Who's afraid of Dilma?

On one side: the workers, the liberal professionals, the middle class in general, the business owners in industry, commerce, and agriculture. On the other: the bankers. President Dilma Rousseff is therefore on the right side in advocating for and working towards lower interest rates and bank spreads. Right from the point of view of directing the country's economy, and right because she is on the side of the working and productive population, against the sector that may work, but produces nothing and is the one that profits the most. "Now it's all usury," said former banker José Eduardo Andrade Vieira (of the defunct Bamerindus) to Valor Econômico. And, by combating abusive interest rates, Dilma is also creating conditions to further increase her already high popularity.

The only ones who profit from high interest rates, exorbitant bank fees, and steep spreads are the bankers and bank shareholders. Their profits are stratospheric. Their business is, ultimately, to hold, buy, and sell money. Those who lose from this "perverse logic," in Dilma's words, are the country and the productive sector, which includes capital and labor. If the objective conditions exist today for these interest rates to be reduced and for the cost of loans to be lower, it is natural that the President of the Republic defends this and that the government works towards it.

However, the opposing reactions don't come only from bankers and their spokespeople, economists, journalists, and highly paid public relations professionals. There are also reactions, some rather embarrassed, from segments that lose nothing and gain a great deal from the interest rate reduction. But it's not difficult to understand them: they are political or ideological.

The strengthening of Dilma's government and the success of her economic policy are, naturally, not in the interest of her opponents. The more popular the president and her government are, the lower the chances of electoral victories for the right-wing opposition and the greater the prospect that the PT (Workers' Party) will remain in the Planalto Palace. In this respect, even the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party), presumably social democrats, differ from European social democracy, which today clearly opposes the dominance of the financial sector over the State.

Beyond politics, there is also the ideological question. Although historically there have been contradictions between industrial capital, commercial capital, and agribusiness capital, on the one hand, and financial and speculative capital, on the other, ideologically all these segments are on the same side. And this side fears governments that interfere too much, in their view, in the economy and in their businesses. For them, the State should be minimal.

Hence the contradictory reactions. They support measures to reduce interest rates because they are in their interest, but they don't want to give the government too much credence. That's why they talk about populism, about demagoguery, and complain that Dilma is taking advantage of her high approval rating to "pressure" sectors of the economy that don't fit the government's guidelines. Investors are averse to government interference, warn a spokesperson for the banks.

Some businesspeople, especially large business owners, still cling to the idea that the market can do anything and does whatever it wants, and governments only get in the way – except when they sign contracts with them. The financial sector, always all-powerful, considers itself above the State and political power. This has always been the case, and in a capitalist economy it is natural that capital predominates even over political power. But this is changing with the global crisis. Exacerbated liberalism and the absolute dominance of the market have already failed in their iconic countries, in America and Europe.

No government can prevent the market from functioning, but it is up to the legitimately constituted power to define a country's economic guidelines and establish the policies to fulfill them, not to bankers or any other business segment. In Brazil, the legitimately constituted power is ultimately exercised by President Dilma, and not by multimillionaire bankers. Even if they financed a good part of the electoral campaigns.