Being left-wing in the neoliberal era

(originally published in Major Card)

An institute that conducted the research and the editorialists of the mainstream media got tangled up in its results, without understanding their meaning. After all, if the majority of Brazilians are right-wing – some voting for Dilma and some voting for the opposition – why has the right always lost and will continue to lose elections? Why are Lula and Dilma the most popular politicians in the country, and FHC and Serra the most unpopular?
    
A first, hasty interpretation is that it would be a right-wing government, hence receiving votes from sectors that identify as right-wing. The country would be experiencing a right-wing frenzy, in which the government and the opposition would be indistinguishable, both being right-wing. This thesis is very much to the liking of the far-left and sectors of the right, both adherents of the idea that the PT (Workers' Party) is merely repeating what the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) did.
    
This is an absurd argument, because no one can deny that Brazil has changed, changed a lot, and changed for the better after the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) and PT (Workers' Party) governments. Just as no one denies the contrasting fates that the people reserved for Lula and FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso), as a consequence of the changes between one government and the other.

To add to this, the traditional right wing – media, political parties, and businesses – has always been strongly aligned with the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) government and against the PT (Workers' Party) governments. Meanwhile, the PT has always had the support of popular sectors, the left, both inside and outside the country – in this spectrum, from Cuba to Uruguay, from Venezuela to Ecuador, from Argentina to Bolivia. And, as a corollary, the opposition of the US and neoliberal forces on the continent and in the world. These forces are futilely seeking to project Mexico – the great remaining neoliberal model – as an alternative reference to Brazilian leadership on the continent.
    
Aside from the bizarre argument that everyone is wrong and that Brazil today is the same as in the 1990s, that leftist leaders don't know the country, or other similar claims, one of the characteristics of contemporary polarization revolves around the attire that capitalism wears in the current historical period.
    
Anti-capitalism, which has always characterized the left, has taken on distinct forms over time, as capitalism itself has transformed from one model to another. The left was anti-fascist in the 1920s and 1930s, it was an advocate of the welfare state and nationalism in the post-World War II decades, and it was democratic in countries with military dictatorships. Similarly, the right has changed its guise to the same extent: it has been fascist, it has been liberal, it has been an advocate of the National Security Doctrine, according to the historical configurations it has had to confront.
    
In the neoliberal era, the central axes of debates and polarizations have changed significantly. The right has imposed its reborn liberal model, marked by the centrality of the market, free trade, the precariousness of labor relations, the hegemonic role of finance capital, and the consumer. At the same time, it has discredited the regulatory functions of the State, redistributive policies, politics, parties, and citizens' rights.

It is within this framework that Latin America has transitioned from being a privileged victim of neoliberalism to the only region in the world with post-neoliberal governments and policies, with governments that concretely propose overcoming neoliberalism. The priority given to social policies instead of a central emphasis on fiscal adjustments. The restoration of the State as an inducer of economic growth and guarantor of social rights, replacing the minimal state and the centrality of the market. The prioritization of regional integration projects and South-South exchange, rather than Free Trade Agreements with the United States. This contrast defines the real left and right camps that exist in the neoliberal era.

Brazilians have repeatedly expressed their support for priorities such as income distribution, an active role for the State, regional integration policies, and South-South exchange. A new, progressive majority has emerged in the country, preferring Lula to Serra and Alckmin, Dilma to Serra, and is moving towards preferring Dilma again to the candidate presented by conservative forces.

Every survey result depends on how the question was formulated. And research institutes have been adept at manipulating public opinion. Just recall that the director of the most well-known of them swore that Lula wouldn't elect his successor, that the field was clear for a return of the PSDB party with Serra, and was slow to re-criticize himself when reality contradicted him.

In the neoliberal era – a model imposed upon a brutal regression in the global and national balance of power – the dividing line stems from this model, splitting fundamental forces between neoliberals and anti-neoliberals – depending on whether they resist neoliberal governments – and post-neoliberals, when they strive to overcome them. 

Throughout history, there has been a moderate left and a radical left. Social democracy came to represent the former, while communists and far-left forces represented the latter. In the current historical period, Latin America has moderate post-neoliberal governments – such as those of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay – and radical governments – such as those of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, not to mention Cuba. The former broke with fundamental tenets of neoliberalism – such as the centrality of the market, minimal state intervention, prioritization of fiscal adjustment and free trade agreements with the US – and are advancing towards overcoming them – emphasizing the centrality of social policies, the role of the state, and regional integration processes. The latter, in addition to being anti-neoliberal, propose to be anti-capitalist and have taken steps in that direction. 

To be on the left today is to fight against the form capitalism has taken in the contemporary historical period; it is to be anti-neoliberal, in any of its forms. Moderation or radicalism lies in the ways anti-neoliberalism and anti-capitalism are articulated, or not. It would be too much to ask that research and editorials immersed in the neoliberal universe as their natural habitat, without the historical perspective that allows us to understand neoliberalism and capitalism as precise historical phenomena and history as a product of shifting power dynamics, could grasp the meaning of being left and right today. They are victims of clichés they themselves created and which imprison them.
Meanwhile, Latin America, with its right and left wings, is confronting itself within the concrete and specific conditions of the contemporary world.