THE REALITY OF A BOLSONARO GOVERNMENT

Friday, October 12, 2018
Info Source: 
Prof. João Marcio, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Deputy Bolsonaro has already committed himself to the "market" to hand over all the decisions of the economic area to the great private agents, under the hegemony of financial capital (personified in that by Paulo Guedes). By the declarations of the candidate, it would be a government commanded directly by businessmen committed to the reduction of the "Brazil cost," that is, to the increase of private profit. A government with this profile would not only continue but radicalize the Temer agenda in order to implement:
 

(1) The brutal reduction of the labor cost of remuneration (i.e. the reduction of the minimum wage and the termination of various labor rights combined with the deterioration of working conditions, through the generalization of intermittent work, outsourcing and scrapping of labor justice);
 

2) The end of legal restrictions on the maximum economic exploitation of natural resources, overcoming traditional populations and environmental concerns;
 

(3) The scrapping and privatization of public education (through the chronic de-financing of schools and universities, the massive deployment of distance learning via private companies, the replacement of public tenders for technicians and teachers for hiring via outsourcing, the drastic reduction of scholarships, research and support to stay in universities, the imposition of rectors by the MEC (Ministry of Education) against the democratic choice of academic community and the ideological persecution of the freedom of teaching and research);

 

4) The scrapping and privatization of public health (through the de-financing of the SUS (Public Health System), weak regulation of private healthcare companies, generalization of public-private partnerships as a management model and substitution of public tenders for temporary contracting through outsourcing);
 
5) Favoring the armaments industry (national and foreign) by liberating the carrying of arms and the budgetary priority to the demands of the police and armed forces;
 

6) A model of public security that is even more bellicose, less accountable to society and less legally accountable; and
 

7) Brazil's external alignment with the US and Israel, putting the country on a militaristic agenda that runs counter to its diplomatic tradition and jeopardizes peace in the region.
 

Moreover, we would still have a pension reform (which would cut off rights for the lower ones, but would retain privileges for the state elite and the military), a tax reform that would strengthen the concentration of income and wealth, privatization of companies and public banks and the weakening of anti-corruption control and investigation institutions.
 

To implement such an agenda (the capitalists above will apply the "dog law" to the underdogs), only with intimidation, persecution, and violence. What history recorded as fascist methods.

João Márcio Mendes Pereira

ON THE CHARACTER THAT CAPITALISTS NEED
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First of all, Bolsonaro is an imbecile, who has never been taken seriously, even in the military. He is only reliant on the "market" (the bourgeoisie, as it was called not so formerly) to outsource all the strategic decisions of his eventual government, with only secondary prompts to dump his bravado and throw factoids into public opinion. This is the reading of the relevant economic agents who are paying his campaign bill. The problem (for them) is that the Bolsonaro is unprepared even to understand this, which puts a horizon of unpredictability and uncertainty for the "investors" (the capitalists). Moreover, the subject does not have a solid political base (such a PSL [Bolsanaro’s political party] is a phenomenon of occasion, without programmatic consistency).

On the other hand, Bolsonaro carries an authoritarian rancidity that is constitutive of his public figure, of which he cannot give up without denying himself. And it is this rancidness that generates a contrary reaction to it that is socially plural and internationally consensual so far.

In short, the subject only really convinces the fanatics who follow him. The capitalists are using it now, but have already priced it, establishing as a validity period the execution of neoliberal reforms (the package of evil against the people and against the national patrimony, in the style of shock therapy - one or two years at most). After that, the subject will be expendable.
 

The uncertainty (for all) is that, after opening the Pandora's box, the demons do not come back to it easily and, as Murphy's law says, nothing is so bad that it cannot get any worse.

João Márcio Mendes Pereira