By VINÍCIO CARRILHO MARTINEZ*

To whom does the “autonomy” of the Central Bank serve, perhaps the financial system or a project of deindustrialization of the country – or both

The country lives with one of the lowest inflation rates in the world, the FED (Central Bank of the USA) signals or lowers its interest rate, the recession is at our door, with the failure of companies (hundreds) and the real threat of unemployment. However, the Central Bank (BC) remains with the Selic rate at 13.75% – and what else does that mean?

It means, systemically speaking, that “our” Central Bank serves the houses and castes of the financial sector, especially the Bancões (social misery counters) – which take cheap money from the people and return it dearly to the same people; however, politically speaking, it also implies saying that the Central Bank is the last institutional bastion, the last state trench of Bolsonarism. In turn, as a social and political representation, Bolsonarism is the postmodern incarnation of national fascism (MARTINEZ, 2022).

From class autocracy to BC autocracy

It is no exaggeration to say that “our form of government” is a mess composed of autocracies (more or less subtle), based on ochlocracy^[I] and in plutocracy: synonymous with financial aristocracy and without any illustration^[ii] which was managed until it reached this form, which we currently have, of “results-oriented parliamentarism”.

Without forgetting the democratic flashes, the Casa Grande always evolves, manifests itself, in more courteous courts, courtesans, and not only making use of traditional coups – this would be the political movement of the class autocracy, of the financial fraction of the dominant capital and of the their hegemonic power groups. Hence the central role currently played by the Central Bank, to the detriment of Brazil and very favorable to the groups installed in the Centrão.

It happens, however, that hegemonic capital gathers so much “State power” that it is capable of, notoriously, systematically, failing to comply with the Federal Constitution, confronting or blocking the main political actions and, thus, dismissing social development, as we see today. with the “autonomy” of the Central Bank becoming an uncontrolled and abusive autocracy.

Our ethical and moral slip (here in the private and public sense) is so striking that texts, articles, medicine inserts, user manuals, tutorials, are read against the grain. In the recent past, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) used an escapist route regarding imprisonment in second instance (art. 5º, LVII)^[iii] – reformed later by the same court by practically declaring the illegality of the Lava Jato operation – and, today, it is simply not read and, therefore, the Central Bank is not obliged to adapt to article 192 of the Federal Constitution of 1988.

Even though it was deeply dismantled in a 2003 amendment, we are left with the caput: “Art. 192. The national financial system, structured in such a way as to promote the balanced development of the country and to serve the interests of the community, in all parts of which it is composed, including credit cooperatives, will be regulated by complementary laws that will also provide for the participation of foreign capital in the institutions that comprise it”.

So, who is served by the “autonomy” of the Central Bank, with the Selic rate at 13.75% and inflation close to 4%? Perhaps to the financial system or to a deindustrialization project in the country – or to both. In the principled considerations of article 192, the meaning wielded in the Political Charter itself (MARTINEZ, 2021) is what should prevail, as a positive object of the Federal Constitution of 1988: “Article 192 of the Federal Constitution of 1988 is just a current example, since It is always good to remember another maxim, democratic and republican, which should be our guide today and would serve to prevent (or annul) the 2016 Coup d'Etat, and which goes like this: “autonomy, without auditing, is autocracy” (MARTINEZ, 2019).

This is how, from 2016 onwards, until the end of 2022, we saw the formation of a true State caesarism – in an allusion to Gramsci’s (2000) parliamentary caesarism –, which would become necrofascism (MARTINEZ, 2022). The Centrão already existed, it was the basis of the 2016 coup, however, in 2023, it gained extra powers (in the 2022 election) to the point of swelling into this Frankenstein here dubbed “results parliamentarism”: harmful results, of course, when people, human dignity, the Republic and democracy.

Although the Central Bank is the bastion of financial capital, this package also results in the formation of a supergovernment, passing itself off as a State – even constitutionally – subjugated to a congressional aberration, through the bias of the Centrão, which imposes itself under a pernicious form of “ parliamentarism of results”: anti-republican, anti-democratic, anti-popular political pragmatism.

As we know, well accustomed to the so-called “secret budget” – allocation of public resources without any audit –, today, Centrão lives with requests for impeachment under its arm.

As in 2016, in 2023, impeachment is the password for the fascist coup.

*Vinicio Carrilho Martinez He is a professor at the Department of Education at UFSCar.

References

GRAMSCI, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. (Org. Carlos Nelson Coutinho). v. 2. Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization, 2000.

MARTINEZ, Vinicius Carrilho. Theories of the State – Non-Law State: when there is a denial of Social Justice, popular democracy, human rights. São Paulo: Scortecci, 2014.

MARTINEZ, Vinicius Carrilho. Theories of the State - Unconstitutional Dictatorship: 2016 coup d'état, State-form, Typologies of the State of Exception, nomology of the unconstitutional dictatorship. Curitiba-PR: Editora CRV, 2019.

MARTINEZ, Vinicius Carrilho. The Concept of Political Letter in the Federal Constitution of 1988: political-legal brakes to the State of non-Law. Londrina: Thoth, 2021.

MARTINEZ, Vinicius Carrilho. Necrofascism: National Fascism, necropolitics, political lycanthropy, political genocide. Curitiba: Brazil Publishing, 2022.

Notes

^[I] Here, as an acronym for the government of the worst – as the joke went: “the 5th grade came to power”. For a more traditional conceptualization of forms of government, there is a book/summary by the Italian jurist Norberto Bobbio (1985).

^[ii] We will always have to remember the fascist period, with flashes of Nazi or genocidal identification, especially in 2020, at the height of the Pandemic. That is why we also talk about Necrofascism or the coupling between Pandemic and Political Pandemonium (MARTINEZ, 2022).

^[iii] “no one will be considered guilty until the final and unappealable criminal sentence”.

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