The Left, the Right, and the Crap Shower We're In

Perry Anderson asked of the Left, during the end of the last century, that it accept what the eighties and nineties were about: the undeniable consolidation of neoliberalism. He spoke of this consolidation both economically and politically and pointed out more than once that, though history was far from over, certain present facts could not be ignored simply because it would (supposedly) make Uncle Karl upset.

I do wonder what the Right's main thinkers will ask of its political wing ten to twenty years from now. It's a question worth asking because orthodox economics is not without merit, and certainly did bring about some positive changes. The attempt at integrating the world economically that has been taking place since the nineties has undeniable benefits, such as an increase in the standard of living for certain sectors of Third World society, or the increase in globalized knowledge that we all have of each other, of one another's countries, cultures, and problems.

Globalization as it stands, however, the orthodox economics that have been put into play since the seventies, carried a danger that many only now begin to acknowledge. The danger of a major financial crisis was some thirty years in the making, clear as day, as entire economies became financialized, as the middle class in the developed world began to see its living standards decrease, as we saw the gap between rich and poor in the First World widen. The danger of leaving business people to regulate their affairs unchecked was apparent from day one, but, since Freedom was supposedly at risk, those who call the shots decided we should try it anyway.

So we get what we have now. First off, there's the inability to use a crisis (say, Enron) as a learning tool; instead, we use the unbridled faith we have in one of our many modern deities, Friedrich Von Hayek, to justify anything we want, from tickle-down economics and trillions of dollars in foreign adventures to making countries like Brazil veritable delivery services of quick and sexy financial returns, as illustrated by Leda Paulani. And yes, it is total faith in folks like Hayek or Milton Friedman, because proving that market forces do work, and that the ever-sexy Invisible Hand can masturbate anyone to eternal glory, is nigh impossible.

Except when you wish to prove that which you wish to see. The Left did this for years after the Second World War, building socialist economies like that of Britain and India without giving a flying fart for nuisances like inflation or people's wish to enterprise without having to file seven forms just to bang your next door colorful friendship. Folks like Friedman correctly predicted later on in the sixties that the kind of central planning you saw around the world (in some countries more than others) would lead to what came to be known as stagflation. They were on the money, and the parts of the Left that insisted that good intentions would eventually help during economic downturns were left at times with their dicks in their hands, looking dumbfounded.

But power, when first tasted, just tastes too damn good. It became common place, given the failures of central planning (and they were undeniable), to point to the bevy of millionaires popping up in the US and Britain during the eighties and say, "Look!, it works, Unfettered Free Enterprise works!!!" That living standards were falling, that growth in the economy was, in the best of times, artificial, that so much of the money that circulated in the markets was, to be honest, bullshit money; this was all irrelevant, for Grenada and the Falklands had been conquered, the Berlin Wall fell, and us Third World niggers were finally learning how to play the game.

And so here we are, October, 2008. The financial elite's reluctance to have its actions checked (and the willingness of many governments to simply look the other way for twenty-odd years) has taken it's toll: credit-based economies are tumbling and their populations are looking at the barrel of a gun as recessions with the potential for lasting some two years stare them in the eye. What's worse, we see governments like that of the United States shamelessly socializing losses, telling the taxpayer it is in their interest that the lenders be saved, but not the borrowers. It is also amusing to see so many telling themselves this is not socialism for the rich, that saving these banks and insurance companies is exactly what should be done, without considering that it would be economically and ethically interesting to perhaps bail out the taxpayer. And it's not like this crisis is a complete surprise, since there have been economists warning against that which we see happening right now.

This is perhaps the part where it is valid to note that the Right and the Left (or parts of them, anyway) share some similar goals: both exalt freedom; both seem to search for ways to better the world in which we live. The Right espouses that this will come about through economic freedom, and the Left seems to believe social justice will do the job (it is even argued by some, including noted Brazilian economist Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, that Socialism was not so much a mode of production as it was a system for theorizing the concept of Social Justice). And it is fair to note that, since 1945, both sides of the spectrum have had the opportunity to practice what they preach, sometimes with brilliant results on both ends. What is depressing about what we see right now is that the current discussion keeps concentrating, on the part of the Left, on how we can't leave the economy to greedy whores on Wall Street, and on the part of the Right... well, the Right isn't saying much right now.

I don't doubt that giving a den of unhumanity such as Wall Street complete control over the economy is a bad idea: going unchecked, people are obviously going to do exactly as they please, without fear of consequence; at most, a few scapegoats, guilty or not, go to jail and a few companies go under, but the structure stays the same, and the freedom to fool yourself as well as your customer (the very definition of ninja loans) goes unchallenged. We had this behavior in centrally planned economies, and it was assumed by government technocrats that no one was more suited to run the general populace's affair than government technocrats. Needless to say, these economies were the same dens of senseless greed that we see on Wall Street. In many cases, though, after shunning the centrally planned state, all we did was move from State Communism to Corporate Communism; we changed the word public to private and called it a day.

Perhaps the conversation should now focus on two fronts. First, it might be safe to assume we've seen enough of both sides of the political economy pendulum since the late nineteenth century, so that we may finally focus on a formula that uses both State and Private tools to help us achieve a more desirable society. Secondly -and, I believe, more importantly- it is time to discuss, really discuss, Power. It is high time we realize that the difference between giving people's houses to private firms that are allowed to freely cook their books, and giving it to government officials that inflate bureaucracy so as to be above the law, is exactly the same thing. Actually, if we are to be honest, we can quickly realize countries like the Soviet Union were capitalist, that all they did was take the economy and give it to gentlemen in KGB uniforms instead of gentlemen in Armani wear that write successful self-help books. The KGB privately owned the USSR; its member had business which they ran -supposedly for the State, but, in actuality, for themselves. The difference between these gentlemen and the heads of AIG, Lehman Brothers, and so many other institutions that are going under, was one of terminology and semantics. More importantly, they answered and answer to no one, and, in the American case, it would seem that some of these apparatchiks are walking away with bonuses after having run their companies under.

If we do not begin discussing the power relationships that society's most important institutions have with its citizens, we're doomed to a new financial fiasco such as the present one in another generation or so. If we're going to build, by Left or Right, a world that's even remotely admirable, we have to be sure that we are honest about what can and cannot be done through the institutions we build for ourselves. Corruption, in the long run, State- or Corporate-run, is too much of a burden for any society to handle (just look at Brazil: we keep missing every historical opportunity under the sun because our elite can't stand to lose an inch of its power). And this burden can only grow heavier if the society we envision for ourselves is to have smaller and ever more artificial borders, if we are to truly live in some global way.

Botando as Coisas em Perspectiva

Obrigado ao Vitor, homem sempre prestativo, por tornar mais claro a pessoas mal informadas (Marcos..........) o que que revoltado realmente quer dizer.



Mais uma vez, eu sou um mero reclamão.

Pára Tudo!!!!!

Um tal de Mr. M deixou um comentário sobre meu último post indicando que eu sou muito revoltado. Este "muito" é meio mentira. Muito revoltado, para quem ainda não viu, está a seguir:



ou



Isso sim, Marquitos, é revoltado. Eu sou um mero reclamão.

On Jews and Being Jewish

Supposedly, I'm Jewish. However, something tells me there's no such thing as "Jewish" as much as Hebrew, say. What there is is Jews, or the Jewish religion. And religion, as I have expressed earlier, is shit. I have no qualms in being egalitarian, so to speak, in holding in contempt not only "my" religion, but everybody else's (and I include here the militant atheism of Dawkins and Co.), especially the three religions of the Book, which are particularly hateful and which these days add nothing but ignorance and despair to whatever humanity it is we have left.

However, since the Church made sure that it would be the world's bastion of violence and ignorance for centuries on end; and since Islam has revealed itself to be particularly inept at living in a post-Enlightenment world (hell: it is still, for all practical purposes, stuck in the Middle Ages), Jews have been seen as reasonable, sane, down to earth, different from the other two more "barbaric" religions.

Which is why this makes me smile. Seriously, it makes me smile. It reminds me that not belonging to anything that can be remotely close to this nonsense is a profoundly wise decision, all modesty aside.

It also reminds me that the difference between ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel and ultra-orthodox Muslims in Afghanistan taking or having power, is a matter of timing and historical forces. Concerning the history, we once again have the issue of Judaism having not only faced the Enlightenment but also having learned and matured from it (which is why, up until Hitler, there were so many assimilated Jews in Europe who simply didn't care that they were Jews), which Muslims clearly did not. So, with Israel, we have a violence towards Arabs that many times stems from a series of sources, such as religion itself, ethnicity, and nationalism, whereas the Taliban is not nationalistic in the slightest, though they claim otherwise.

But how long before this small group of ultra-orthodox Jews we see in the article above see their behavior become the norm? It's a walk in the park to find Jews in Israel or the United States who have no issue with Israel being a terrorist state, since the Arabs are non-white/Muslim/choose-your-prejudice (and, for that matter, there seems to be no problem with evangelical Christians on this front, as verified by the US's Republican Party's stance towards Israel). If the Israeli government were to pursue an actual peace plan (with a US green light, of course), it is very likely a civil war would ensue in said state. After all, what would a militaristic soceity, run by warriors and religious hot-heads, do with itself if all of a sudden it were left without its principal enemy?

However (there's always good news somewhere), a growing number of Israelis (as evidenced by the mushrooming local peace movement, led by B'Tselem) and an ever-increasing number of practicing Jews throughout the world are already beginning to question openly what Israel is about, and whether it can ever move past its enmities, real or imagined; whether the state in question will be more than a watchdog for America and a playground for nationalist and religious zealots in its free time. They are finally beginning to realize that you either have a theocracy (Israel is, after all, a Jewish State) or a democracy. There is no meeting point between the two.

It has been suggested that I am self-loathing, principally because I refuse "my" religion (and "my" state, or so it would seem). I cannot comprehend, however, how it is that I and these ultra-orthodox Jews pictured in the Guardian's article share anything in common, save our common humanity, which they seem to utterly despise. But their attitudes are grounded on a doctrine, a doctrine available for anyone to read, for anyone to share or not. I choose not to. I refuse to be identified with people who, at the end of the day, are the real Judaism, the Judaism found in the Torah, the one where women, homosexuals and non-Jews are the scum of the Earth. I don't belong to a Chosen People, unless the chosen are unconditionally you and me, and I can't agree to be amongst those that pick and choose, based on words written by barbarians from thousands of years ago, who they will and will not consider their friends and foes.

Tragédias do Brasil

O Brasil teve duas grandes tragédias em sua história: o Império e a ditadura de '64. O primeiro por seu incrível anacronismo, mesmo à época, já que havia mais ao norte um bom exemplo de República bem-sucedida e, à fronteira, vizinhos que firmavam suas próprias versões deste estilo de governo (mesmo que modelos lamentáveis e pouco eficazes). O Brasil, país eleito por Deus, tinha, no entanto, uma elite que sabia melhor, e ficamos com um ditador, uma regência composta por recém-formados do Mobral e um acadêmico que, ó incômodo!, virou rei.

Daí veio '64. Nossa magnífica classe dominante, aliada às nossas paranóicas e ferozmente incompetentes forças armadas, desfilaram um golpe de estado, e pelas mais diversas razões, as principais sendo o perigo que corria a louvação à Cristo e, claro, a marcha da subversão que, como já disse Mino Carta, estamos a esperar até hoje. Foi um golpe que resultou num Brasil que, à primeira vista, era deslumbrante: não se ouviam queixas de estudantes hippies e pobres (e quando se ouvia, cassetete neles!). E melhor de tudo, a classe média pôde comprar seus Fuscas e geladeiras à prazo e curtir um Brasil livre de comunistas e pretos sujos à rua reclamando da vida. Viva o capitalismo!

As eventuais mortes de estudantes, jornalistas ou mecânicos por parte do aparato de "segurança" (terror, mesmo, era filha de "família boa" casar-se com algum pobre, ou vagabundo) eram, antes de '73, vistas como normais por grande parte da população; afinal, o Brasil crescia a um ritmo fantástico (veio depois a ser o país que mais cresceu no século vinte, segundo Delfim Netto, em entrevista de 2000 ao livro Histórias do Poder), abençoava o país um tal de milagre. As classes média e empresarial só vieram a perceber seu tosco erro em '73 e, principalmente, em '79, quando duas crises do petróleo tornaram mais difíceis comprar um Fusca e uma tevezinha bacana para chamar a vovó para ver a Fantástico domingo à noite. Ficamos, após a ditadura acima mencionada, com um país de economia dúbia, instituições ou lamentáveis ou inexistentes, uma população débil (o coronel Jarbas Passarinho consegui, como ministro da educação, deseducar um país inteiro), um corpo estudantil desmotivado e despolitizado e uma incapacidade patológica de dizer um firme não ao autoritarismo, à corrupção e à tortura, que até hoje é vista com bons olhos. A única coisa que melhorou desde então (digamos, '88) foi a economia. Não é pouca coisa, mas não é mais do que um começo.

O que certamente reflete neste perfil do jovem de hoje que o Datafolha pesquisou e publicou em julho deste ano. Vemos um jovem que, ao contrario do que se espera, é preocupado não com revolução ou em "causar", mas com arranjar um emprego, ter seu próprio dinheiro e casa própria e, claro, estudar. Mas poderia ser diferente? Até '95, estávamos acostumados com o preço de quase qualquer artigo mudar uma ou duas vezes em um só dia. Antes desta data, o Orçamento da União era um delírio, uma ficção. Só depois do Plano Real é que pôde vislumbrar-se, pelo menos do ponto de vista dos jovens, a obtenção de empregos fixos que não fossem estatais, financiamentos que não dessem errado no meio do caminho, a oportunidade de ir à universidade, mesmo que essa fosse a Uninove ou a Uniban.

E pior: este mesmo jovem não só tem perspectivas completamente individualistas, como também prima por um comportamento lamentavelmente conservador. Segundo a mesma pesquisa, vemos um jovem brasileiro que acha que a lei do aborto é boa do jeito que está (mesmo quando o aborto tornou-se, como descreveu José Gomes Temporão, um problema de saúde pública). Vemos um jovem que acha que se deve ter uma pena de prisão para menores de dezoito anos, que se deve proibir a maconha.

É rir para não chorar, especialmente porque este é o mesmo jovem que não acompanha o noticiário político, que insiste em ir a igreja procurar consolo, que não lê nem jornal nem livro, que acha que garotas devem casar-se virgens e que transam pela primeira vez aos quatorze, quinze anos. É profundamente deprimente ver, tanto na FGV, onde presentemente estudo, quanto em pesquisas como a do Datafolha, que os jovens hoje acham que a felicidade está em tradição, família e propriedade, este mesmo lema que custou-nos vidas, torturados, cidades ultraviolentas, mais e mais viciados em drogas, corrupção endêmica, mães aos dezoito, atraso em todos os sentidos.

Não sei dos jovens do resto do Brasil além de pesquisas como a que mencionei. Nem conheço direito os jovens da FGV. Mas se depender destas pesquisas e daqueles que conheci em sala de aula, o Brasil está fodido. Sim, fodido, esta é a palavra científica para se descrever o Brasil do futuro. Se o melhor que teremos como liderança próxima são pessoas que não se interessam pelo fato que pode-se se comprar até um ministro do Supremo Tribunal Federal, pessoas que acham que todo o patrimônio público é deles, pessoas que acham que um bom emprego e um carrão trazem felicidade, nós estamos fodidos. Mas até aí, nada de muito novo, o Brasil é uma bosta desde 1530.

Publico este post sem revisão; temo que, se revisá-lo, deixarei de ser honesto. Sei que não sou exemplo a ser seguido, pois muito caguei nesta vida, muitos erros cometi que eram evitáveis. Mas não pode ser que aquilo que o futuro guarda para o Brasil são líderes que não lêem e não se interessam, exceto por dinheiro, poder e uma cega devoção ao Livro Preto, supostamente composto pelas sábias palavras de um Velho Barbudo que, apesar de perfeito, criou as bichas, os pobres, os pretos e todos aqueles que estes mesmos devotos líderes amam odiar.