The
Global South is growing unintelligible from the European South amid
harsh austerity measures and other maneuverings that suit the rich
and powerful at the expense of the poor and working class.
by
Michael Nevradakis
Part
2 - A radical break or austerity lite?: The Rousseff and da Silva
governments
The
governments of da Silva and Rousseff were often compared to those of
Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in
Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
in Argentina, in representing a break with the doctrines of
neoliberalism, economic austerity, and privatization that much of
Latin America experienced during the 1980s and 1990s.
This
claim is borne out by some policies and certain economic indicators.
In a 2014 article, well-known commentator Pepe Escobar, who
frequently focuses on the BRICS nations in his writing, pointed out
the tripling of the minimum wage between 2002 and 2014, a decline in
unemployment, increased GDP per capita, the repayment of Brazil’s
debts to the International Monetary Fund, higher purchasing power,
plus social programs which benefited almost 50 million Brazilians.
Similarly,
in a 2014 interview with me for Dialogos Radio, investigative
journalist Greg Palast cited da Silva’s refusal to privatize state
banks and the national oil company, while creating the “Bolsa
Familia,” or a minimum income offered to many Brazilians, in an
effort to lift them out of poverty. According to Palast, these
policies — the opposite of the privatizations and austerity
dictated by the International Monetary Fund — fueled Brazil’s
phenomenal growth during this time, reaching 7 to 9 percent annually
at its peak.
But
did da Silva and Rousseff go far enough? Numerous commentators have
expressed doubts.
For
instance, the Rousseff government appointed Joaquim Levy, known as a
pro-austerity “fiscal hawk,” as finance minister (this, it should
be noted, was when Temer was Rousseff’s vice president). Scholar
and author James Petras, an expert on Latin America, pointed out in
November that da Silva implemented IMF-mandated austerity programs
soon after being elected, and he appointed neoliberal economists to
his cabinet whilst supporting the interests of agribusiness and major
oil and mining concerns — all while overseeing policies which left
numerous peasant families landless.
The
Brazilian “economic miracle,” according to Petras, was a mirage
fueled by high export commodity prices which the Brazilian economy
temporarily benefited from, enabling programs such as the “Bolsa
Familia.”
This
was echoed by Palast, who in a 2016 follow-up interview with Dialogos
Radio cited the sharp decline of oil prices and collapse of its
commodities trade with China, as factors in the Brazilian economic
slowdown — and increased unrest in the country prior to Rousseff’s
ouster. In turn, Escobar also cited Rousseff’s concessions to big
banking and agribusiness interests and a swing to the center as
mistakes which also led to the emerging middle class increasingly
flirting with the right once economic difficulties began.
In
an interview with MintPress, Kat Moreno, a Ph.D. candidate in
Political Science and visiting scholar for Global Workers’ Rights
at the Penn State University, argued that the Rousseff government was
quite austere, and that despite a militant, leftist background, the
material conditions she faced pressured her to enact austerity
policies during her reign.
A
recent analysis published by TeleSUR further argues that austerity
measures were implemented by the Rousseff government as a defense
mechanism of sorts, in an effort to fend off Rousseff’s impeachment
by appeasing the right.
In
his 2014 interview, Palast cited Rousseff’s return to IMF-sponsored
austerity policies and the reduction of pensions as factors which
were disastrous for the Brazilian economy, calling the IMF “a
society of poisoners,” while in his 2016 interview, he cited
Rousseff’s political inexperience and her inability to effectively
communicate with the public as factors which made her impeachment
possible.
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