Presentation of the Brazilian
Workers' Party (PT)
Latin America has undergone important transformations since the last Sao Paulo Forum in Havana. Between July 1993 and May 1995, presidential and/or general elections were held in 14 Latin American countries. This process established some precedents.
In almost all the cases, forces of the lett In almost all the cases. forces of the left or center-left contested the elections with real possibilities of winning. In the majority of the elections, the contest was dominated by a right vs. (center-)left coalition. In spite of defeats, this is the best overall performance of the left in the history of Latin America.
This performance results from a prolonged crisis of social movements as well as the political renovation and organic recomposition of progressive parties and movements in the last ten years. The difficult conditions in which the left's program developed and its adverse electoral results did not diminish the strength of the Latin American left. On the contrary, the left continues to maintain a strong presence in society and continues to grow considerably in parliaments as well as in municipal and state governments. The left remains a decisive factor in countries throughout the region.
There are, however, enormous challenges ahead.
The left will have to be the voice of those who today have no voice, the excluded. It must simultaneously express the national, democratic aspirations of all socially organized sectors who oppose the savage organic re-insertion of Latin America into the new world (disorder.
[..] In some countries — Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and particularly Brazil -the electoral debate revolved around the question of monetary stability. Victorious candidates defended neo-liberal adjustment plans, including:
• a strong program of privatization (or "flexibilization" in the Brazilian case) of state industries;
• a profound opening of capital and commercial markets to foreign investment;
• the deregulation of labor relations and social security systems.
In their discourse and policies, the neoconservatives explicitly or implicitly defend the minimum state as a solution to the national-developmentalist model. This model, which was created in the 1930's, has been in crisis for more than 15 years.
necessary to combat inflation early in order to return to growth and then, much later, distribute the wealth.
Since these policies will only produce positive results in the medium to long term, social programs have been
Partido dos Iraba nadores
O Partido sem Patrões
POR UM GOVERNO
D
DOS TRABALHADORES
"The Workers' Party (The party without bosses):
For a workers' government!"
Without attacking the root of the problem, neo-liberalism exploits the hostility of growing social sectors against an authoritarian, inefficient, bureaucratic and, above all, privatized state machine. Neo-liberalism proposes the total retreat of the state from the economy, which makes it impossible to implement social policies, especially in the areas of education, health, housing, transportation and welfare.
The traditional right and recent converts to its doctrines affirm that a generalization of market mechanisms (a paradoxical proposal in the highly oligopolized societies of Latin America) can correct real social distortions and give new vigor to Latin American countries through full integration into the world economy.
Rhetorically recognizing the depth of the social crisis Latin America is going through, neo-conservatives argue that it is formulated to reduce the emergency impact of the crisis. The best known is the Mexican PRONASOL (See International Viewpoint #263, February 1995) which inspired the Comunidade Solidaria program of Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
[...] In these and other countries, the left criticized the socially excluding, economically anti-national and politically authoritarian character of the neo-liberal project. The left emphasized the need to first of all confront the question of social apartheid. With little or no success, the left offered alternative development projects that sought to reduce inflation, spark economic growth and redistribute wealth.
Recognizing that globalization is an objective phenomenon, the left sought to combine commercial openings and the need to attract foreign investments with
7 International Viewpoint #268 July 1995
São Paulo Forum safeguards to guarantee national sovereignty.
In face of the concern for constructing alternatives, leftist national development projects did not always offer a level of depth and clarity necessary to overturn the ideological hegemony of neo-conservative positions. Such positions revealed an enormous capacity to penetrate even the popular classes.
Still perplexed by the crisis of centrally planned economic models or by the collapse of the social democratic welfare state,
S the left demonstrates little capacity to propose innovative, popularly backed solutions. This is a complex situation of economic, social and political transition in which one model of development enters into crisis without offering a replacement.
The defensive position of the left allowed the right to characterize resistance to neoliberalism as a "corporative"
"xenophobic" project hostile to modernity.
I. The predictions for economic growth in Latin
America indicate a decline. The
GDP for the entire continent is expected to drop from 5% in 1994 to 2% in 1995.
In addition to slowed economic growth in a continent marked by gross social inequalities, it is worth noting that growth does not necessarily have a positive impact employment.
This on phenomenon, which occurs in other parts of the world, has particularly grave consequences in
Latin America.
To become "competitive"
businesses were obliged to drastically reduce their expenses and the quality of services, making work more precarious.
The new investments, with the processes of work and management techniques they introduce, are labor saving without having a favorable social impact.
This explains cases like Argentina,
8
International Viewpoint #268 July 1995 where the economy grew 30% in the last few years, yet the unemployment rate rose to 25%.
These new structural factors of higher unemployment, brought about by the general effects of macro-economic political models, increase social exclusion.
Statistics indicate a rise in the number of men and women living below the poverty line in Brazil and in a large part of Latin America.
[...] Politically, the implementation of this model has strong authoritarian implications, especially considering the precariousness of democratization in the majority of Latin American countries.
Though workers and other popular and democratic sectors participated extensively in the democratization process, it is strikingly clear that in almost all the CRO de AN PABLO POR LA INTEGRACIOI de los PUEBLO 25 AL 28 DE MAY MONTEVIDEO URUGUAY transitions to democracy compromises were reached with old dominant groups. Some of these groups, "recycled" for new democratic times, continue to exercise power. The presence of these groups in power, in some cases associated with original sectors of the left, center-left or populists, complicates reform of the political system and further distorts the mechanisms of representation which are traditionally precarious in Latin America.
The increased fragility of the majority of political parties is reflected in the absolute inconsistency of their programs (or in the fact that all of them resemble one another on a rhetorical level). This discredits mechanisms of representation.
The fact that advances in political democracy did not translate into better social conditions for the masses discredits politics and politicians involved in leftist organizations.
This highlights the fact that political democracy will be permanently threatened by the absence of economic and social democracy.
This situation strengthens the position of those who claim that politics is implicitly perverse. It opens a space for outsiders and opportunists and creates a technocratic conception of power that implies the exclusion of the masses.
[...] The events of December
1994 in Mexico clearly expose the limits of a model that is considered a paradigm for the rest of Latin
America and offer the Latin
American left multiple and complex lessons. Even though the Mexican crisis confirmed the expectations of the left and, above all, demonstrated the fragility of neo-liberal adjustment projects, there are no
)
reasons to celebrate.
First, because the main victims of the austerity measures adopted to exorcise the crisis are the working class and excluded sectors of society. The crisis will result in sectoral pay squeezes, recession, unemployment and a new inflationary boom. The rich, as always, have already been compensated and can survive without any great difficulty.
Second, because the consequences of the Mexican collapse and other similar collapses are not necessarily an advance for the struggle of the working class and democratic sectors.
Historically, experience has taught the left a lot about the dangers of a catastrophic vision, a tendency to deduce the possibilities of political advance from the crisis of capitalism. Experience has demonstrated many times that a serious crisis of the economic model can lead to authoritarian forms of power, if not to
* open counter-revolution.