Brazil’s financial bourgeoisie ends science and opens a technological gap

In Brazil, the poor starve and the rich laugh for nothing

. by Roberto Amaral.

In the midst of the technological revolution – which has profoundly changed the character of modern society – humanity is witnessing the transition from Western domination to Eurasia, heralding the end of the current world order. Whether the result is correct, the new scenario is anyone’s guess.

Brazil, which lost the first industrial revolution (because the Big House chose to continue the old agricultural export society founded on latifundium and slavery), risks leaving the train of history empty again; When the world is advancing very rapidly in the field of new technologies, opening up an unimaginable set of political and social transformations, with economic activity requiring more and more scientific and technological knowledge, that is, more education, Brazil Captain Bolsonaro, bourgeois finance and those who support him turn his back on teaching and research and innovation. Soon, the technological divide that already separates us from developed countries – knowledge-producing countries – will become intractable, condemning future generations to new forms of underdevelopment, with potential for hunger and social injustice.

When the bloc’s rivalries aggravate, the signs of confrontation between US imperialism and the state of emergency in Eurasia, led by China, giving countries with our characteristics the opportunity to open their own way, choose the captain’s government, authorized generals and businessmen without a homeland. Alliance belonging to the geopolitics of the North’s older brother. It is the price of a lonely and alien ruling class, which is reflected in the pocket of the pocket.

Internally, knowledge is viewed under suspicion; The public school is ill to be eliminated; The production of knowledge, especially that which leads to self-reflection, is something that must be fought. A Brazil that dreams of retro does not need technicians, scientists, researchers or professors, because it simply does not envision an independent project for society and the country.

This real anti-national project, which has been adhered to, is a business that the ruling class shares, because it benefits from. So far, there has been no protest by the so-called business community when the government, with the approval of a conference dominated by the physiology of the “centrão”, cut almost the entire CNPq budget, 90% of the money is for research. The country is doing poorly. Unemployed people, underemployment or despondency, from bad to worse; But the big house laughs with the unfolded banners.

The Minister of Economy’s neoliberalism led to stagnation of the country and workers to unemployment. However, the greater the poverty, the greater the profits of the rentier bourgeoisie, profiting from social marginalization capitalism, whose prevailing idea is to increase the profits of those who already have everything. Wages, social security, work and hope are extracted from the poor. If the real – dragged down by the recession – is devalued, speculators, like the anonymous Paulo Guedes, pile up dollars in tax havens where they hide their fortunes, which continue to grow as the national economy slopes downward.

The numbers are scandalous: in ten years, slum growth reached 95,000 maracanas.

We have cherished agriculture, large capital, high productivity and high profitability, but it does not feed the population. Today, in the second decade of the third millennium, 112 million Brazilians suffer from some degree of food insecurity and 20 million face hunger every day (data from the Brazilian Research Network on Sovereignty and Food Security).

Industrial production, while FIESP neither drags nor complains, notes the fourth consecutive monthly decline and seventh in nine months, which was forced by lower demand. It decreased in October (0.4%) when in September it was 19.4% lower than in May 2011, indicating continued negative behavior. Any developmental premise will require investment, reliance on the internal market which is not coupled with income concentration and unemployment.

The panacea for the speculators in the Ministry of Economy is the curtailment of labor rights, which is the slogan of the financial system, while the utter failure of neoliberalism to listen leads to the continuous rise of the dollar, fuels inflation and sets off a whirlpool. of interest rates that freeze private investment.

The corrupt marriage between inflation and stagflation leads to stagflation, the worst of all worlds. This year’s GDP should be around 1% (if we can rely on the forecasts of the central bank). For 2022, estimates range from zero “growth” to 0.5% (hum from “market”). Inflation should not correspond to 10% today, which is already an indicator well above the target (3.7%). We will start 2022 with an expected interest rate of 11% (Selic). The decline in retail sales (another name for lower consumption) last September compared to September 2020 was 5.5% (IBGE). Even civil construction, re-established, reveals the consequences of the political crisis invading the economy, revealing itself in full in the decline in the confidence index, which Ibre/FGV calculates, the first in six months.

An activist general dismantled the Ministry of Health, the army contributed to the increase in the number of victims of the epidemic, which the captain called “the little flu.” A retired general, salaries over 300,000 OMR, is committed to destroying the Petrobras that his colleagues of another dynasty helped build. When Brazil reaches oil self-sufficiency, gasoline reaches its highest value in the century, sold at pumps at an average of R$8.00 per liter.

The country is going from bad to worse: a fall in the stock market, a fall in industrial production, and a rising dollar. Double-digit inflation, with an upward trend, is eroding the economy and consuming the purchasing power of workers. Unemployment – reaching nearly 14% of the active population – correlates with economic stagnation, and the prospect of a development revival slips back into Greek calendars; Millions of Brazilians go hungry – picking up food from garbage trucks and bones from butchers.

But the financial bourgeoisie has every reason to release balloons, because the banks did not profit as they are now! The trio of Santander, Itaú and Bradesco see earnings growth of 28.5% at the end of the third quarter. It is another “miracle” of Brazilian capitalism, which makes Professor Delphine Neto, the magician of the “economic miracle” of the military dictatorship, envy.

Bradesco reported net income of R$6.767 billion, an increase of 34.5% compared to the same quarter last year. The second highest score in the history of the bloc. But she did not let her oligopolistic brothers suck her fingers: Itao reported a profit of R$6.77 billion, a growth of 34.7% and Santander, in the same quarter, a profit of R$4.27 billion, which represented an increase of 12.1%. Same quarter last year. There is no job, no income, no consumption, no production, but Brazilian capitalism is capable of producing such astonishment.

That’s why, in Brazil, come rain, shine, and the rich are laughing for nothing.

The resumption of development with social progress depends on the future new system of government – in anticipation of a center-left government – to obtain, in addition to a firm political decision, the support of the new majority, which the Vargas (1951-1954), Django and Dilma administrations lacked, and the results they knew. This new relationship must be reformed through a broad and frank political debate with the whole population, when the program of the government (which remains only reformist) must be revealed with exemplary clarity, as in a genuine public referendum. Only in these conditions will the election of the new president represent the programmatic choice of the people, who, in this way, can be mobilized to defend their interests.