Democratically implement national-developmentalism

Image: Plato Terentev
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By LUIZ WERNECK VIANNA*

The inertia that has affected the country is the result of neoliberal ideology

So far, so good, would have been, in the anecdotal record of Millor Fernandes, the words uttered by a clumsy man when he fell from the 10th floor of a building when passing by the 9th, as we can conjecture a few days after the presidential investiture of Lula and Alkmin, closing eyes so as not to see the mutineers who still dream of a military intervention camped around Praça dos Três Poderes waiting for the magical solution of a military coup. It is true that, bursting the bubble of conspirators against the democratic order, what we still have among its defenders is ready to take measures to defend it. In the same direction, the immense popular participation expected for the presidential inauguration ceremony is expected to act as a dissuasive force for the insane.

Apart from the unforeseen, always a possibility in the face of the insanity that has grown freely over the last four years, it is possible, after all, to hold a civic celebration for the resumption of the validity of the rituals proper to democracy. But make no mistake, once the party is over, the insanity of the anti-democratic conspirators will run its course, in certain sectors even more enraged by the misfortune of their purposes, and who hold positions in the legislative powers and state machines of various cities and states in their hands, in addition to the fact that they have a partisan expression.

The imposition of a democratic government will not be an easy task, it will demand time and a lot of flexibility on the part of the coalition that now assumes the reins of the State, which, incidentally, has not lacked since the beginning of the electoral campaign, the work of the The widest possible composition of the new government's ministries attests to the fact that the risks of the present situation are not being ignored.

Ahead of the new government, everything is new, particularly in the international scenario where geopolitical disputes between the great powers intensify, as well as in our political demography where the traditionally hegemonic states of the center-south have their role diminished by the emergence of from the Northeast, evident in the ministerial composition. Experiences in past administrations, in this case, consist of only valid credentials for the selection of new directors of public apparatuses, but by themselves they do not guarantee the success of their interventions to their directors.

It is not simply a question of replacing what was destroyed by the previous regime, although that is important, but of seeking innovation in a country that depressed scientific activity and ignored industry, anachronistically converting itself to the situation of an exporter of commodities, exchanging the urban-industrial axis, the starting point of its successful modernization, for the agrarian one, incapable, even if the outstanding role it has been fulfilling is highlighted, of building the foundations for building the future.

Outside of the social issue, where good choices have been made, one searches in vain, among selected ministerial cadres, for the bearers of new promises for a country with more than two hundred million inhabitants thirsting for new opportunities in life. The shyness in this search seems to stem from the fear of falling into the formula of national-developmentalism, made by neoliberal preaching a stigma to be avoided as the devil flees from the cross.

This same fear is fueled by the conspiracy against state actions in the sense of leveraging development, another stigma that prevents the search for creative innovations for social change. The inertia that affected the country is the result of the neoliberal ideology, which has reigned for decades among the dominant elites, barley, in large part, due to the fact that the national-developmentalist guidelines have been, among us, carried out by authoritarian regimes.

The dissociation between national-developmentalism and authoritarianism is, if you look closely, a constitutional mandate when it states that society must be guided by the ideals of justice and solidarity, plants that do not grow like weeds in the market and that demand continued gardening work. It is up to the democratic government that we have just conquered to exercise these precautions, which are only possible if it understands that this is a mission to be shared with its civil society.

In the health industry, for example, for which we are ready to take ambitious flights, the grouping in networks of already constituted equipment, from university research centers or not, we have a secure base for leveraging it with public and private resources.

On the other hand, the appreciation of unionism, as in advanced countries, especially in Germany, can become a significant partner in productive activities, provided that their legal statutes provide for their forms of participation. Institutional engineering, under the rule of a democratic policy, with the human resources we already have, can be the instrument for implementing the values ​​we enshrine in our Constitution, breaking with our traditions of exclusion.

*Luiz Werneck Vianna is a professor at the Department of Social Sciences at PUC-Rio. Author, among other books, of The Passive Revolution: Iberism and Americanism in Brazil (Revan).

 

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