The transformation of Brazil

Do The Earth is Round

The greater presence of Brazilian foreign trade in countries of the East and Global South is directly linked to the dynamic emergence of the productive structure more located in the interior of the country, which already seems to point to the march of the country's west.

1.

The portion of the Brazilian population that will be adults in 2050 has already been born, with almost four-fifths of them born into poor families. Without a dynamic state providing quality universal services, the second quarter of the 4st century risks failing to meet both the best current aspirations and the horizon of higher expectations for tomorrow for all Brazilians.

In the second quarter of the last century, for example, the crisis in the agro-export sector triggered by the Great Depression of 1929 was overcome by constitutive reforms of the modern state, which allowed progress toward the establishment of a new urban and industrial society. Instead of a regression to pre-capitalist activities, the national industrialization and urbanization project made Brazil a world leader in economic growth, with ample job opportunities and the spread of wage labor with unprecedented social and labor rights.

Before the national industrialization project was complete, enabling the structuring of the labor market and the overcoming of subsistence economies and informality, the neoliberal shift set Brazil on a different path. Beginning in 1990, liberalizing reforms that weakened the role of the state advanced simultaneously with the imposition of ruin on industrial society.

Despite the importance of the recovery of the export sector, strongly influenced by the second National Development Plan (1975-1979), the stagnant trajectory in per capita income returned. More than three decades later, Brazil's share of world GDP is 2/5 lower than it was in the 1980s, with unmistakable signs of regression to pre-capitalist activities.

Currently, the subsistence and popular economy offers twice as many jobs as it did in the last fifth of the last century. Occupations linked to typically capitalist activities alone have reduced their share of employment in the country's total workforce by almost 30%.

Over time, the labor market's disorganization has prevailed. In addition to the stagnation in the wage rate relative to the total workforce, with a relative decline in middle-class occupations, open unemployment has been persistent.

The legacy of economic backwardness imposed by neoliberal policies is evident both in the stagnation of labor productivity and the decline in profit rates in various productive sectors that still resist remaining active in the face of economic and financial liberalization. In the continuing scenario of an overvalued currency and high real interest rates, inflation remains moderate, as does the export surplus, even in the face of the relatively stagnant trajectory of per capita income.

2.

But in the second quarter of the 21st century, the emergence of new elements of structural change appears to be conferring new perspectives on national dilemmas. Given the profound and accelerated transition to the digital age, three of these appear unquestionable for Brazil.

Starting with the outcome of the dynamic shift from the West to the East and from the Global North to the countries of the Global South. Over the past two decades, for example, Brazil has diversified its trading partners, allowing countries in the Global North, such as the United States, which accounted for 24,5% of total Brazilian exports in 2000, to decline to 12% of the total by 2024.

Brazil's increased presence in foreign trade with countries in the East and Global South is directly linked to the second element of structural change in Brazil in the second quarter of the 21st century. This is the course of geoeconomic transformations that points to the dynamic emergence of a more inland productive structure, which already seems to point to the country's westward march.

The prolonged process of deindustrialization has ultimately depleted the productive core of coastal regions, once extremely dynamic and attractive sources of employment and income. Considering the proximity of Brazil's Central-West and North regions to South American countries, this geoeconomic shift has been driven by the prominence of the export sector, as well as by a series of infrastructure initiatives aimed at commercial integration with nations bordering the Pacific Ocean.

In this sense, the unprecedented national experience of assuming the bioceanic condition as a strategic project of connection between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could be equivalent – ​​with due proportion – to the economic leap seen in the 19th century by the United States during the bioceanic integration provided by the so-called “March to the West”.

The third element of structural change lies in the inflection of the national demographic trajectory. This is because, over the last two hundred years, for example, the Brazilian population has shown a continuous trajectory of rapid growth. In the 19th century, the number of Brazilians multiplied fivefold, and in the last century, the multiplication was tenfold, which meant the need for an accelerated commitment of public resources to address demographic expansion.

Current projections point to Brazil in the year 2100 having a much smaller population than in the year 2000. From the 2040s onwards, the population is expected to stagnate and begin to decline in absolute terms due to the decline in fertility rates, whose population longevity increasingly concentrates a larger portion of Brazilians over 60 years of age.

In this new scenario facing Brazil in the second quarter of the 21st century, it is urgent to reevaluate the role of the State. Another type of attention from government management is the implementation of predictive public policies that allow us to anticipate the course of problems and seize opportunities that arise as elements of structural change for the nation.

In short, the second quarter of the 21st century imposes a new national project agenda on Brazil.

The neoliberal prescription has nothing to say about the nation's future, as it is exclusively held captive by the dominant short-term and unproductive interests, offering only stagnation of per capita income, a freeze on productivity with a drop in the profit rate of various economic activities, and regression to pre-capitalist segments.

Without the resumption of national planning, the future seems distant, dominated by the fate that has dominated since the 1990s.