By LUIZ MARQUES*
For neoliberals, poverty is a problem – of the poor. Instead of redistributive policies of the State, to increase the Human Development Index (HDI), they postulate a deal with the devil for bodily mutilation.
The Industrial Revolution opened the door to science fiction, due to the technological innovations that were put into motion. Two centuries later, dystopia is part of our daily lives. The German film, Paradise (2023), directed by Boris Kunz, excellent in the evaluation of Netflix, is emblematic of the fears that lurk beneath the broad, general and unrestricted commercialization of a pandemic.
In the film, a global corporation exploits the desire for social advancement of vulnerable people in Europe by buying years of their lives. The donors (refugees) grow old while the recipients (millionaires) grow younger. In the opening, we see an employee persuade a young man to sell fifteen years of his existence in exchange for comfort for his family, who are rooting for a “yes” vote.
For neoliberals, poverty is a problem – of the poor. Instead of redistributive policies of the State, to increase the Human Development Index (HDI), they postulate a deal with the devil for bodily mutilation (eyes, lungs, etc.) in order to increase the income of the poor with body organs. Surrogate mothers are commercialized. The crossing of the Rubicon has already happened.
Em The tyranny of merit (2020), in the chapter “The Rhetoric of Ascension”, Michel Sandel reports on the classroom debate at Harvard University. “My topic was about the moral limits of markets. Headlines had reported the story of the teenager who sold one of his kidneys to buy a iPhone and a iPad”. This is the practical version of the hegemonic worldview in times of cholera.
Several students take the libertarian position that if the donor agrees to sell a kidney, without pressure or coercion, there is nothing wrong with it. Others disagree – it is unfair for the rich to prolong their lives with the grinding machine of social Darwinism, at the expense of the needy. Some consider that the wealthy with possessions, having climbed to prominent places in the rigid hierarchy, deserve longevity, unlike the ignorant masses. The discussion violates vital and inalienable prerogatives of each person. An exception is made for gestures of genuine empathy or love for a loved one.
“I was surprised by the blatant application of meritocratic thinking,” exclaims the American philosopher. It wasn’t even that bad. In religious temples, where the prosperity gospel is sheltered, health and wealth have always been approached as divine gifts. Today, what matters is not deciphering where we came from, who we are or where we are going. The question that matters is – how much?
In a previous book, What money can't buy (2012), the author had sounded the alarm. “We live in a time when almost everything can be bought or sold.” He mentions schools, hospitals, and prisons included in the calculation of profit; outsourcing of war to private military companies (Afghanistan, Iraq); private guards that are twice as large as the public police force (United States, Great Britain). Add to this the market for carbon emissions rights in the environment and compensation mechanisms. What begins in the “market economy” ends in the insensitive “market society.”
Reactivate the antithesis
The shipwrecked feeling of those who suffer the hijacking of the functions of the State benefits the status quo. Given the objective and subjective deficiencies, the mere reproduction of the workforce is a miracle. Continuing to breathe, despite the precariousness of labor, demonstrates strength and resilience. However, it does not demonstrate situational awareness in a context in which any chance for a class pact is disappearing.
In the daily battle for survival, supercompetition exalts the winner (winner) and encourages others to escape the sad condition of losers (losers). The fact of finding the energy to get up every morning gives the worker a sense of mission accomplished: “the one who works hard”, according to Houaiss Dictionary. Those who work hard on apps demand fair recognition. It is important to question and not trample the category in question with abstract doctrinalism, without their feet on the ground.
The market is reestablishing the gap between the “big” and the “small”; it is radicalizing the civilizational regression. The democratic ritual of “queuing” is disappearing. “First class” passengers on airplanes skip the checkpoint. In theme parks, a boosted ticket bypasses the sequence of access to shows and rides. The neoliberal policies of Margaret Thatcher (United Kingdom) and Ronald Reagan (United States) legitimized meritocratic arrogance. Now the power of money buys laws and remakes ethics.
When faced with equality, inequality becomes preferable for the empowerment of individualities and collectives. Freedom ceases to be a collective predicate and becomes an autonomous judgment, as it is appropriated by economic agents. Fraternity is suppressed from the institutional agenda. The once solid social sphere melts into thin air. Mayors follow fashion and privatize services in exchange for publicity, waiting for the highest bid at the auction – or for bribes.
The risks are passed on to individuals, rather than to companies or the State. The alibi is usually “modernization”: in other words, the withdrawal of acquired rights, with the approval of institutions. The life expectancy stolen from the population, with the degradation of livelihoods, is a crime against humanity. On the Map of Inequality, residents of Tiradentes in the far east of São Paulo die 23 years earlier than those of Moema, an elegant neighborhood in the capital of São Paulo. Inequities shorten the death of citizens in the outskirts. BOPE is just the brutal face of eugenics.
Achille Mbembe addresses the theme in Enmity Policies (2020). “The ultimate expression of sovereignty lies in the power and ability to dictate who shall live and who shall die.” In neoliberalism, the sovereign’s scepter is “necropower” or “necropolitics”; prejudices and exterminations decide mortality. The criteria of the commodity and market ideology become pillars of current domination. Aporophobia, racism and sexism serve the purification in the market society.
The reason for the moral emptiness of politics is the banishment of the ideals of common good and popular participation in public discourse. It is up to contemporary political analysis to wage the dispute over values in order to overcome positivist formulas. We must prevent the trivialization of evil in order to build a new “sovereignty” with respect for pluralist democracy and the diversity of the population. Homo sapiens in combination with the principles of the Republic and nature. It is necessary to reactivate the antithesis of the system of oppression with inclusive friendship policies that universalize rights and curb privileges. Without amnesty.
* Luiz Marques is a professor of political science at UFRGS. He was Rio Grande do Sul's state secretary of culture in the Olívio Dutra government.
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