that is well worth reading. It gives lots of stats on the recent election (in which Rousseff achieved a run-off for president and is in the lead to win it, but in which OTHER offices were ALSO won by the Workers' Party, meaning that she will have a comfortable majority in both houses of the legislature--something Lula never had).
I didn't know about the down-ticket Workers' Party wins.
Brazil's Elections: Toward the Continuation of Lulismohttp://www.counterpunch.org/zibechi10142010.htmlThe author, Raul Zibechi, goes into a deep analysis of Lula's popularity (and thus Rousseff's), which has to do with turning workers into capitalists. Ha-ha! Not kidding. That's what he says. And it sounds plausible to me. For instance, turning workers into the administrators of their own pension funds, which have been hugely expanded and capitalized from within and without, mostly by petrodollars and petro-investors. He also gives stats on huge poverty reduction via welfare and raises in the minimum wage, and consequent huge movement from poverty to middle class. Ya got bucks? Spend them on the poor and on development/infrastructure that creates jobs, and your economy will go up and up and up, as with your popularity numbers!
FDR new this. Obama doesn't seem to. (What DO they teach at Harvard Law School? Don't they require some working knowledge of BASIC economics--as opposed to Reagan/Bush "voodoo" economics--to get a law degree? Or do they just teach how to "look forward not backward" on war crimes, and "backward not forward" on possession of marijuana?)
Anyway, VERY INTERESTING analysis. Reminds me of Germany (pre-Merkel). INCLUDE the workers in capitalism, and guess what? Everybody prospers!
But this analysis points to one hazard facing Brazil: That this sort of "New Deal" is only good so long as the capitalists keep their part of the bargain for creating and spreading the wealth. What do you do when they massively break faith, as they have done here? When they start looting pension funds, and seeing a quick buck from outsourcing all the jobs, and busting unions, and throwing the middle class out of their homes with mortgage fraud, and "privatizing" public services (even the voting machines, as here*) and so on? That's when you elect Chavez, I guess.
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*(Note: Beware, Brazil, on the voting machines! Diebold is now a factor in Brazil. They may play dead for a while, but they are acquiring PRIVATE power over the vote counting--as they have done entirely here. Look out!)
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