Why is the PT (Workers' Party), despite its positive economic results, being opposed by the Brazilian bourgeoisie?

Dilma Rousseff gave an excellent interview to TV 247 on January 23rd.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_IQG72bUg0), in which he corroborated the thesis that Brazil, in 2013, became the object of a hybrid war, for geopolitical reasons, whose objective was to remove the PT from power, opening space for the arrival in the Planalto Palace of a government subservient to the imperial designs of the USA. 

This argument is valid and certainly explains, to some extent, the process of destabilization in Brazil from 2013 onwards. Emphasizing the geopolitical dimension should not, however, make us forget about properly local factors. 

In this context, I recall here the general terms of an argument that circulated in 2016 as an explanation for the parliamentary coup that deposed Dilma Rousseff. I regret not being able to locate the source(s), but I will do my best to reproduce here the reasoning then presented (and now forgotten).

In another vein, it is important to consider that in situations of full employment – ​​as increasingly occurred in Brazil during the Workers' Party governments – the bargaining power of workers becomes very high. And this tends to trigger reactions. 

It is worth recalling, merely as an illustration, that during Dilma's government, buses were sent to Acre in search of Haitian workers, given that Brazilians began to refuse, for example, to work in meatpacking plants, due to the unhealthy environment, the high rate of workplace accidents, and the low wages.

Now, finding themselves obliged to continually offer better working conditions and better pay, the bourgeoisie, especially in countries with a weak democratic tradition, tends to feel tempted to disrupt the economic and political landscape in order to promote a rearrangement under "better conditions."

In a situation of full employment, it should be noted that even a precarious labor reform, as later occurred in Brazil, tends to offer meager results for employers, since the very dynamics of the labor market favor the granting of adjustments and other benefits to workers -- given that "labor" becomes a highly scarce commodity. 

Now, this is precisely what would be behind the consolidation of the bourgeoisie in opposition to the PT, despite the extraordinary economic success of the PT administrations.

Once the crisis was generated, between 2013 and 2016 – through "bomb agendas," the fueling of protests, among other factors – it was possible for the national bourgeoisie to offer Brazil the usual "solutions," most notably the labor "reform." But the great first victory of capital would have been simply to increase unemployment in order to restore the bargaining power of employers. For the bourgeoisie, there is no doubt that a strong domestic market is important, but perhaps there is, for the bourgeoisie Brazilian, an optimal point which, if exceeded, would generate more costs than opportunities.

For Brazilian capitalism—perhaps lazy, perhaps lacking in innovation, perhaps merely shaped by slavery—it seems preferable to profit by cutting costs than to profit by offering better products to a higher-income domestic market. (and therefore more demanding) or by increasing labor productivity (through the implementation of new methods or the purchase of advanced machinery) to offset higher labor costs.

In this way, we would be reliving, in the 21st century, the problems generated by slavery.

The availability of cheap labor, then as now, cuts incentives for modernization and therefore favors the maintenance of an outdated economic structure. 

The natural increase in labor costs, due to economic growth, should result, as it did in the central capitalist countries, in the development of new work methods and new products, suited to more competitive and demanding markets. But in Brazil, the process is never completed due to the periodic "conservative" bourgeois reaction. 

It is necessary to define precisely what "conservatism" means in this case. It's about preserving the usual accumulation conditionsThe development of new conditions for accumulation would require investment and creativity from the Brazilian bourgeoisie. But the national bourgeoisie, being "conservative," tends to opt for the easiest path, in accordance with the colonial, slave-owning law of least effort.

Perhaps it is possible to describe Brazilian capitalism, from this point of view, as "rentier," with or without the prevalence of the financial market, in the sense that it prioritizes the mere maintenance of traditionally profitable arrangements, even if outdated, in blatant disagreement with the effectively dynamic role that capitalism has played and continues to play in many countries, including reducing levels of social inequality, even in the periphery of capitalism (South Korea; China).

Several important conclusions can be drawn from this reflection:

a) the "bridge to the future" was literally a bridge to the past;

b) Cultural factors should be applied to economic analysis; 

c) The accumulation patterns established during the colonial period continue to serve as a benchmark for the national bourgeoisie. (The supposedly pro-modernization, "liberalizing" discourse of the national bourgeoisie therefore conceals an archaic, radically "conservative" agenda in economic terms, tending towards slavery);

d) Lula and Dilma were punished by capital for trying to modernize Brazilian capitalism. (Previously, for the same reasons, the following were punished with deposition: Dom Pedro II, Getúlio Vargas, and João Goulart; it may be necessary to remember that slavery was abolished during the reign of Dom Pedro II, who was deposed shortly afterward);

(e) The transformation of Brazil into a developed country is possible, but this depends on an extra-economic process: it is necessary to create political and social conditions so that Brazilian capitalism follows a natural trajectory, tending, among many other things, towards the increased cost of labor (that is, the end of poverty or "industrial reserve armies") so that sufficient incentives arise (competition for workers, above all) for increased productivity, through investment and the sophistication of methods and education, and not through radicalized exploitation (A new bourgeois class—non-colonial, non-slaveholding—will have to emerge throughout this process.);

f) There is a limit (hunger, disease, death) to increasing exploitation rates, but there is no limit (theoretically, assuming continuous technological advances) to increasing productivity rates; growth based on increasing the rate of exploitation, therefore, has a low "ceiling" and will never take Brazil anywhere, which is why the precarious labor "reform" has only produced stagnation. 

(g) We live in a curious scenario in which the bourgeoisie opposes the development of capitalism, while the workers wait and fight for new opportunities, dreaming of transforming Brazil into a fully developed country (capitalist and democratic, with one thing feeding the other).