preliminary version
BRAZIL: THE EMERGING POLITICAL SITUATION
Simon Schwartzman
Paper prepared for the conference Brazil, 1980-2000,
Rio de Janeiro, August 20-22, 1980
Summary
1. Reverse Expectations
2. Expansion and crisis in the Economy
.3. Expansion and crisis in the social system
4. Expansion and crisis in the political system
5. The new regime and its political predicament
6. The current situation
7. The emerging political situation
Notes
Compared with other countries in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as with
her own recent past, Brazil is going through a period of relative freedom
of speech, political participation and competition - what is being called
the politics of "abertura". Political analysts wonder, however, whether
this is the beginning of the consolidation of a stable democratic system
or, on the contrary, is just a temporary relief in a long chain of authoritarian
governments. This concern is even more serious because there are abundant
signs that this experiment with democracy is being attempted in a context
of a rapidly worsening economic and social crisis. Common sense seems to
suggest that democracy requires social and economic health, while authoritarianism
thrives in crisis. in contemporary Brazil, however, the opposite seems to
be happening. How to understand it? What does it promise for the near future?
These are the questions this paper hopes to explore.
1. Reverse Expectations
Brazilians born during or after the Second World War have an almost uninterrupted
experience of economic growth and social advancement. In spite of the known
figures of malnutrition, illiteracy, and extremely low income levels of
substantial portion of the country's population, the fact remains that,
in the last three or four. decades, the number of people receiving the benefits
of the modern economy, urban life and education has been steadily growing,
even with distortions and problems of all kinds. Although the rate of improvement
has been too slow and uneven to accommodate everybody, it is possible to
say that no significant social group has suffered until recently a marked
drop in their social and economic standing.
This statement can be confirmed by the published figures which point out
the high rates of growth and continuous increases in the levels of education
and urbanization in the country. This is also corroborated by more specific
and specialized research.(1) It is possible to focus attention on two particularly
significant stages in this process. The first one was during the Juscelino
Kubitscheck government in 1955-60, when the country's industrialization
and integration in the international economy was accelerated, among other
things with the setting up of the automobile industry in Brazil. Those were
years of very high growth rates, quasi-full participatory democracy, intense
socioeconomic mobility and political mobilization - and high rates of inflation.
The second period was the General Emílio Médici Administration (1969-1974)
Those were the times of the so called miracle. During these years political
repression reached its highest point after the crackdown on the political
mobilization attempts of 1968. There was press censorship, political activities
were severely curtailed, and wages were strictly controlled by the government.
At the same time, however, the economy was growing at unprecedent rates,
the educational system was rapidly expanding, mostly at its upper level,
and Brazil was even able to win for the third time the World Soccer Cup
in 1972. Economists still debate what happened with income distribution
during this period. It seems to be clear that income inequality increased
significantly. This did not seem to happen, however, because the lower strata
became poorer, but because the upper segments became much wealthier.(2).
For many of those that were not directly hit by the government repressive
policies, the Médici period is often remembered with nostalgia.
The years of General Ernesto Geisel, however, marked at the same time the
culmination of the optimist expectations of the last forty years, and the
beginning of the reversal of expectations that are the main trait of the
present period. For the government, the growth rates of the recent past
were assumed to continue endlessly into the future, and the country was
finally ready to occupy its position as a world economic and political power.
Ambitious projects were started - the nuclear program, the construction
of the Itaipu Hydroelectric complex, the "steel railroad", the heavy investments
in country's machine-tools industry, the creation of autonomous scientific
and technological capability, etc.(3) The
signs of impending crisis, both internal and external, were considered just
short-term annoyances on the way of a global project of national greatness.
Political democracy was also part of the big project, but had to wait its
proper time, and could not disturb the government's self-assigned efficiency.
Social problems of poverty, illiteracy and urban marginality were acknowledged
as deserving the government's attention, but did not have the first priority.
All these projects were nurtured in fairly restricted circles of government
bureaucrats and private or professional groups which were associated with
them. For the public opinion as a whole, what was more visible were the
effects of the international energy crisis, the spirally growing weight
of the foreign debt, the tensions in the urban centers, the failures of
the educational system, the limitations for political expression and participation,
and the severe governmental restrictions on wage increases and wage bargaining.
What the Figueiredo administration seems to have done is to choose the easy
way out on both accounts: to renounce the ambitious project to make of Brazil
a world power, and to give free rein to political expression and mobilization.
The overall expectations of continuous progress are being rapidly turning
into uncertainties and anxiety about the future and the government does
not seem to have any long-range project except to weather the crisis without
sinking the boat, with the hope, perhaps, that the future will be more benevolent.
I shall examine more in detail how this general picture is being expressed
in the actual workings of the country's political system. Before that, however,
it might be advisable to go a little deeper into the economic and social
dimensions of the present crisis.
2. Expansion and crisis in the
Economy
Without attempting to substitute for the specialized analyses of the economists,
it is possible to summarize the main characteristics of Brazil's economic
growth in the last decade by the following traits
a) A continuous dependence on a few staple products for the international
market. Coffee, since the second half of the nineteenth century, and more
recently sugar and soybeans, have been the main sources of foreign income,
and have also allowed for the financing of the industrial sector and the
government machinery. Only over the last few years has the weight of the
staple products started to be reduced by the growing participation of a
few industrialized items in the country's exports.
b) Brazilian industrialization, which picks up speed in the 1930's, depends,
essentially:
- on the existence of a protected internal market - first by
the world crisis of 1929, then by the war, and more recently by the tariff
and exchange rate barriers raised against imports.
- on the growing role of the state as a main financier, buyer and protector
of the market for industrialized goods and services. The Brazilian state
has been, particularly since the 60's, the country's main investor and
entrepreneur, consolidating its monopoly in a few key sectors of the economy
- energy, communications, steel production, railroad and sea transportation
- and being in control of the lion's share of the country's commercial
and development banking system.
- the presence of foreign capital and multinational corporations which
tend to concentrate in the sectors of advanced technology which are not
already occupied by the state-owned enterprises.
c) There is still an important "traditional", or subsistence economy in
the countryside. This "traditional"economy is a continuous source of migration
of surplus population to the cities. A contemporary "enclosure" process
is taking place by means of the expansion of capital intensive, modern agriculture
corporations which are rapidly destroying this "traditional" economy, increasing
the proletarization of the rural population and / or its forced migration
to the cities. The consequence has been the creation of a large squatter
population in the urban areas that is not absorbed by the country's modern
economy and cannot return to its origins in the countryside. The presence
of this "marginal" population in the cities helps to keep the salaries low
at the bottom of the wage structure, at the same time that it is a growing
source of social problems and unrest.
d) The recent years have also witnessed the development of a large speculative
market of financial papers of all kinds which seldom lead to actual investments
of resources in productive undertakings. Capital takes shelter, however,
in real state property, making this one of the more active areas of the
country's economy.
The current economic crisis has these among other characteristics:
a) The external sector of the country's economy seems to be eating up most
of what the country can get with its growing exports. The service of the
external debt, the raise in oil prices, the profit remittances of the multinational
corporations, and so on, are aggravated by the fact that the very advancement
of Brazil's industrialization make its dependency on some primary goods
and high technology products fairly inelastic.
b) The two main answers to the problems of the balance of payments - increase
in agricultural exports and the alcohol program - are bound to have deep
consequences in the country's ability to produce foodstuffs for the internal
market. In the recent years the country has had to import black beans, rice,
and has always been dependent on wheat.
c) Economic growth, even when it occurs, is progressively less able to respond
to the raising demands for goods and services from the population. These
demands tend to increase independently from the actual rates of economic
growth, and the curve of expectations tends to be exponential. The development
based on modern technology and capital intensiveness combined with the diffusion
of modern communications and propaganda tend to widen the disproportion
of people aspiring to a standard of life regarding what the country's economy
can provide.
d) In spite of eventual good harvests, some geological and mineralogical
findings, and eventual technological breakthroughs in agriculture, it seems
that the notion that the country can growth thanks to unlimited resources
and an endless frontier is rapidly disappearing. Compared with its size,
Brazil is a fairly poor country, geographically and geologically. There
is no oil, no coal, most of the land is difficult to exploit, and the extensive
and predatory use of natural resources is already leading to their exhaustion.
e) Inflation has apparently no control. It is fueled in part by the government's
need to attend more demands than what the economy would allow: but also
by the profits of speculative financing, the salaries of the military and
the civil service, the cruzeiro counterparts of foreign loans and investments,
and so on; it is fueled by the escalator system that is applied twice a
year to salaries and more frequently to savings accounts arid almost all
aspects of the economy; and to the general use of price mark-ups as edges
of the industry and service companies against future uncertainties. Last
but not least, it is fueled by the external prices of oil.
3. Expansion and crisis in the social system
There are two faces of the social crisis. One is a crisis of social participation
and employment. The other is a crisis of consumption. The two are related,
but are not the same. Although it is difficult to measure, it is possible
to say that, for many sectors in the middle and upper crusts of the social
structure, to get a meaningful insertion in the country's social and economic
job market is more of a problem than to be able to consume what they think
they need. The consequence is social and political alienation. Some of the
main characteristics of the country's social development in the last decades
are the following:
a) Population has grown continuously, going from about 40 million in 19140
to around (1)10 million today. This means that the Brazilian population
has doubled about every 25 years. This growth is explained by a combination
of high fertility and decreasing mortality rates. The result has been a
very young population, which means that any drops in the fertility rates,
which are already occurring, will only have consequences on the long term.
b) Population is concentrating in the urban centers. In 1940 31% of the
Brazilians lived in urban areas: in 1970 the figure was 60%. The majority
is still in small and middle-size areas, but more than 20% of the country's
population was in four metropolitan areas of more than 2 million inhabitants
(Sao Paulo, Rio die Janeiro, Recife and Belo Horizonte) in 1970. Urbanization
happens both in industrial and administrative centers, in the more and less
developed areas of the country.
c) In the last fifteen years, higher education has expanded very rapidly,
secondary education has expanded less, and primary education has expanded
very little. In other words, educational opportunities for those having
some previous education have improved much more than for those that had
nothing to start with. This improvement in education did not mean, as some
theories would suppose, that the population became necessarily more productive.
What did happen was an increase in the demand for white collar and professional
jobs, very often in the public-service, as well as an increase in the bargaining
and pressure power of several social groups. The expansion of the university
system meant a downgrade - of its average quality, since public resources
for the university system did not match the liberalization of admittance
procedures and accreditation for private institutions of higher learning.
At the secondary education level, attempts to channel the demand for education
into middle-level professional careers have, as a whole, failed, given the
almost universal aspiration of social mobility through university training.
Primary education covers today most of the urban population, although with
very low quality in the public and even private system; and it seldom enters
in the countryside. When it does, it tends to be a factor of mobility and
migration to the cities.
It is possible to summarize the present social crisis in Brazil by the following
main points
- in the countryside, the intensive process of disorganization
of the traditional social structure through the introduction of high technology
and extensive plantations for the external market, which produced a large
group of free-floating, landless urban workers and intensified the migration
to the cities;
- in the cities, the rapid deterioration of the quality of life, due to
the unchecked real state speculation, the difficulty to accommodate the
spirally growing fleet of cars, and the inability of the economic system
and the urban services to provide jobs and support to the immigrants.
This situation is made still more difficult by the concentration cf public
money in the hands of the federal government, and the almost generalized
bankruptcy of state and local authorities.
- for the urban low classes, lack of jobs, lack of appropriate education,
and such low levels of payment at the bottom of the scale as to make "marginal"
activities of all kinds - from moonlighting business to straightforward
crime - much more rewarding than steady jobs.
- for the middle and upper sectors, an increasing distance between the
aspirations provided by the educational system, now quite accessible,
and the market for qualified jobs, more difficult and saturated than ever.
4. Expansion and crisis in the
political system
There are two central dimensions to look for in the analysis of a political
system: the process of political participation and the organization of government.
These two dimensions are mediated by a third, which are the specific structures
of social mobilization and participation - the political parties, the labor
movement, the agencies of public opinion, and the electoral system Common
belief holds that government derives from political representation - and
that this can happen either democratically, when everybody can participate
in political life according to fair rules, or autocratically, when there
are no clear rules or they are biased in favor of specific groups.
Brazilian political analysts tend to hold, however, that in the country's
experience this sequence should be for the most part reversed: the government
as an organized and active agency precedes, both historically and in terms
of real weight, most forms of political participation; and the formal structures
of political representation, more often than not, are provided by the government,
in order to channel and orient the social pressures for "supportive" political
participation.(4) This is not, of course, a situation without tensions
and conflict. Very often some groups in society try to organize independently
from the government and impose its own values and preferences. A combination
of co-optation and repression, stick and carrots, however, has been usually
effective to prevent these attempts to go very far; when they do, government
is replaced by a more effective group that can perform more efficiently
the traditional power game.
The above does not mean that the government is neutral in the conflicts
of interest among the several groups in the political and economic sphere.
In its commitment to the notions of order, stability, power growth and security,
it is naturally supportive of the social and economic establishment. But
it does mean that government is never as captive of a specific social and
economic groups as it is of its own civilian and military bureaucracy and
the country's professional politicians and statesmen.
With these general ideas in mind, we can make a brief summary of the characteristics
of Brazil's political system that led to the 1964 coup and thereafter:
a) political enfranchisement in Brazil has been historically very limited
and elections seldom involved more than 5% of the country's adult population
before 1945. From 1945 on a multi- party system was established with compulsory
voting for all the adult, literate population. Voting in this a system was
successfully captured by two parties created by Getúlio Vargas before his
fall: the "Social-Democratic" party, made up of the Federal"interventores"
in the States and local governments throughout the country, and the "Labor"
party, organized by the politicians who used to run the trade-union and
social welfare administration through the Ministry of Labor. This winning
coalition started to crumble in 1960 with the election of Jânio Quadros
for the Presidency,
b) Labor organization was pre-empted by a corporatist system of trade unions
created and controlled by the government. A trade-union tax (one day's salary
a year for all workers) was established to create a trade-union fund ("fundo
sindical") and distributed to the unions according to the government's convenience.
This meant that the strength of the unions did not depend on the number
of affiliates (affiliation was voluntary); the unions could dispense services
and patronage of all kinds, and capture votes when needed.
c) seats in the Legislative were distributed in proportion to the total
population of each state. Since voting was restricted to literates, this
meant over representation for the voters of the more rural, less educated
states, and under representation for the country's urban centers. This bias
was stronger in the Senate, to which each state contributed with three members.(5)
d) elections at all levels were strongly dependent on the candidate's past
and potential access to governmental support, resources and patronage. Opposition
candidates relying on media persuasion or ideological appeals could only
get support in the more educated, urbanized and urban areas. This meant
that the government would often have troubles winning the elections in the
major cities, but would win systematically in the countryside.
Crisis in this system started to become evident in the late fifties and
early sisties, and can also be summarized in a few points:
a) for historical and structural reasons, the government's winning coalition
was particularly weak in the country's demographic, economic and industrial
center, the State of Sao Paulo, where a fairly independent labor movement
and autonomous political leadership started to emerge and, later, to compete
for the control of the federal government.(6)
b) Populism, the combination of patronage with paternalistic appeals and
fuzzy social ideologies, was fairly efficient as a subsidiary instrument
for political support and vote gathering when the political control could
be kept in the hands of the traditional politicians with their rural basis.
This situation became threatening when the Labor Party started to outweigh
its partner in the government's coalition. Also, populism ceased to be a
monopoly of the central government, mostly after Vargas death in 1954, to
run loose: in the 1959 Presidential elections all the candidate had been
imposed on the traditional parties by populist or ideological pressures
and constraints.
c) Ideological politics also became more present as time passed. Before
1945, it was mostly concentrated in intellectual and military groups in
the major cities. After 1945 the Communist party gave a demonstration of
strength in Rio de Janeiro and the worker's areas of Sao Paulo. In general,
ideological groups criticized the government for its inefficiency, corruption
and practice of patronage politics, and benefits to undeserving and illegitimate
groups and interests. On the left, it led to the demand for the strengthening
and organization of labor, increase of the state's intervention in the economy,
more social welfare benefits, restriction and control of international corporations
and Brazilian private capitalist groups, and non-alignment with the United
States in the cold war. On the right, it demanded less appeasement with
the labor movement, less compliance with the formalities of democratic politics,
stricter wage controls, more freedom of economic initiative, and militant
anti-communism.
d) For the government, the loss of electoral stability meant narrowing room
for manoeuver and less freedom of action. Before 1960, the electoral coalition
between the Social Democratic and labor parties could be and often was replaced
in Congress by a more conservative coalition between the social democrats
and the traditional conservative opposition party, the National Democratic
Union (UDN). This enabled the government to block more disruptive legislation
(such as agrarian reform laws) and pass the ones it deemed necessary. While
some areas of government were left to patronage - such as Labor, Health,
Education, Social Security - others were not. From 1960 on patronage and
politicization permeated virtually the whole government structure, leading
to the federal administration paralysis in the few years immediately preceding
Goulart's fall in 1964.(7)
5. The new regime and its political
predicament
The regime inaugurated in 1964 was never able to substitute the previous
system of political and electoral support for an alternative one, which
could provide it with the stability it needed. History of the last sixteen
years is full of different attempts to return to political normality, such
as the gubernatorial elections of 1966 and the general relaxation of political
controls and repression in 1968; they have normally led to failure for the
government, and were followed by increased political repression and control.
We can summarize the new situation also in a few points:
a) except for brief periods, the new regime, in spite of its military basis,
never adopted the position of an outright military dictatorship, as it was
and still is the case in Argentina and Chile. Congress lost much of its
prerogatives, but remained open; elections were not abolished, although
the party system had to change; the candidates were submitted to screening
and eventual loss of mandate; and opposition political propaganda was strongly
curtailed. For reasons of international image, ideological convictions or
sheer political strategy, the fact is that some forms of political life
were preserved, and this has had some costs and consequences.
b) contrary to the expectations in 1964, the old, corporatist trade-union
system was not abolished. The trade-union tax and fund were kept as before,
while the more militant leadership of the early sixties was replaced very
often by old-hand insiders from the old, pre-ideological labor movement
("pelegos").
c) The freedom of movements for the central government increased considerably
after 1964. The very name of the country was changed, from "United States
of Brazil" to "Federative Republic of Brazil". The government's efficiency
for resource extraction increased manifold. Income taxes started to be paid
in the country for the first time. New funds were created based on compulsory
savings by the labor force (mainly the so-called PIS-PASEP system and the
Guarantee Fund for Job Seniority - FGTS, which provided resources for a
new housing bank, the Banco Nacional de Habitaçãao). A Central Bank was
established. Social security was unified throughout the country. Public
enterprises were created or improved in their freedom of action and access
to resources. An so on and so forth. At the same time, local and state government
lost almost all powers of initiative and sources of independent resources.
d) A clear distinction started to be made by the government between "administration"
- the running of public office according to technocratic principles - and
"politics" - the game of patronage, propaganda and petty interests needed
to provide the "administration" with political support. Excluded from "politics"
were all decisions implying government expenditures, the armed forces, the
wage system, the administration of the main urban centers, and questions
of economic policy in general. "Politics" was relegated to the state governments
(but not quite: the state's Security and Finance Secretaries had to be controlled
by the Federal Government) and local administrations of less important,
more rural areas.
e) the consequence was the survival of the more traditional political leadership
of the period pre-1964, with its rural and local bases, and the ostracism
of the emerging political leadership in the more urban and developed areas.
Political life lost all appeals to young, well-endowed potential leaders
in the country's more modern centers. More promising were careers in the
professions, in private business or in the government's technocracy.
f) the political alienation of the urban groups became particularly acute
because, in spite of the growth in available resources and the economic
successes, the government was never able to absorb and incorporate in the
country' S social, political and economic mainstream the growing numbers
of urban dwellers and educated youth. Several attempts were made to develop
policies to solve the growing urban problems and to respond to the needs
of the poor. The unification of the social security system, its extensions
to the rural areas, agencies aimed to control the distribution of basic
food stuffs and medicine, the creation of metropolitan area authorities,
all these efforts tended to fail for lack of organized constituencies which
could give them political muscle and stability.
g) the distinction between "politics" and administration'! led to a situation
in which the governmental policies in the so-called "technical" areas very
often became conditioned or captured by well organized, small and not clearly
visible special interest groups. This led to several projects and policies
of doubtful social and economic value and precarious technical competence.
In other words, technocracy was often less technical and more autocratic
than it was wished.
6. The current situation
One of the main characteristics of the political regime since 1964 is the
lack of institutionalized norms for political dispute and access to significant
power positions. For more radical groups within the military and some civilian
sectors, this was a necessary revolutionary situation; it was supposedly
needed to unable the government to carry on its policies without being hindered
by the formalities of legal procedures or the organized opposition. Without
exception, however, all military governments stated their intention to provide
the country with stable political institutions - but were unable to do so.
The Figueiredo government, inaugurated early in 1979, was the one to go
furthest in this direction. We should consider in the following some of
the reasons for the unwillingness of the military governments to take a
straightforward dictatorial stand, the difficulties with institutionalization
attempts, and the limits of the present: situation. This will lead us to
some speculation about the emerging perspectives.
a) In principle, there are no obvious reasons why the Brazilian military
leaders did not establish a straight dictatorial regime like the ones in
Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. We can list a series, of elements, however,
that may have contributed to that:
- The ideology of the military leadership. The so-called "Sorbonne" group,
of the Escola Superior de Guerra, was made up of persons which have fought
in the Second World War and had strong personal commitments with the values
of Western democracy, to which they saw Brazil as naturally associated.
The "Sorbonne" group included names such as Humberto Castello Branco, Ernesto
Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.
- The intensity of power conflicts when the rules of the game are not clear.
Even in the most authoritarian periods of the last fifteen years, the principles
of hierarchical authority where scrupulously kept within the armed forces,
as well as the clearly defined limits for permanence in the presidency and
in the military command posts. Strict obeisance to these rules were necessary
and actually worked to reduce the potential for conflicts within the military
sectors. When the conflict became unavoidable, the way out was often the
search for support into the civilian sphere Thus, the Geisel government
sought to compensate the strains of its conflict with the army top echelons
with an intense effort to win the municipal elections and to strengthen
the government's civilian party, the Arena. The nomination of General Figueiredo
for his succession was also stressful, and ulterior emphasis on political
democracy should be understood in this context.
- The legitimation function. An open Congress, even if curtailed in its
powers, keeps the allegiance of wide segments of the traditional political
leadership, and some channels of communication between the regime and the
population. Other means to provide this legitimation include massive advertising
campaigns, "moral and civic education" through the schools, etc. The actual
effects of these initiatives are not clear.
- The continuous stress and inefficiency of authoritarianism. Fifteen years
of experience have shown that the government was particularly inefficient
in the two areas which seemed to make exceptional powers more necessary,
namely the reduction of leftist ideologies and the control of corruption.
Although the radical left was contained in its more aggressive behavior,
the government was unable to stop the spread of leftist ideologies among
the country's urban population - on the contrary, it might have helped it.
Corruption was attacked at the beginning through large-scale investigations
in all sectors of the country, but practically nothing in terms of actual
indictments ever came out of them. So, the military had to carry the burden
of the police functions, without success.
- International pressures. The human rights policy of the United States
government and the had image of the Brazilian authoritarian regime created
uneasiness in all areas of the Brazilian government, and more so in those
more exposed to external contacts. It is doubtful, however, that this factor
alone could have a determining influence.
- The weakness of the internal opposition. Had the Brazilian military met
an opposition similar to the ones encountered by their counterparts in the
Southern cone, the pressures for long-term authoritarian rule would probably
have been unavoidable. The fact, however, is that Brazil never had labor
movements, revolutionary organizations nor mobilized students like the ones
that existed in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The reasons for this are complex.
It is enough to remember, however, how more urbanized, educated organized
than Brazil these countries are, and how much more deep was the process
of social and economic disorganization they suffered before the military
regimes were established.
b) The last item suggests that, contrary to what is often said, the relative
liberalization of the Brazilian regime should not be explained by the strength
of its opposition, but rather by its weakness. It is also explained by the
fact that, as it was said in the onset, the current politics of "abertura"
means not only the affirmation of the some values of political freedom and
democracy, but also - and probably more so - the abandonment of several
ambitious goals of the military regimes after 1964 - the end of corruption,
the strengthening of Brazil as a world power, the end of leftist ideologies,
the end of poverty and illiteracy. The accumulation of external and internal
difficulties of all kinds have left the government with a heavy and costly
machinery for political and economic intervention and control, but without
the commitment or the conditions to pursue the old goals as in some of the
times before. This machinery has mainly, now, a vested interest in its survival
and bureaucratic growth.
"Abertura" has all the elements of a calculated risk, but not a large one.
Items:
- the government did not relinquish its powers. The Security
Law is vague enough to provide it with a virtual blank legal check to
prosecute and arrest whoever it deems necessary. Reduced ostensible controls
- like the controls of passports in the airports - have been largely compensated
by sophisticated and computerize system of checking and surveillance.
Press censorship has been reduced, but still exists, although in lesser.
forms, in TV, radio and for the so-called "marginal" periodicals. The
government has other forms of cajoling the mass media than direct censorship
- mostly through the distribution of propaganda, concessions, financing,
and so on; the larger communications enterprises are usually very sensitive
to them.
- The new party and electoral systems have still not taken shape. It is
clear, however, that the rules are being made for the government to be
always the winner. The legislation concerning the organization of the
political parties is biased towards nation-wide structures that depend
on the government support to exist. The up-coming system of district voting
is bound to reduce further the electoral chances of minority groups. The
government leads the organization of the party system not only through
legislation, but also through actual bargaining, composition arid even
influencing in the judiciary system (the last example was the denial of
the PTB acronym to the Leonel Brizola group).
- there was been a generalized liberalization of customs. Pornographic
literature, films and music have been practically liberated. Censorship
in the theater has almost ceased to exist. This liberalization have been
extended also the utterance of ideological and political opposition to
the government, with some limits - for instance, the direct "offense"
to the military authorities. This liberalization is explained by the fact
that the more ideologically militant and conservative groups of the right
have been pushed aside, and is clearly perceived now that the costs of
controlling the freedom of expression are too high and the effects of
these controls too limited. There is also a perception that the harm caused
by this freedom for the regime tends to be small.
- Strikes have been tolerated within certain limits. In general, the policy
has been to not to repress neither to give in to collective movements
outside the productive sectors - like the strikes by teachers, students,
civil servants, and so on. These strikes usually are left to wider away.
In the industrial sector, as the recent metal-workers strike in Sao Paulo
has shown, there are attempts at negotiation, that can be readily combined
with harsh repression. The strikes legislation is extremely restrictive,
and practically all strikes can be considered illegal if the government
wants to declare them that.
7. The emerging political situation
a) The current situation of limited and controlled "abertura" could be maintained
for a long period, with some oscillations between periods of more or less
repression or political freedom. In fact, there is no empirical or historical
reason to suppose that a stable democratic regime is a "normal" equilibrium
situation for Brazil; outright authoritarianism tends also to be short-lived,
for some of the reasons discussed above.
However, there are some reasons to believe that the present arrangements
are particularly unstable First, some key economic variables seem to running
quite out of the government's control: inflation, speculation, energy supply,
price of foodstuffs, the foreign debt, unemployment. It is unlikely that
this lost of control could be attributed to the government's priority to
political rather than economic matters, since no instruments of economic
policy were given up to other groups in society - including the control
of wages. Second, the political capital obtained at the beginning with the
liberal policies is being rapidly depleted as the promises of increasing
participation and benefits for all start to fail, and as repressive measures
are taken against some of the more aggressive sectors of the opposition.
What makes the future still more uncertain, however, is the lack of any
meaningful project that could replace the old ones that are rapidly being
destroyed. The official line is still optimism about the future, and the
difficulties in the economy are to be hopefully compensated by the bonanza
of a "miracle crop". There are still some monumental projects to carry on,
such as the "Rio Project", the Itaipu Hydroelectric system which proceeds
as before, and there is no open reassessment of the ambitious and overblown
nuclear program. The present situation, in spite of all signs to the contrary,
is deemed to be of momentary difficulties, and the future is supposedly
as bright as always. In fact, this lack of project is fertile ground to
cynicism, and makes it almost impossible for the government to generate
leadership that could provide it with a stronger social basis.(8)
There are two possible outcomes of the present situation, the return to
outright authoritarianism or the establishment of a stable democratic system,
in which the opposition could have effective access to political power.
There is a third possibility, which is a revolutionary situation and the
beginning of a government of the left. Let us make some considerations on
each.
b) A return to outright dictatorship is not out of the question, and in
fact looms very heavily in the horizon. This is the more likely outcome
if the social and economic crisis deteriorates too rapidly, or if the more
radical opposition gets too aggressive, or if the political and electoral
arrangements now being carefully laid out leads to political defeat. For
several groups, this would be the preferred outcome: Some feel threatened
with the open questioning of their past activities, and tend to favor a
return to repression and censorship. It is common for many entrepreneurial
groups to blame inflation and general government indecisiveness on the costs
of the political game, and to condemn political freedom as a kind of luxury
not to be afforded. Urban criminality and licentiousness in the media adds
to inflation as sources of insecurity for the middle classes, and this insecurity
often breeds authoritarian ideologies. All this groups will support a return
to authoritarianism.
A new strong regime, however, will probably not be ideologically authoritarian.
It will try to push a combination of liberal economics and strengthening
of the state power, which has been the line of all the military governments
in Brazil so far. It will hit hard on the demands of the urban middle classes
and workers, and give little emphasis to programs of social welfare. It
will almost certainly let loose the more active right-wing groups within
the repressive agencies, and this could lead to high levels of political
violence. Reaction will probably be extreme, and a kind of permanent stage
of siege is not to be excluded.
c) Transition to a stable democratic regime will be a probable outcome if
the situation does not get out of hand. The party system which is being
organized now has a spectrum which goes from the government-controlled "social-democrats"
(PDS) through the loyal opposition of labor (PTB) and the popular party
(PP), into the not so reliable democratic movement (PMD); and reaching in
the left the labor party of Leonel Brizola (PDT) and eventually the worker's
party (PT) (the Communist Party is not likely to obtain legal registration).
Once this system is established, it is probable that the government will
try to place itself somehow in the center of the spectrum, a strategy that
can work for a long time if combined with the manipulation of some electoral
mechanisms and legislation. Once stabilized, this new game can lead to the
marginalization of the more radical groups on the right, and an eventual
shift of actual power to the more liberal sectors, more together with better
rules of political representation and participation. This shift is also
possible if the government suffers an unexcepted electoral landslide, and
the right does not have the conditions to come up with a new coup.
The difficulty with this alternative is that it may make sense politically,
but is not necessarily related with specific policies in face of the serious
problems the country has to deal with. Important as they are, very few groups
in Brazil today care enough about the formalities of democracy, since they
have no assurances that actual social justice or specific group benefits
will follow from them. On the right as well as on the left, political liberalism
is outmoded, and only considered as a means to other ends. Political scientists
have tried to show that political democracy requires two conditions: a general
consensus about the rules of the game, and a moderate (not too low, not
too high) level of political participation. One should add a third condition:
that the differential allocation of public resources done through the political
system does not mean a zero-sum-game among the partners. In Brazil of today,
these conditions are absent: there is no consensus, political participation
oscillates between apathy and mobilization, and the economic crisis makes
of the political process a sub-zero-sum- game. We cannot, therefore, be
too optimistic. At best, democracy will be restricted to some sectors of
society, and will allow for a sufficient level of efficiency in order not
to be washed away by the conflicts between left and right.
d) So far, we have been considering only the conservative alternatives.
This is because, in fact, Brazil has always had conservative governments,
even if sometimes with populist strategies, and there is not much chance
that this historical tendency will be reversed in the near future. The Brazilian
opposition today has the moral up hand against the government - it gets
the support of the intellectuals, the Church, and carries the votes against
the government candidates in the most important electoral centers. However
strong as a negative force, the opposition is badly splintered in terms
of actual organization and political goals. Extreme leftist groups in South
America have tried to bring their countries to the brink of social and political
warfare, in order to rally the population's support behind its leadership.
This was the so-called "foquista" strategy, which have failed throughout.
Barred a disorganization of the security establishment for some external
reasons - as it happened in Portugal - or its complete demoralization through
corruption and nepotism - like in Guatemala - the extreme left has no means
to actually come to power. More moderate leftists and liberals hope to force
the political game to became more fair, and to win through the ballots and
the pressures of public opinion. They might. What they will do when in power,
and how long they will last, is an altogether different matter.
The fact is that the opposition, as much and probably more than the government,
has still not absorbed the full implications of the reverse expectations
that the country is facing and will face in the near future. The energy
crisis, the urban problems, the difficulties with the educational system,
everything is blamed on the government as consequences of its incompetence,
allegiance to special interests within and outside the country, and corruption
- or some combination of these. In substantive matters, the opposition is
against birth control, wants to provide everyone with a university diploma,
a stable job, early retirement and an apartment in the cities; it wants
to get rid of the multinational corporations; it criticizes the nuclear
program because the way it is being handled, not in principle; and has no
objections to the Brazilian"pragmatic" foreign policies and development
of an armament industry for export. In short, it sustains that Brazil could
be growing and improving as always, with benefits for everybody, to become
a modern world power in the near future - if it were not for the unpatriotic
and "dependents" policies of the government.
In brief, the emerging perspectives are not very stimulating. Brazil has
entered in a serious crisis, but is still trying to live as if it was just
a short-term problem or the evil doings of some special interests and private
groups. This is not, of course, only a Brazilian problem, since it affects
all the world, although in different degrees. There are no clear political
goals, no social sense of purpose, besides the continuous private enrichment
and distribution of benefits in a context of dwindling resources. It is
possible that this fact, which is already clear to anyone examining the
situation, will eventually get political density and provide the basis for
clearer political perspectives. In the meantime, short-term patches will
be tried again and again, and we can only hope that they will not become
too expensive in terms of human life and suffering.
Notes
1. See José Pastore, Desigualdade e Mobilidade Social
no Brasil. S. Paulo, T.A. Queirós/USP, 1979. Nelson do Valle has shown,
however, that the observed mobility is mostly due to structural changes,
and not to actual permeability of the social strata. Cf. his "As Duas Faces
da Mobilidade", Dados, vol . 21,1979.
2. This is of course hotly debated, but seems, nevertheless,
to be true. See Pedro S. Malan, "Distribuição de Renda e Desigualdade: Nova
Tentativa de Clarificação da Controvérsia no Brasil", Dados, vol.
21, 1979.
3. Carlos Lessa, A Estratégia de Desenvolvimento
1974-1976, Sonho e Fracasso, tese para professor titular, University
of Rio de Janeiro, 1978.
4. Simon Schwartzman, São Paulo e o Estado Nacional,
São Paulo, Difel, 1975; and more specifically Maria do Carmo Campello de
Souza, Estado e Partidos Politicos no Brasil (1930 a 1964), São
Paulo, Alfa-Omega, 1976.
5. Cf. Gláucio A. D. Soares, Sociedade e Política
no Brasil, S. Paulo, Difel, 1973.
6. S. Schwartzman, op. cit.
7. Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos, The Calculus of
Conflict: impasse in Brazilian Politics and the Crisis of 1964. Ph.D.
Dissertation, Stanford University, 1978.
8. Signs that have been recently accumulating suggest
that an attempt to develop a new breed of government-sponsored populism
may be in the offing. "Poverty" has been mentioned with insistence as the
main concern of the government, and the recent tax on capital gains, the
present wages policy which gives higher increases to the low wage brackets,
the maintenance of the hi-annual increases in spite of the opposition of
the Minister of Planning, the ceilings in the salaries of the executives
in the public sector, are all indications of the same. More to the point,
the government is converting two institutions that deal with the poor and
with the countryside, the Rondon Project and the MOBRAL, into nationwide
agencies of community action and community development. There is a new emphasis
on economic relief for the Northeast and on some forms of agrarian reform.
It seems clear that the focus of this new populism is in the Minister of
the Interior. It is too early to assess the possibilities of such an attempt,
given the implied costs and the vested interests that such a development
would mean. The new populism can easily assume strong nationalist traits,
and this is not necessarily incompatible with another (and seemingly unrelated)
development of the more recent months, the spread of right-wing terrorism
against the so-called "alternative" press and the Church.
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