By CARLOS OCKÉ*
The connection between Bolsonarism and neoliberalism has deep ties tied to this mythological figure of the “saver”
“John Locke’s liberalism is an economic liberalism that pits the individual against the state. The intellectual history of austerity begins here.”
(Mark Blyth, Austerity: the story of a dangerous idea, P. 153).
The recent Bolsonarist experience has highlighted his adherence to the policy of fiscal austerity. Without disregarding the motivations and interests involved in this choice, this essay discusses why this field – which has hegemonic pretensions in Brazil[I] – exalts individual virtue, entrepreneurship and the market.
From a theoretical point of view, this praxis (union between theory and practice) transcends the dimension of political economy, especially the Smithian postulation, where parsimony is presented as essential for the progress of capitalism, qualifying savings as a merit and spending as a vice.
It also finds an echo in moral philosophy, assuming a religious content: a better life can only be achieved through hard work, the reward for which is social advancement.
Thus, it is not surprising that Bolsonarism – beyond its antidemocratic content – questions the 1988 Constitution, especially state intervention in the economy and the expansion of social rights.
Nor is it strange to note that his ethics have an elective affinity with the neo-Pentecostal prosperity theology, holding individuals responsible for their material success or failure, amid the glaring inequalities of income, wealth and power in Brazilian society.
The rational saver-entrepreneur
At first glance, the link between Bolsonarism and austerity is rooted in the thesis of the “rational saver-entrepreneur”.
According to this conception, the rationality of the individual would be sufficient for him to prosper in capitalism, becoming a privileged part of the saving and investing class. Worse still: his individual success would presuppose the elimination of essential functions of the State for economic development and the provision of public goods and services aimed at social well-being.
There is historical evidence in economic thought indicating that the austerity paradigm – today focused on the minimal State, budgetary balance and the fight against inflation – was articulated, from its beginnings, with the notion arising from the formulation of the “rational saver-entrepreneur”.
After all, the classical economists of the 19th century considered this proposition the quintessence of “personal virtue and good politics”, since, for them, the working classes suffered from incurable vices, such as excessive consumption, a decisive factor in state debt.
In his study on austerity, Mark Blyth highlights that John Locke and David Hume had already defined the conceptual bases of austerity, when they emphasized their “pathological fear” of public debt, which later came to be consolidated as the ideological core of neoliberalism: the criticism of state intervention in the economy.[ii]
Thus, economic theory appropriated the figure of the “saver”, while still trying to integrate the dominated classes into the bourgeois order: while austerity restricts social spending, public investment and the increase in real wages, it seeks to convince the working class to work in circumstances that are unfavorable to them.
In this sense, it would be plausible to suggest that Bolsonaro's economic agenda with its emphasis on entrepreneurship is linked to the idea of the “rational saver-entrepreneur”, whose assumptions support austerity.
The paradox of parsimony
This intertwining of “saver” and austerity also allowed a comparison to be forged sui generis between the public and domestic budget, where the State is expected to mimic the economic behavior of a family in the presence of debt: the government should not spend more than it collects, in line with the canons of economic orthodoxy.
Given the demands placed on families and the state to save more and consume less in times of crisis, the prescription of austerity is often presented as a moral issue of virtue and responsibility.
Analogous to the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, excesses would be punished and sacrifices rewarded, a narrative that enhances a meritocratic vision, where hard work and individual responsibility would be seen as essential for the functioning of society.
In other words, this conception reinforces the idea that the social hierarchy is structured based on individual merits: those who do not reach the top of the social pyramid simply do not deserve it. After all, the profits of business savers would be the result of their virtuous behavior, the same behavior that hires workers and boosts the economy.
However, unlike families, the State has the ability to define its budget, while a family cannot determine how much it earns, since the public budget is the result of collective decisions about who pays and receives, how much they pay and how much they receive. Furthermore, when spending or investing, the government recovers part of this income through taxes.
In other words, by inducing economic growth, the State increases its revenue, unlike family dynamics. Finally, families do not issue currency, do not have the capacity to issue government bonds in their own currency, nor do they set interest rates on their debts.[iii]
Given this distinction between State and family, from a Keynesian perspective, the idea of individual savings as a virtue is weakened by the “paradox of thrift” (when excessive savings reduce aggregate demand): if everyone saves to prosper, the economy could enter a recession.
This synthesis between economics and philosophy, designed to make the austerity argument effective and persuasive, built consensus even among the popular classes.[iv]
Authoritarian threat
It seems to us a mistake to identify austerity only as a set of attributes of orthodoxy.
It is a praxis that combines pure economics and moral philosophy, whose apparently neutral properties not only justify, but end up supporting essential values for the reproduction of the capitalist system.
Thus, it can be said that fiscal austerity is not a new economic policy, nor is it merely a response to economic crises. Nor does it result from the neoliberal model in force since the late 1970s. Rather, it manifests itself as an instrument of class domination in defense of capitalism (private property and wage relations).
According to Cláudia Mattei, the binomial capitalism and austerity act reciprocally as a natural and universal parameter of the economy.[v] This characteristic ensures that it can create a powerful ideological veil, preventing demands for better living conditions from being transformed into structural reforms of the system.
Despite this mystification, which seeks to nullify the class struggle, its application is capable of disciplining workers, as well as cooling distributive conflicts. If necessary, it can imply the renunciation of political freedoms or relegating them to a secondary plane, above all by nullifying the social rights of the popular classes.
During his government, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolsonarism did not face ethical and political dilemmas to embrace austerity and coup d'état, and, just like Donald Trump, if this hegemony is victorious in the 2026 presidential elections, its authoritarian bias could pose a risk to the stability of Brazilian democracy, in the name of individual virtue, entrepreneurship and the market.
The false anti-system discourse
The connection between Bolsonarism and neoliberalism has deep ties tied to this mythological figure of the “saver”, whose behavioral model, in times of structural crisis of capitalism, social networks and dystopia, would allow a path to prosperity, but not without sacrifice through hard work and thrift (more savings, less consumption).
Added to this, despite the anti-system discourse, Bolsonarism operates taking into account the economic resentment of the middle classes with the alleged state corruption and the reduction of social mobility in the era of financialization, in the context of the destruction of quality jobs caused by the explosive technological advance.
Thus, the concept of austerity, limited to the private sphere, ends up serving as a starting point for questioning state intervention in the economy and criticizing social spending and public investment, even when such mechanisms seek precisely to improve the living conditions of workers.
Under political siege, despite the concrete problem of food inflation, this is one of the ideological reasons why the good economic results of the Lula government do not translate into popularity, since the Bolsonaro social base contradictorily supports the policy of fiscal austerity, camouflaged in a discourse of charismatic (religious) appeal.
In fact, this disguise is based on the assumption of the “rational saver-entrepreneur”, accompanied by values such as “honest economy”, “hard work” and “thrift”, whose adherence to common sense convinces part of the Brazilian working class to defend and follow Bolsonarism, despite the imminent arrest of its main leader.
*Carlos Ocke is an economist and researcher at IPEA.
Notes
[I] GOES, C. After neoliberal hegemony: a reading of Francisco de Oliveira. In SINGER, A. et al. (org.). The second circle: center and periphery in times of war. Campinas, SP: Unicamp Press, 2024. pp. 427-456.
[ii] BLYTH, M. Austerity: the story of a dangerous idea. São Paulo: Literary Autonomy, 2017.
[iii] ROSSI, P.; DWECK, E.; ARANTES, F. Political economy of austerity. In ROSSI, P.; DWECK, E.; OLIVEIRA, ALM (orgs.). Economy for the few: social impacts of austerity and alternatives for Brazil. São Paulo: Literary Autonomy, 2018. pp. 14-31.
[iv] CARDOSO, G. The rhetoric of austerity. Political Economy Magazine, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 1033-1042, 2022.
[v] MATTEI, CE The order of capital: how economists invented austerity and paved the way for fascism. Sao Paulo: Boitempo, 2023.
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