), or “strongmen” (unconstrained military leaders).[1] She develops a meticulous questionnaire to ascertain a regime’s type, asking about the military affiliation of the leader and governing elites (militarism), and whether the leader controlled political appointments or created loyalist security institutions (constraints). Weeks argues that machines and juntas are less likely to start international conflicts than bosses and strongmen, because leaders in machines and juntas will face greater domestic punishment for failure, and bosses (e.g., Saddam Hussein) and strongmen (e.g., Muammar Qaddafi) are likely to be more aggressive and risk-prone, given the qualities necessary to become an absolute ruler in the first place. Weeks further hypothesizes that this should make constrained authoritarians more militarily successful than absolute dictators, because they are more prudent about the wars they choose to fight. Thus, while China (machine regime) might pose a greater military threat to its neighbors, it is North Korea (boss regime) that may pose the bigger threat, because it is more likely to fight ... but also more likely to lose.
Furthermore, between machines and juntas, Weeks expects juntas to be more aggressive, because military leaders are selected and acculturated to value force and distrust diplomacy, while civilians are likely more wary of conflict and amenable to diplomacy. This makes juntas less selective in the military conflicts than machines and thus less successful in wars. Indeed, Weeks ultimately posits that machines should be just as conflict-averse and militarily successful as stable democracies. As long as the civilian leader is accountable to a conflict-averse audience, s/he is likely to be more mindful about getting involved in foreign adventures. This flies in the face of much of the democratic exceptionalism literature of the post-Cold War era.[2]
Weeks’s statistical results bear this out, showing machines to be just as conflict-averse and militarily successful as stable democracies. (Regimes undergoing transitions are counted as “others.”) Bosses and strongmen are much more conflict-prone and militarily unsuccessful, with bosses losing 56 percent of their wars and strongmen losing 73 percent versus machines and democracies losing 25 percent and 28 percent, respectively, from 1921 to 2007 (p. 61). The results for juntas are more mixed and less clear, largely due to the limited number of them in the past century. Weeks does an excellent job explaining the statistical results in accessible terms, but the mechanics will likely be difficult for non-statisticians. She also controls for other factors known to explain conflict initiation and success—capabilities, alliances, and geographic contiguity, among others—along with testing the possibility that involvement in conflicts may instead encourage dictatorial consolidation. She finds that none of these are significant factors, though it would have been helpful for her to consider this reverse causality in the subsequent case studies.
Weeks complements her statistical analysis with several in-depth case studies. The cases include wars involving Argentina (democracy/junta), Iraq (boss), Japan (machine/junta), the Soviet Union (boss/machine), and Vietnam (machine). All are well researched and well written, and they largely establish the effect regime type can have on military performance. However, the cases vary in how well they test the causal connection between regime type and war initiation. The Argentina and Japan cases are the strongest in this regard. Weeks effectively demonstrates that their transitions from a democracy and machine, respectively, to junta regimes increased their faith that military action would overcome diplomatic impasses. She also successfully challenges the long-standing argument that Argentina’s initiation of the Falklands/Malvinas war was a diversionary strategy, and instead argues that the military leadership’s genuine belief in the efficacy of force—a belief not shared by the previous democratic regime—was determinative. Likewise, Japanese civilian elites in the 1930s were wary of risky foreign adventures, but were eventually overruled and overthrown by the military, who led Japan into war first against China and then the United States. These cases clearly demonstrate the effect regime type had on foreign policy.
Weeks is less successful in demonstrating that the Soviet transition from the Stalinist boss regime to the post-Stalinist machine regimes increased Soviet aggressiveness and military incompetence. Of the four Soviet-initiated invasions from Josef Stalin to Mikhail Gorbachev—against Finland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan—all but one occurred under collective leadership. Moreover, under Leonid Brezhnev, whom Weeks lauds as leading the most collectively oriented Soviet regime, Moscow issued the Brezhnev Doctrine, declaring its right to intervene in any socialist country. The Brezhnev regime then followed through by invading Afghanistan in 1979, initiating the Soviet Union’s longest foreign military conflict. Quite surprisingly, Weeks does not examine this war in much detail, explaining that “the Soviets interceded at the invitation of the Afghan government” (p. 166). Yet this was clearly an engineered invitation, and even if not, the Soviet invasion, escalation, and subsequent debacle run directly counter to Weeks’s arguments about military initiation and performance. This would have been an ideal least-likely case for Weeks to better elaborate on her causal mechanisms, but this may be left for future scholars to consider.
In contrast to the other cases, the Vietnam and Iraq cases include no variation in either regime type or war initiation/performance. This is less problematic in the Vietnam case, because Weeks notes that General Secretary Le Duan preferred a more aggressive approach toward South Vietnam earlier than others in the government. This suggests a counterfactual that had Le Duan been less constrained, he may have initiated a direct confrontation sooner. The Iraq case, however, has a difficult time fully testing the connection between regime type and conflict initiation. In an earlier chapter, Weeks references Giacomo Chiozza and Hein Goemans’s argument in Leaders and International Conflict (2011) that vulnerability to harsh domestic punishment makes leaders more likely to “gamble for survival” by engaging in risky foreign adventures (p. 74), as opposed to her argument that invulnerability makes leaders more risk-prone. While she tests Chiozza and Goemans’s argument in the junta cases and convincingly rejects it, she does not apply it to the Iraq case. Yet the vulnerability argument is a plausible alternative explanation for the foreign policy of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Arguably, Saddam’s decision to invade Kuwait was motivated more by fear than greed. Saddam’s absolute rule required paying rents to critical domestic constituencies; Kuwait’s over-pumping and slant-drilling drove down Iraq’s oil revenues, threatening Saddam’s hold on power. In addition, invading Kuwait allowed Saddam to redirect his battle-hardened and increasingly disgruntled majority-Shi’a army elsewhere. Fear of domestic punishment also offers an alternative explanation of his refusal to withdraw. Saddam justifiably feared revolt, which later came to pass. Weeks acknowledges that there were grumblings among the Sunni generals about a coup as the crisis escalated. The Shi’a and Kurdish uprisings may in fact have saved Saddam, as they rallied the military and Sunni population behind Saddam, who under different circumstances may have overthrown him themselves.
These critiques do not detract from Weeks’s extraordinary contribution. Rather, they provide fruitful avenues for future research in an important and still developing research area. Weeks’s typology and analysis have laid the foundation for understanding the diversity of authoritarian international politics, and Dictators at War and Peace will undoubtedly become the standard for such analysis. Weeks concludes with a brief but very insightful discussion of the policy implications of this authoritarian diversity. Among them is a recommendation to foreign leaders to engage in direct, face-to-face diplomacy with bosses and strongmen, in order to more effectively communicate both threats and assurances. She reasonably worries that sycophantic underlings may water down foreign communications, particularly threats, to appeal to their leaders’ existing views. Face-to-face interactions may do a better job of convincing unconstrained dictators that while they may face little domestic punishment for dangerous behavior, there will be severe foreign consequences. It is good advice for a world that is unlikely to be rid of authoritarian governance for the foreseeable future, if ever.
Notes
[1]. Barbara Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 2, no. 1 (1999): 115-144; and Brian Lai and Dan Slater, “Institutions of the Offensive: Domestic Sources of Dispute Initiation in Authoritarian Regimes, 1950-1992,” American Journal of Political Science 50, no. 1 (January 2006): 113-126. Weeks borrows her terminology from Lai and Slater but develops different hypotheses regarding international behavior.
[2]. For a survey, see Michael Brown, Owen Coté, Sean Lynne-Jones, and Steven Miller, eds., Do Democracies Win Their Wars? (Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2011).
Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=44347
Citation: Michael McKoy. Review of Weeks, Jessica L. P., Dictators at War and Peace. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. September, 2015.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=44347
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sexta-feira, 4 de setembro de 2015
A mistificacao da historia pelos companheiros totalitarios - Instituto Lula
Como numa ficção orwelliana, os mentirosos totalitários pretendem reescrever a história.
Poucas vezes a desfaçatez na mistificação foi tão longe.
Se existisse um tribunal da história, os companheiros seriam processados por crime de alta traição à verdade.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
| Explicando a economia via Instituto Lula (futuramente nos livros de história) : Coisas assim: o Real “foi uma conquista importantíssima, mas infelizmente na cartilha do neoliberalismo, dominante na época, o povo não passava de um detalhe…” Ou assim: o Plano Real “foge do script dos anteriores e estabiliza a moeda, mas o país paga um alto preço.” “Era o país do desemprego, baixos salários, falta de oportunidades, confinamento da população pobre e preta nos guetos. Foram tempos de grande bronca social e forte revolta política. O Brasil parecia estar à beira do abismo. Mas graças à democracia encontrou forças para avançar…” Em contraposição a tudo isso, a chegada de Lula ao poder é esquematicamente apresentada como uma espécie de portal de acesso ao Éden: “Em 2002, o país elegeu o primeiro operário. E reelegeu em 2006. Em 2010, também pela primeira vez em nossa história, entregou a uma mulher o comando do país. Ela foi reeleita em 2014. Tempos de esperança, tempos de oportunidade, tempos de mais democracia…” http://josiasdesouza.blogosfera.uol.com.br/2015/09/03/memorial-da-democracia-de-lula-omite-escandalos-e-os-erros-historicos-do-pt/ | |||
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quinta-feira, 3 de setembro de 2015
Oliveira Lima: uma caricatura sem autor e meu projeto sobre o historiador - Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Este resumo não está disponível.
Clique aqui para ver a postagem.
A China flexiona seus musculos, navais... e terrestres - Foreign Policy Security Report
Situation Report: China flexes muscles while cutting troops; sends ships north
By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley
National Security Daily Brief, Foreign Policy Situation Report, September 3, 2015
Shipping news. The U.S. Navy is tracking five Chinese warships sailing in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, marking the first time the Chinese Navy has ventured that far north, according to defense officials. While the ships are perfectly within their rights plying international waters, the deployment -- which includes three surface warships, a replenishment ship, and an amphibious assault ship -- was spotted at the same time that Beijing hosted a massive military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The ships had just completed a joint exercise with the Russian navy which ended last week, before moving north.
Show and tell. The military parade in Beijing Thursday morning marked a significant coming out party for the People’s Liberation Army, as the military had the chance to flex its muscles on the world stage in a big way, just days before President Xi Jinping visits Washington to meet with President Barack Obama.
While the event included 12,000 troops, about 200 planes and helicopters, and around 500 troop carriers, tanks, rocket launchers and missiles, Xi took the world by surprise by announcing he’s cutting the 2 million-strong force by about 300,000 personnel. Echoing the U.S. Defense Department, China is focusing more on high-tech naval and air assets as opposed to ground troops, requiring fewer but better trained troops in the coming years.
Analysis firm IHS estimated on Wednesday that China’s defense budget would grow to approximately $260 billion in 2020, about doubling what Beijing spent in 2010. Five years ago, China spent an estimated $134 billion on defense, but “across this decade, China is expected to spend almost $2 trillion on defence,” the group’s analysts conclude.
Alone, together. Even with increasing budgets and a decreasing number of troops, however, Beijing is running into some of the same budgetary problems as the Pentagon, China analyst Dean Cheng of The Heritage Foundation tells SitRep. With its increasing military capabilities, China “needs to pay for a lot of things, like training, new equipment,” and the salaries that come along with maintaining a skilled, professional military, as opposed to merely relying on draftees as it has traditionally done. That doesn’t come cheap, and the political leadership in Beijing appears to be making the calculation that less, in some respects, is more.
The guns of September. Of particular interest to China-watchers is a weapon that made its first public appearance on Thursday, the massive Dongfeng 21-D “carrier killer” missile, which has been the object of much speculation in the Pentagon since the Chinese announced it in 2011. Defense experts generally estimate that the missile has a range of up to 1,500 km and may be able to travel at up to 10 times the speed of sound, making it almost impossible to intercept once launched. Terrifying video of columns of trucks carrying the missile on parade can be found here.
By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley
National Security Daily Brief, Foreign Policy Situation Report, September 3, 2015
Shipping news. The U.S. Navy is tracking five Chinese warships sailing in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, marking the first time the Chinese Navy has ventured that far north, according to defense officials. While the ships are perfectly within their rights plying international waters, the deployment -- which includes three surface warships, a replenishment ship, and an amphibious assault ship -- was spotted at the same time that Beijing hosted a massive military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The ships had just completed a joint exercise with the Russian navy which ended last week, before moving north.
Show and tell. The military parade in Beijing Thursday morning marked a significant coming out party for the People’s Liberation Army, as the military had the chance to flex its muscles on the world stage in a big way, just days before President Xi Jinping visits Washington to meet with President Barack Obama.
While the event included 12,000 troops, about 200 planes and helicopters, and around 500 troop carriers, tanks, rocket launchers and missiles, Xi took the world by surprise by announcing he’s cutting the 2 million-strong force by about 300,000 personnel. Echoing the U.S. Defense Department, China is focusing more on high-tech naval and air assets as opposed to ground troops, requiring fewer but better trained troops in the coming years.
Analysis firm IHS estimated on Wednesday that China’s defense budget would grow to approximately $260 billion in 2020, about doubling what Beijing spent in 2010. Five years ago, China spent an estimated $134 billion on defense, but “across this decade, China is expected to spend almost $2 trillion on defence,” the group’s analysts conclude.
Alone, together. Even with increasing budgets and a decreasing number of troops, however, Beijing is running into some of the same budgetary problems as the Pentagon, China analyst Dean Cheng of The Heritage Foundation tells SitRep. With its increasing military capabilities, China “needs to pay for a lot of things, like training, new equipment,” and the salaries that come along with maintaining a skilled, professional military, as opposed to merely relying on draftees as it has traditionally done. That doesn’t come cheap, and the political leadership in Beijing appears to be making the calculation that less, in some respects, is more.
The guns of September. Of particular interest to China-watchers is a weapon that made its first public appearance on Thursday, the massive Dongfeng 21-D “carrier killer” missile, which has been the object of much speculation in the Pentagon since the Chinese announced it in 2011. Defense experts generally estimate that the missile has a range of up to 1,500 km and may be able to travel at up to 10 times the speed of sound, making it almost impossible to intercept once launched. Terrifying video of columns of trucks carrying the missile on parade can be found here.
Research Gate: estatísticas de acesso à trabalhos Paulo R Almeida
O Research Gate me enviou as minhas estatísticas do período recente:
country
Surpreendente os EUA passarem na frente do Brasil, o que indica que o Research Gate é pouco conhecido e pouco usado em nosso país.
A informação sobre os trabalhos mais acessados é também surpreendente, pois se trata de trabalhos quase esquecidos, que nem sei exatamente quando foram escritos e onde foram publicados:
downloaded publications
· See moreEnfim, é sempre gratificante saber que trabalhos produzidos com alto significado acadêmico e deliberado sentido didático estejam sendo úteis à comunidade à qual eles devem servir..
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
time publication downloads
Downloads Book 2533PrataCasaBookNov111 edited by Funag, 11/2013; Funag. 758 Dataset Pensamento Diplomático Brasileiro Parte 1 593 Dataset Pensamento Diplomático Brasileiro Parte 3 COMPLETA 438 Dataset Pensamento Diplomático Brasileiro Parte 2 355 Article Brazilian trade policy in historical perspective: constant features, erratic behavior06/2013; 10(1):11-26. DOI:10.5102/rdi.v10i1.2393 177 Book Rompendo Fronteiras: a Academia pensa a Diplomacia (2014)1 edited by Kindle (1202 KB, ASIN: B00P8JHT8Y; link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P8JHT8Y)., 11/2014; Author edition.
| Downloads | |
|---|---|
| Book 2533PrataCasaBookNov11 1 edited by Funag, 11/2013; Funag. | 758 |
| Dataset Pensamento Diplomático Brasileiro Parte 1 | 593 |
| Dataset Pensamento Diplomático Brasileiro Parte 3 COMPLETA | 438 |
| Dataset Pensamento Diplomático Brasileiro Parte 2 | 355 |
| Article Brazilian trade policy in historical perspective: constant features, erratic behavior 06/2013; 10(1):11-26. DOI:10.5102/rdi.v10i1.2393 | 177 |
| Book Rompendo Fronteiras: a Academia pensa a Diplomacia (2014) 1 edited by Kindle (1202 KB, ASIN: B00P8JHT8Y; link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P8JHT8Y)., 11/2014; Author edition. |
The Economist: Brasil no fundo do buraco, mas continua cavando...
Este editorial da Economist me lembra um livro que li, vários anos atrás, sobre o orçamento brasileiro. Não era sobre os orçamentos aloprados dos companheiros, que adoram déficits e crescimento das despesas, era um pouco antigo, mas igual que hoje fica na mesma prática: primeiro se fixam as despesas, depois se vai buscar as receitas, evidentemente no bolso dos cidadãos e no caixa das empresas.
O livro foi escrito pelo ministro (embaixador) do Reino da Bélgica no Brasil, mas no segundo Império, logo no começo do reinado de D. Pedro II. O conde Straten-Ponthoz talvez não tivesse muito o que fazer no Rio de Janeiro, a não ser especular sobre o câmbio (o mil-réis variava muito em relação à libra esterlina), e então se dedicou a analisar o nosso orçamento, o que fez em dois grossos volumes, publicados na Bélgica, em 1847: Le budget du Brésil .
Nesse livro ele é muito realista: " Un État gouverné par des institutions représentatives se reflète tout entier dans son budget. (...) L’ordre plus naturel serait de commencer par examiner les recettes; plusieurs raisons demandent qu’on adopte une marche inverse. La première est la coûtume des gouvernements de subordonner leur revenu à leur dépense, et non leur dépense à leur revenu."
Em outros termos, em lugar de determinar as despesas em função das receitas esperadas, ou estimadas, os governos (leia-se o governo imperial brasileiro) fixa as suas despesas e depois vai buscar as receitas.
Parece que nada mudou desde o século 19 para cá...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brazil's disastrous budget: All fall down
Brazil is in an economic hole--and still digging.
The Economist, September 2, 2015
PLENTY of countries run deficits. And when recessions occur, loosening the public purse strings makes sense for many of them. But Brazil is not most countries. Its economy is in deep trouble and its fiscal credibility is crumbling fast.
The end of the global commodity boom and a confidence-sapping corruption scandal, after years of economic mismanagement, have extinguished growth. Brazil's GDP is expected to contract by 2.3% this year. Fast-rising joblessness, together with falling real private-sector pay and weak consumption, are squeezing tax receipts. Meanwhile rising inflation, allied to a free-falling currency, means investors demand higher returns on government debt. The result is a budgetary disaster. This year a planned primary surplus (ie, before interest payments) has vanished. Once interest payments are included, the total deficit this year is projected to be 8-9% of GDP.
Faced with the prospect of public finances slipping out of control, Brazil's policymakers have stuck their heads in the sand. The 2016 draft budget sent to Congress this week by the president, Dilma Rousseff, builds in a primary deficit for the first time in the post-hyperinflation era (see page 47). The very legality of a budget with a primary deficit has been questioned: a fiscal-responsibility law passed in 2000 has long been interpreted as banning spending that outstrips receipts. But whatever the legal debate, the budget is calamitous.
First, Brazil would have to borrow to cover all its interest payments-a risk for a country with by far the highest real interest rates of any sizeable economy, at a time of recession and wider emerging-market jitters. Second, a primary deficit sends a bleak message about Brazilian economic management. Since the turn of the century Brazil's government has been guided by three principles: a credible inflation target, a floating currency and primary surpluses, ideally large enough to bring public debt down. This "tripod" allowed it to move away from its hyperinflationary past, convinced ratings agencies to grant it an investment-grade badge and underpinned growth that propelled millions out of poverty. All this is now in jeopardy.
Ms Rousseff is not the only one to blame. She had hoped to run a primary surplus, despite the recession, by resurrecting a tax on financial transactions that was abolished in 2007. But her political weakness put paid to that plan. At just 8%, her public-approval rating has hit depths unplumbed by any previous Brazilian president, undermining her authority in Congress. Lawmakers are also angered by her finance minister's attempts to rein in pork-barrel spending, and alarmed by a wide-ranging investigation into corruption at the state-controlled oil giant, Petrobras. Knowing that the new tax would be unpopular-and hoping to weaken Ms Rousseff further-they made it clear that they would block it.
Congress, Ms Rousseff's advisers say, must now find a way to pay for the spending it refuses to cut. But it is stuffed with short-termists who are more concerned with lining their pockets than securing Brazil's future. Many, both in the opposition and among her supposed allies, are wasting their energy trying to impeach Ms Rousseff, rather than finding a way to fix the budget. Unless this impasse is resolved quickly, business and consumer confidence will fall further and foreign investors will pull out. Brazil will be headed for a multi-year slump and a ratings downgrade.
So how might Brazil reach a primary surplus? By far the best solution would be to cut public spending, which accounts for more than 40% of GDP, much more than in other middle-income countries. Ms Rousseff has scaled back some discretionary spending, for example by promising to merge some ministries. But the 2016 budget includes plans to raise the minimum wage and many welfare payments by a whopping 10%. Congressional gridlock and a constitution that is chock-full of unaffordable spending commitments mean that only rarely have Brazilian governments managed to trim outgoings-and only under presidents endowed with remarkable political and leadership skills. Ms Rousseff falls far short of that ideal.
That leaves the sticking-plaster. The proposed financial-transaction tax would be, like so many Brazilian taxes, poorly designed and hard on growth. But it would still be better than ramping up spending with no way to pay for it. If not this tax, then some other is needed-and after that, the business of reforming Brazil's greedy and profligate government.
O livro foi escrito pelo ministro (embaixador) do Reino da Bélgica no Brasil, mas no segundo Império, logo no começo do reinado de D. Pedro II. O conde Straten-Ponthoz talvez não tivesse muito o que fazer no Rio de Janeiro, a não ser especular sobre o câmbio (o mil-réis variava muito em relação à libra esterlina), e então se dedicou a analisar o nosso orçamento, o que fez em dois grossos volumes, publicados na Bélgica, em 1847: Le budget du Brésil .
Nesse livro ele é muito realista: " Un État gouverné par des institutions représentatives se reflète tout entier dans son budget. (...) L’ordre plus naturel serait de commencer par examiner les recettes; plusieurs raisons demandent qu’on adopte une marche inverse. La première est la coûtume des gouvernements de subordonner leur revenu à leur dépense, et non leur dépense à leur revenu."
Em outros termos, em lugar de determinar as despesas em função das receitas esperadas, ou estimadas, os governos (leia-se o governo imperial brasileiro) fixa as suas despesas e depois vai buscar as receitas.
Parece que nada mudou desde o século 19 para cá...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brazil's disastrous budget: All fall down
Brazil is in an economic hole--and still digging.
The Economist, September 2, 2015
PLENTY of countries run deficits. And when recessions occur, loosening the public purse strings makes sense for many of them. But Brazil is not most countries. Its economy is in deep trouble and its fiscal credibility is crumbling fast.
The end of the global commodity boom and a confidence-sapping corruption scandal, after years of economic mismanagement, have extinguished growth. Brazil's GDP is expected to contract by 2.3% this year. Fast-rising joblessness, together with falling real private-sector pay and weak consumption, are squeezing tax receipts. Meanwhile rising inflation, allied to a free-falling currency, means investors demand higher returns on government debt. The result is a budgetary disaster. This year a planned primary surplus (ie, before interest payments) has vanished. Once interest payments are included, the total deficit this year is projected to be 8-9% of GDP.
Faced with the prospect of public finances slipping out of control, Brazil's policymakers have stuck their heads in the sand. The 2016 draft budget sent to Congress this week by the president, Dilma Rousseff, builds in a primary deficit for the first time in the post-hyperinflation era (see page 47). The very legality of a budget with a primary deficit has been questioned: a fiscal-responsibility law passed in 2000 has long been interpreted as banning spending that outstrips receipts. But whatever the legal debate, the budget is calamitous.
First, Brazil would have to borrow to cover all its interest payments-a risk for a country with by far the highest real interest rates of any sizeable economy, at a time of recession and wider emerging-market jitters. Second, a primary deficit sends a bleak message about Brazilian economic management. Since the turn of the century Brazil's government has been guided by three principles: a credible inflation target, a floating currency and primary surpluses, ideally large enough to bring public debt down. This "tripod" allowed it to move away from its hyperinflationary past, convinced ratings agencies to grant it an investment-grade badge and underpinned growth that propelled millions out of poverty. All this is now in jeopardy.
Ms Rousseff is not the only one to blame. She had hoped to run a primary surplus, despite the recession, by resurrecting a tax on financial transactions that was abolished in 2007. But her political weakness put paid to that plan. At just 8%, her public-approval rating has hit depths unplumbed by any previous Brazilian president, undermining her authority in Congress. Lawmakers are also angered by her finance minister's attempts to rein in pork-barrel spending, and alarmed by a wide-ranging investigation into corruption at the state-controlled oil giant, Petrobras. Knowing that the new tax would be unpopular-and hoping to weaken Ms Rousseff further-they made it clear that they would block it.
Congress, Ms Rousseff's advisers say, must now find a way to pay for the spending it refuses to cut. But it is stuffed with short-termists who are more concerned with lining their pockets than securing Brazil's future. Many, both in the opposition and among her supposed allies, are wasting their energy trying to impeach Ms Rousseff, rather than finding a way to fix the budget. Unless this impasse is resolved quickly, business and consumer confidence will fall further and foreign investors will pull out. Brazil will be headed for a multi-year slump and a ratings downgrade.
So how might Brazil reach a primary surplus? By far the best solution would be to cut public spending, which accounts for more than 40% of GDP, much more than in other middle-income countries. Ms Rousseff has scaled back some discretionary spending, for example by promising to merge some ministries. But the 2016 budget includes plans to raise the minimum wage and many welfare payments by a whopping 10%. Congressional gridlock and a constitution that is chock-full of unaffordable spending commitments mean that only rarely have Brazilian governments managed to trim outgoings-and only under presidents endowed with remarkable political and leadership skills. Ms Rousseff falls far short of that ideal.
That leaves the sticking-plaster. The proposed financial-transaction tax would be, like so many Brazilian taxes, poorly designed and hard on growth. But it would still be better than ramping up spending with no way to pay for it. If not this tax, then some other is needed-and after that, the business of reforming Brazil's greedy and profligate government.
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