www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.03.03, 9:58 AM ET By Todd Benson
SAO PAULO, Brazil, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Brazil's financial markets edged higher early on Monday after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gained support over the weekend for his reform agenda in Congress.
The country's currency, the real
BRAZIL: February 6, 2003
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil's new Environment Minister Marina Silva yesterday asked the federal advocate general to suspend a ruling due on Feb. 14 on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The ruling concerns a request by the previous government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso that an environmental impact study was an unnecessary precondition for legalizing the commercial production of GM food.
In a statement, the Environment Ministry said that the new government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which took office on Jan. 1, needed more time to re-examine the issue.
In addition, the National Environmental Council, which controls GMO licensing, decided in June 2002 that it was up to the Environment Ministry to implement the measures.
Brazil is one of the few major agricultural producers that still bans the sale of GM seeds and foodstuffs.
Bioscience seed companies like Monsanto (MON.N) have been trying for years to persuade Brazil to authorize commercial GM crops. Monsanto is seeking approval for its Roundup Ready soybeans that need less herbicide protection and allow farmers to make considerable cost savings.
Socialists must find a way to reconcile their commitment to the poor with efficient methods of redistribution
AFTER a series of electoral losses around the world, the left is in crisis. To restore it to health, some on the left argue for a return to their parties' historical roots. Others argue that the old myths should be abandoned in favour of a bold move forward.
This debate is occurring not only in France after the defeat of the Socialists last April. It also characterises the political situation in the US after the defeat of the Democrats in last November's mid-term elections. Both parties face the same dilemma, and this is precisely my point: that the crisis confronting the left is a deep and fundamental one.
In the past, the left was equipped with its own ideology, its own economic theory. The fundamental economic mechanism that determined how the world worked was the struggle for rents between workers and capitalists. With this "us versus them" view of the world, it was not hard to rally voters, from the most disenfranchised all the way up to the salaried middle class more than enough for the left to secure electoral majorities.
But the world has changed, and the left's old view simply no longer applies. More intense competition, within and across countries, has decreased the available rents. Financial capital can cross borders far more easily, and physical capital can relocate almost as quickly. The limits on redistribution through the market are tighter: trying to appropriate the rents may lead firms to move to emerging countries, or else to go bankrupt.
This reality has taken a while to sink in, and a number of parties on the left still cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the constraints imposed by market forces. Some do, of course, none more explicitly than the UK's Labour Party, led by Tony Blair.
Others, typically old-line communist parties, have retained much of their traditional rhetoric, but this is largely for electoral consumption. They know all too well that the old nemesis, "capital", has become difficult or impossible to expropriate, yet they remain unready or unwilling to deliver the news to their constituency.
The same tension exists within parties themselves. Witness the muddled debate within the French Socialist party in the aftermath of its defeat, with the "left of the left" and the "right of the left" in a fight for control both of the party and the route by which it should eventually return to power.
And yet both available strategies doing nothing or attempting to modernise have obvious pitfalls. The old rhetoric, after all, still resonates powerfully with the most destitute parts of the electorate: minimum wage workers, the long-term unemployed and all those who feel that anything would be better than what they have now.
It also allows easier contact with fringe groups, such as antiglobalisation protesters and the most zealous greens. But while the old religion still mobilises the left, it makes it difficult to hold the centre. The middle class has lost its faith in the old rhetoric, and wherever the left comes to power, reality quickly sinks in.
Modernisation runs into the opposite problems. Public discussion of new ways to finance retirement pension plans, or of introducing a negative income tax, sounds sweet to economists of all stripes, but it does not exactly mobilise public opinion. The poor don't care. The extreme left becomes disenfranchised. The middle class likes the tone, but wonders how different the programme is from what they hear from the neoliberal right.
As the events of the French elections last spring demonstrated, when this dynamic prevails, the left loses the elections.
Shift everything I just said regarding this strategic dilemma to the right and you arrive at the problems of the US Democrats. The choice of a candidate for the next elections is about this choice, not about personalities.
Shift everything a bit to the left, and you arrive at the problems facing President Lula Ignacio da Silva in Brazil. Should he return to the old Lula rhetoric and watch capital flee the country, or try "modernity" and disappoint many of those who voted for him? With minor adjustments, the left in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and so on faces the same Hobson's choice.
So damned if you do, damned if you don't? No, or at least not quite. The feature that must distinguish the left and the right is not their respective views on the economy, but rather their stances regarding redistribution.
One of the first lessons of economics is that there is a trade-off between efficiency and redistribution. The right focuses on efficiency. The left emphasises redistribution.
A clear commitment to the poor, the sick, and the unfortunate must be the message of the left. And the means must be appropriate to realising this commitment: a combination of sustainable retirement systems, better designed unemployment benefit systems, negative income taxes, training programmes, and the like. Only by employing the rhetoric of commitment to mobilise the troops while devoting careful attention to the centre's concern with methods can the left hope to return to power.
Blanchard is chairman of the department of economics at MIT.
Feb 03 2003 12:00:00:000AM Olivier Blanchard Business Day 1st Edition Sunday 09 February 2003 BDFM Publishers (Pty) Ltd disclaims all liability for any loss, damage, injury or expense however caused, arising from the use of or reliance upon, in any manner, the information provided through this service and does not warrant the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information provided. BDFM Publishers 2002
english.pravda.ru 10:00 2003-02-03
The leader of the pacifist movements in sixties and one of the most relevant figures of the anti-globalization groups in an exclusive interview for PRAVDA.Ru
"You know, I've met Noam Chomsky in Porto Alegre. He was giving a conference there and I came across with him. I haven?t seen him for 35 year. Even when he's got an excellent photographic memory, he did not recognize me. Maybe for the goatee." Tom Hayden is now 63 and has been a social rights activist since he was at the University, forty years ago. He became worldwide famous as the leader of the Chicago Seven, a group of students that broke into the Democrat National Convention in 1968 to protest against the war in Vietnam. Since then, his name is linked with the activism for labor and social rights.
Times are different now, but not at all. There's still something to fight for, maybe the world is now more unjust than in the sixties. The mankind is again in the eve of a war, maybe more cruel and destructive than the one that took Hayden to the streets in the 1960's. Iraq proves that the USA has not learned too much from Vietnam and its will to control world's natural resources remains the same. So there is Tom Hayden. He, as hundred of thousands of anti-globalization activist, keep on fighting for a better world.
Q. How did you become an active militant of the anti-globalization movement?
I was very involved in the demonstrations in Seattle in 1999, at the time I was member of the California State legislature. I believed then and I still believe that the World Trade Organization is a menace to Democracy. Specifically, it has the power to subvert or override laws concerning labor standards, environmental standards, water quality and so on. So I joined the pro-Democracy and Anti-globalization movement.
Q. What does the Anti-Globalization movement mean?
A. Globalization is an arrangement for a new international set of laws and they favor investor rights and property rights for purposes of world trade. The anti-globalization movement is for a global justice. It's not just protectionism or nationalism. We believe that international order should include protections for labor, Human Rights and environment. To be more specific, under globalization by the WTO, high tech companies, computer companies, CD manufacturers, all have written themselves very strong enforceable laws concerning their property rights. But there are no enforceable rights for the teenage workers that make those videocassettes. So, globalization is uncompleted, unjust and unbalanced until you have protections for workers.
Q. Why a person from the USA should join the Anti-Globalization movement?
A. They say that the young people is very upset about the world they are inheriting from the older generation and they feel that it is completely unjust. They don't want to be part of it. It is a simply moral issue for them. They also know that our Government is trying to create an empire: militarizing and globalizing at the same time. This means wars that the young Americans will have to serve in and perhaps die in for purposes that are questionable and dubious. It means a military budget that is the biggest in the History of the world. It means that the money from the military budget is subtracted on what can be spend in education, in the environment or in the health care. There are a lot of unfinished businesses in the United States. They know that the expending in the military budget means there'll be less money for programs like Lula's proposal for making sure that everybody in the world has three meals a day. So they know that. They know that the clothes they wear are made by teenagers. It is not unusual for people in the US to have idealistic expectations and to think beyond narrow national and personal interests. But it is also a practical matter. You can think it on this way: all the generations in the US is borrowing all from its children, borrowing from the future.
Q. Do you think Bush is going to attack Iraq? And if so, what should the anti-globalization movement do?
A. Well, the question is hard to answer as every day brings us fresh news. I agree with those who say that Bush wants war and that is prepared to do everything to have his way. On the other hand, anti-war movement in the USA is bigger this time than it was at the beginning of the Vietnam War. The support for the war comes from the hard line republican pro-Bush partisans. They want to create a protectorate in the Middle East, in Baghdad, from which they would control oil supplies and they will be entitled to overthrow Iran and Syria and destroy Hezbollah and impose a settlement on the Palestinians. Now we've sent 250.000 troops there. If Bush calls the war off, it is like surrender for his point of view.
Q.Is the Free Trade Zone of the Americas part of this building up of an Empire?
A.Yes. NAFTA was Canada, the USA and Mexico, has been a disaster. The unemployment in Mexico is much higher than at the beginning of NAFTA. The middle class has collapsed in Mexico. Millions of farmers have been ruined because of the flood of imports from the USA. The immigration crisis is getting worse because the US imports cause more immigrants to leave places like Chiapas. Probably 3.000 people have died in the border since NAFTA and they do not count same numbers at the World Trade Center. They also do not count the bodies on the Mexican side of the border, so it is probably worse. ALCA is a NAFTA expanded is like NAFTA and asteroids growing in all Latin America. In Cancun, they will try to consolidate the Agricultural Agreement, which allows the USA to subsidize agriculture by many millions of Dollars. It is direct threat to agriculture in Southern Latin America: Brazil, Argentina. But in addition, they want to privatize electricity rates, services, and even education. It means that Government's subsidies to essential services in the public interest will be considered discrimination in ALCA, because they will discriminate against the property right.
Q.With the above in mind, is there something that Russia could obtain from globalization?
A. For the Russians the term globalization may have another meaning. The Russians are not anti-globalization; they want to be part of it and not to be isolated. I understand and agree with that. But without going back to the policies of the former Soviet Union I hope that the Russian government and policies will push forward an independent, sovereign, Russian rule in this international order. I would hope that the Russian do not have their natural resources rapped by multinationals and their very rich national heritage replaced by McDonald's. I am sure that the Russians will feel on the same way. So in absence the anti-globalization, unless globalization includes respect for the dignity of Russian national culture, Russian sovereignty over their own natural resources. The purpose of Russia is not to become a colony of the United States but this is what US led globalization will intend.
As he says, he is not a globetrotter. Tom Hayden is a fighter trying to learn from the new movements. Such spirit led him to South America: to Porto Alegre first and to Argentina then, to see the new forms of social fight. He will come back to Los Angeles to keep on learning from the struggle of the poor. As in Chicago in 1968, he will stand for people rights in the FTAA meeting in Miami and in the WTO summit in Cancun in November. As time goes by the fight remains the same.
Tom Hayden was interviewed by Hernan Etchaleco PRAVDA.Ru Argentina
www.infobrazil.com by John Fitzpatrick Feb 01 - 07, 2003
It's payback time for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who now has to settle up his accounts with the disparate band of opportunists who put their shoulders to the wheel and pushed him to power. The main supporters outside Lula's own PT – the PL, PPS, PC do B, sections of the PFL and PMDB – are already being paid back with positions and promises that they will get their share of the pie, when jobs in various government areas are distributed to the boys.
Among those who have been rewarded is Ciro Gomes, who stood against Lula in the presidential race as the PPS party candidate. Now sporting a beard, like so many members of the current government, Gomes is a cabinet member and back in the limelight. Former President Jose Sarney of the PMDB, who represents the old-fashioned Northeastern oligarch style of politics which the PT is supposed to be against, is almost certain to be elected the next Senate President on February 1st*.
There is nothing especially noteworthy about this, since any coalition or grand alliance brings odd partnerships. And Lula's catch-all policy has given him a strong position. According to the “O Estado de São Paulo” newspaper, the new Congress, in office as of February 1st, is more favorable to the government than the one elected last October. Over the last four months, the PT has managed to expand its base in the Lower House, from 225 to around 260 deputies, by negotiating party-swapping among elected members, from opposing parties to those aligned with the new government.
If one considers that the PMDB will join the PT-led governing alliance, as could happen, then the new administration would have the backing of 330 of the 513 members. This is 22 more than the 308 votes needed to pass amendments to the Constitution, which is excellent only on paper: one can only imagine such a disparate band of interests acting in unison on extremely rare occasions.
What we are now starting to see in Brazil is not just a strange combination of forces in power, but also the lack of an official opposition. For democracy to succeed the government needs a proper opposition, with an alternative program. Governing alliances should also have something in common. We have commented before on the way in which the PMDB and PFL, in particular, have twisted and turned to suit themselves. During Fernando Henrique Cardoso's two mandates, both parties blew hot and cold from time to time when it suited them, resulting in phoney crises and high profile resignations or sackings of ministers.
The PFL's Antonio Carlos Magalhães, in particular, treated Congress with utter contempt by breaking the Senate rules he had been appointed to enforce. Although he eventually lost that battle and was forced to resign in 2001, he certainly did not lose the war. Like Sarney, he publicly backed Lula during the campaign, and is himself now back, re-elected Senator for Bahia, as a prominent leader and behind-the-scenes king maker. Despite breaking all the rules, he is likely to be elected chairman of the Constitution and Justice Committee, the most powerful of all Senate committees. Such is ACM's supreme self-confidence that he even claimed this week that he had been the ”driving force” behind Lula’s campaign to end hunger in Brazil, called “Fome Zero”, or Zero Hunger. According to Magalhães, the original idea was his, and indeed there is a government anti-poverty fund in place that he pushed through two years ago.
Since it is difficult to know exactly what the PMDB or PFL really stand for, perhaps it is a bit naive to criticise them for doing whatever they can to gain power. One wonders, however, what makes a person actually dedicate his or her vote to such groupings – a term used deliberately because it is difficult to see them as political parties. Maybe voters actually deserve what they get.
As if this were not enough, we are now seeing former President Cardoso's own PSDB, and its unsuccessful candidate, the luckless former Senator and Health Minister Jose Serra, greasing up to the Lula government. Recently, PSDB President Jose Anibal, and PFL President Jorge Bornhausen, held separate meetings with the PT President, former Congressman Jose Genoino, to discuss getting reforms to the scandalous pension system pushed through Congress. After the meeting, Anibal, who has a reputation as the PSDB's rottweiler, seemed full of bonhomie and promised Lula's government collaboration and a positive approach to the reforms.
Meanwhile, Bornhausen and Genoino were photographed hugging each other while the PT leader pledged that the government would hold a dialogue with the opposition parties on the Congressional agenda. All three men were, of course, playing to the gallery and a high price will be paid before any major reforms – such as on the pension, tax or the electoral system itself – are made. But it is a bit alarming at this early stage to see the “opposition” behaving so feebly.
Let us hope this grasp for power at any cost ends soon and that the PSDB, of all parties, sticks to its principles. Without harming Brazil's interests, let us see it make life for Lula as difficult as the PT did for Cardoso during his two terms, when the PT opposed virtually all proposed reforms. This is important not only for the sake of democratic government, but also for the PSDB itself. It should be recalled that the governors of two of Brazil's richest and most politically influential states – Geraldo Alckmin of São Paulo and Aécio Neves of Minas Gerais – are from the PSDB. Both are obvious potential future presidential candidates.
Related sites: (all political party sites available in Portuguese only) PT – Worker's Party www.pt.org.br
PSDB – Brazilian Social-Democratic Party www.psdb.org.br
PL – Liberal Party www.pl.org.br
PPS – Popular Socialist Party www.pps.org.br
PC do B – Communist Party of Brazil www.pcdob.org.br
PFL – Party of the Liberal Front www.pfl.org.br
PMDB – Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement www.pmdb.org.br
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