By GEORGHIO TOMELIN*
Both right-wing and left-wing people want more communication, more transportation, more health, more food, etc. The question is “at what price?”
“He says he’s left-wing but wants to have an iPhone”
I came across this phrase in a traditional school in São Paulo that functioned as a polling station, and I even asked the Electoral Court inspector to remove the poster from the voting room. The reasoning behind the phrase excites the right, but it contains conceptual confusion. Karl Marx wanted to socialize the means of production, not restrict access to consumer goods.
Both right-wing and left-wing people want more communication, more transportation, more health, more food, etc. The question is “at what price?” How many hours of each of our free time are needed in exchange for this “better life”? Who do people with less income and access to new things place their hopes on when they “decide” that acquiring new technologies is essential?
“If you are left-wing then you defend criminals”
No one defends crime as a way of life. It is not an ideological issue, but rather a matter of giving everyone the opportunity to defend themselves technically. Solutions to reduce crime, however, can be the subject of ideological conflicts. Increasing opportunities for work, leisure and access to consumer goods, for example, do reduce crime. That is why we find more crime in more unequal societies.
The idea of increasing sentences excites many people with no knowledge of criminology. Unfortunately, only one in three homicides results in a good police investigation. The rest are lost in pain. The certainty of being punished, that is what can scare people with bad intentions, not the length of the sentence. And, obviously, both the left and the progressive right defend the right to defense, because being accused is one thing and being definitively convicted is another.
“Jelly was arrested”
Authoritarians of any kind condemn the subject even before the facts. There is a bakery near PUC-SP. At the door there was a nice boy who asked for money. The owner of the bakery treated him with great respect. Other humble people tried to stay there, but were “discouraged” by the system of repression. Whenever Geleia showed up after class, he even had a free snack time inside the bakery (but he didn’t accept just bread and butter, hence the nickname).
The years went by, and Geleia ended up behind the counter, fetching juices and carrying snacks for customers. One day, he disappeared. An inspector threatened to fine the establishment if the little guy continued to work there “illegally.” I recently passed by and asked if anyone had heard from him. “Geleia? Geleia is in jail.”
“Anyone who wasn’t left-wing until the age of 20 has no heart”
The phrase is attributed to several thinkers (Batbie, Clemenceau and others). Their idea is that the youthful dream of social equality would not survive into adulthood. Or put another way, in a prejudiced way: only those who do not pay for their own sustenance would believe in greater socialization of goods (since selfishness would be the rule of society). Facing the scarcity of adult life would then naturally lead everyone to the right.
Whether the statement is true or false, the truth is that many young people today are forced to “see happiness” in very expensive consumer goods (with up-to-date technology and shine). It seems that consumer society, unfortunately, moves the hearts of young people more than their dreams for a better world that protects us all equally.
“Paying double to consume triple”
The first decade of the 21st century showed that it was possible to pay twice as much to a worker who would then consume three times as much (with full employment and abundant credit). Turning the government's spotlight on the humble would accelerate the economy. That's what happened. The worker then believed in his ability to pay, consumed more, got into debt, lost money in the installments and ended up being foreclosed on (losing faith in those who encouraged him to drive).
Some opinion makers are against “putting the poor in the budget”, without realizing that this money ends up in the pockets of the trinket sellers, who pay them through advertising. The impeachment, without facts or evidence, of a duly elected president was the solution to quickly castrate labor rights and reduce production costs (realigning the profits of the business community that lived off the accelerated economy).
“As deputies we will no longer be beaten by the police”
Jorge Amado confided to his friend Graciliano Ramos that he was happy with the protection of his mandate, because he would no longer be beaten by the police (he must have also discussed the issue with congressman Claudino Silva, who would be impeached in 1948). His friend is said to have replied to Jorge Amado that the police are the police and we will never command them or stop getting beaten.
The system of state repression has always existed, and even Vice President Pedro Aleixo, in the late 1960s, was more afraid of the street cop than of the General. Production, consumption and private management of prices have always been the true center of political dispute, and the state apparatus has continued to expand with new institutions for criminal repression that protect production. In addition, the state greatly influences cultural production and social consensus.
“Old wine in a new barrel”
Lord Gladstone was prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer in the 19th century. He was a true liberal, concerned with eliminating trade protectionism: he wanted to see real competitions, for effective equality of opportunities. In Brazil, those who attend a public university take home, on average, a century of Bolsa Família tuition fees (in the name of a bogus meritocracy).
The attacks on Brazilian democracy on January 8, 2023, were not carried out by true liberals. Ruy Barbosa – to a certain extent our Lord Gladstone – always wondered when Brazil would stop being a deprived country? True liberals do not invade the seat of power to demand the end of freedom. Nor are they against the entry of the humble into the consumer market. We have seen the scenario of freedoms being curtailed in the past. On January 8, 2023, what we saw was the old slave culture broth in a new package.
Scenes from the next chapters
The desire to improve our lives is in all of us. The economy is undergoing a self-destructive straightening process that is digesting its consumers. The trinkets and pleasures of capitalism are constantly being renewed, and anxiety attacks are proof of this. Maintaining a reserve army without the minimum conditions for reallocation in the market will not work in times of artificial intelligence.
Right-wing media uses very simple ideas and has the repressive apparatus of the state at its side. Social media anesthetizes and transforms our young people into commodities of themselves.
We live immersed in the violence of a silent annihilation of subjectivities. Breaking the vicious circle of authoritarian communication involves reconfiguring a new generation of voters, with the capacity to understand their personal role in the collective.
Individualism places social mobility under the umbrella of meritocracy, as if everything depended solely on the personal efforts of each individual. Social repositioning involves access to goods and services that are updated at a rapid pace, which requires new repositioning. The illusion of an individual solution is difficult to combat when even the population included in some state program praises meritocracy and the minimal State.
Social violence will be contained by expanding inclusion, not by increasing exclusion and violence. The free market system does not work without healthy consumers. Either the government reorganizes the system of social guarantees, or disinclusion will increase the desire of the less favored for the “pleasures” of a market that is by definition unattainable.
*Georghio A. Tomelin, lawyer, holds a PhD in State Law from USP and a PhD in Philosophy from PUC-SP. Advisor to the AGU Democracy Observatory.
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