Brazil’s constitutional uprising, redux (pt. 2)

ok, let’s speed run this because I’m getting bored:

Bolsonaro wins and immediately the feeble alliance behind him starts dissolving. he manages to get social security reform through Congress, but just barely and obviously weaker than it would need to be to give him the fiscal breathing space to actually consolidate power.

he doesn’t even need to worry about that, though, because pandemic hits, and whatever surplus he had went down the drain. (in another post, i need to muse about how basically no right-wing government managed to do a simple power grab given a sanitary crisis. some serious incompetence here)

Bolsonaro’s “strategy” for the pandemic – if you can call it so – was refusing to acknowledge it. initially he denied anything was happening, then ignored the piling corpses to deny the severity of the problem, then expected everything to go away quickly with “herd immunity”, then played the victim. the crazier the situation got, the more the technical names in his cabinet went away, and thus he lost most of the support he had in the educated middle classes. this would later cost him the 2022 election.

the ultimatum for a large part of this constitution would be Sergio Moro quitting his role as Minister of Justice amidst clear intimidation by Bolsonaro to avoid his sons getting investigated. this, coupled with the clear disregard for any scientific or specialist voices could never sit well with a class of people that believes their greatest distinction is exactly how much science they’ve learnt.

here as well is where Bolsonaro’s troubles with the judiciary branch in general, and STF in particular come into focus. to sustain his fiction scenario, Bolsonaro needed to spread – broad and wide – tons of made up information, first about the pandemic, then about the safety of elections in Brazil. the judiciary, in a rather cleaver karate movement, used that as a great excuse to upgrade their powers, which now includes investigation and indicting.

with this side of the alliance clearly beyond repair, he focused on getting as much of the landed oligarchies on his side as possible. massive amounts of federal government resources were piped into small countryside towns, in order to be used by congressmen as a way to get themselves elected again (it also couldn’t hurt to pocket some of it). this was actually the fundamental design of 1988’s magna carta, so nobody really got scandalised this time.

but this also meant the talk about “efficient government” was all but over. as the fiscal situation went back again into painful territory – coupled with high interest rates, high inflation and high energy prices – corporate interests removed themselves from supporting the (now mostly bankrupt) government. the only financial strategy was cashing in on the world-high interest.

***

okay, now we’re into “current history” field, and i don’t think i have enough information to make a lot of predictions. but let’s try a few moves:

first up, it’s clear that the judiciary branch has gotten more power, as would have been expected already in 2018, if not before. but this newly found power is yet to be formalised. it’s definitely not out of scope to imagine that in the next election cycle, the pendulum could return with a whip and take that power away – together with the people now holding it. this is probably the most contentious issue right now, and although i think some formal agreement of forces will eventually carve the current situation in stone, I’d say it’s 50/50.

second, it’s not clear either how much longer the very model will sustain itself. the identification of landed oligarchies with Congress seems to be stable, but just one election cycle could fill the chambers with people more allied with corporate interests or educated middle classes. the current composition is already veering in that direction. it’s also not clear how much longer the presidency will be a proxy for corporate interests – since major broadcasting clearly lost a lot of its purchase.

either way, very interesting times are ahead.

Brazil’s constitutional uprising, redux (pt. 1)

a lot of water has gone under the bridge since this post. i think the model is overall still good, and the predictions haven’t been vastly off mark. but some correction, and possibly expansion is in order.

the election of Bolsonaro in 2018 suggests my second scenario – violent reaction by the landed oligarchies – has played out. i was counting that as one of the less likely scenarios. my mistake wasn’t so much in probability ascription as in wrongly reading Bolsonaro’s candidacy.

it was, and remains now, pretty unlikely that we would have a military dictatorship in Latin America like the ones that existed during the Cold War. USG foreign policy has moved on from supporting this kind of “solution”, and thus it generally doesn’t happen. (obviously, Brazilian military could take power any time it wanted, but if it did it opposed to US interests, the experience of governing a now pariah state would be less than pleasant).

thing is: Bolsonaro’s candidacy wasn’t just a violent reaction by landed oligarchies. it actually managed to attract support from corporate interests as well as the urban middle classes. this support was by no means unconditional or unanimous in those latter two constitutions, but it grew strong enough to get him to power.

it’s understandable that landed oligarchies could side with Bolsonaro: he spent 28 years in Congress doing nothing much but banking on his association with the military. and although he wasn’t the most traditionalist person in his private life, he was a outspoken conservative. he probably wouldn’t be their foremost choice if they had one, but he was the one in the run.

it is, on the other hand, very much puzzling how Bolsonaro got the support of the other two constitutions. corporate interests want the government to be efficient and provide a regulatory framework where profits are made regularly. educated middle classes want to hear beautiful discourses that match their values, and want “impactful” jobs (preferably with good pay) in the public machinery. Bolsonaro’s previous career ran against either: as congressman, he always found ways to make government more inefficient and have worse regulations – and had very offensive opinions to either side of the spectrum.

the trick was basically positioning – in which he was probably advised by very well-versed professionals, possibly Steve Bannon himself. he brought Paulo Guedes as the banner of his newfound unswerving agenda of economic liberty, and aligned himself immediately with Operation Car Wash and its faces, especially Sergio Moro. couple this with the martyr-like status he got after having survived an assassination attempt during the campaign, and the puzzle is solved.

obviously, as soon as he took power, this big tent association started to fray at the edges. the competing interests of the constitutions that supported him hadn’t been addressed, negotiated and conciliated. each section was made believe that their interests were the only interests of the new government (and its rather large initial congressional base). the more it became obvious that Bolsonaro was utterly incapable of procuring anything but his own personal interests, people started jumping ship.

(for tomorrow, in part 2: pandemic, Lula, and STF)

yes, we can’t

(here is the the poetic version)

i was reading this text the other day (yes, it’s in portuguese. use chat-gpt or something). it goes through an overall very charitable and thorough critique of anarcho-capitalism, from a libertarian socialist pov.

let’s bracket whatever substantial agreement or disagreement i may have with ancaps or libsocs for now. whenever a text like this pops, i always read it through my teeth, expecting the moment this bracketing will take place. obviously, it almost never does.

thing is: this kind of argumentation is proceeding from the idea that, all things considered, convincing enough people to change to your ideological side is both important and feasible. the author is always trying to frame the other side as naive idealists reaching for some kind of impossible utopia, contrary to human nature, etc. ancaps are imagining a perfect world of rational beings, the socialists are imagining a perfect world of cooperative beings, and what else not. the message is, ulltimately, simply “come to this side”.

why is this important? because both sides think that, once they have enough people, they can enact, locally or globally, their preferred scenario. they pressupose action, and thus choice.

as humans, we live through those pressupositions most of the time. they are good models of how things happen in daily human interaction. ultimately, we have to believe people choose and do things out of will, to coordinate any society at all.

my contention here is (enough suspense): that’s idealism, all of it. free will is an idea that lacks any foundation in reality. it’s turtles all the way down! anybody familiar with modern physics knows this, at least theoretically. the universe is deterministic. everything happens in a cascade of causes and consequences. your brain isn’t safe from this.

the libsoc is trying to point to the ancap that the historical process trumps individual action, but he’s blind to how historical process trumps collective action as well. the choices that you make in the theatre of conscience are just that: staging. they are arising from processes you can’t fathom, for purposes that aren’t yours.

obviously, whenever i come to determinism, somebody is always asking: why are you doing this here then? who knows, i’m content with having done.

most i can offer from this: don’t worry, whatever must, will.

hello, stranger

i stopped posting, but not thinking. and eventually the thoughts pile up. i’m gonna unload them in raw form here now, in order to avoid the build up. the plan is to post something everyday, for as long as i find time for it.

the drill is the same: acceleration, and associated stuff. i’m a little more marxist now, a little less ancap. otherwise it’s all the same. the caps are still missing.

see you tomorrow.