By Emir Sader on February 21, 2019
When the Latin American right returned to government in some of our countries – Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador – one might think that it would have learned from its defeats and from the success of the governments that succeeded it. Not in vain did the priority of social policies in the most unequal continent in the world lead to successive defeats. To such an extent that his own candidates have gone on to praise social policies, but without changing their economic proposal, in which there is no room for them. But they still admitted that these policies had the sympathy of the people and should be recognized.
But as soon as they returned to rule, they showed how demagogic that recognition was. They have shown that they have learned nothing from reality, even with the harsh defeats that were inflicted on them. Perhaps they could appeal to the old idea of the “third way,” saying “not so much market, not so much state,” in Tony Blair’s old style.
But no, they have not revealed any kind of imagination, not even at the level of discourse. They have immediately set about imposing the priority of fiscal adjustment. Because this is what their formula is reduced to, once again as always; cutting public spending, the salaries of public employees, privatization of public assets, deregulation of the economy, opening up to the external market. Neither more nor less than what had been so successful, in its beginnings, back in the 1990s.
The old mumbo-jumbo that the problems of our economies come from the excessive expenditures of the State and that, therefore, their solution requires the thinning of the State, that social rights are in excess and that one has lived beyond possibilities (that is, the poor would have squandered economic growth and now have to be put back into their due place of cheap and disciplined labor), all so that the rich can continue to live above our possibilities.
As a result, economies have become recessive again, public deficits have increased further, and inflation has not been controlled. In other words, the worst of worlds for the great majority; however, as Shakespeare said, there is a logic in this madness: for someone to win, the great majority has to lose.
They are the banks, financial capital, financial speculation, that is to say, a tiny minority that treasures gigantic profits, as the banks’ balance sheets have been demonstrating without any modesty every month. In fact, there is money, but it is in the hands of those who have no interest in making productive investments, even less in generating jobs; in the hands of those who live on the indebtedness of governments, companies and families, who the more indebted they are, the more profits they bring to the banks. This is the logic of the madness of our economies.
And neoliberal governments act in function of maximizing these parasitic profits, they are already directly in the hands of private bank executives, with no more intermediaries. Governments like that are condemned to the lack of popular support insofar as their priority is to concentrate income, social exclusion, the production of recession and unemployment. For this reason, even its bases, formed by the intermediate layers of society, tend to manifest a growing discontent, leaving the government isolated from society.
The way to survive is the well-known script: less bread, more sticks. Whether through direct repression, which has its limits, or through the reformulation of the political and legal system, in an attempt to prevent this growing discontent from fueling anti-neoliberal alternatives, which would affect the very heart of the interests of big business, this being the reason why the judiciary and the police are playing a fundamental role in preventing social discontent from translating into strong political forces in the opposition.
A model such as the neoliberal model, today, has no hegemonic capacity, which is why it requires a state of exception in order to settle and remain in government. It needs to pursue and try to prevent the leaderships that represent radically antagonistic visions from being candidates: there are the cases of Lula, Cristina and Rafael Correa.
It is not possible to have a neoliberal government that is not shielded by structures of exception. Neoliberalism can only survive protected by a state of emergency. The anti-neo-liberal struggle is thus inseparable from the democratic struggle, from resistance to the installation of states of exception.
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=252771
Source: Rebelion