Opinion – Samuel Pessôa: Tearing down the walls the next day

This Monday (1st), there will be the launch of the ebook “An Unpostponable Agenda”, produced by Destroying Muros.

Destroying Muros (DM) is a non-partisan and diverse group of 103 people, including activists, scientists, communicators, academics, business people and politicians, dedicated to discussing possible solutions for the future of Brazil. He believes that, despite the enormous social and economic challenges, it is possible to implement actions promoting what is positive in the country in terms of green economy, innovation, energy, health, education.

The DM is based on the principle that Brazil has a way and that civil society has long assumed the leading role in the elaboration of the best sectorial diagnoses and public policy proposals for our chronic problems.

All DM members work on a voluntary basis and are open to new contributions. The collective positions itself as “articulators of the last mile”, collecting existing contributions and organizing them to reach public policymakers.

In the ebook, the reader will find diagnoses and proposals for public policies for: education, health, public security, green economy, industry, entrepreneurship, innovation, energy, “phygital” world and geopolitics. These chapters were written by the best researchers and practitioners in their respective fields.

As an aperitif, here are the first three paragraphs of the chapter “Figital”, by Silvio Meira:

“It’s strange, we know! It seems that the title of this text is wrong: try, reader and reader, to pronounce this term aloud [Figital]. Well, it sounds weird. However, new arrangements demand new terms.

Just as until the 16th century the term ‘discovery’ did not exist, until the beginning of this decade, the 2020s, there was no clear reason to call something ‘phygital’. We were all used to thinking in just two terms: analog or digital.

This text that is now before you, reader and reader, serves both to present this new idea and to justify why we should, in Brazil, become attached to it: the world that will arrive in 2023 will be increasingly figital”.

For me, it was the least interesting part that, unfortunately, is still with us: the construction of a macroeconomic balance and the adoption of microeconomic reforms that generate productivity gains and a decrease in inequality.

Macroeconomic balance should be the same as a good football referee: so discreet, silent, thoughtful and measured that people forget he is there. Transposing the football figure, it should represent agreements so consolidated in our society that we would not know that the theme exists. There would be time and energy left for society to focus on the fundamentals: health, education, security, among so many issues of prime importance.

I tried to sign some minimum agreements. The first and most important, as it is a prerequisite, not an end, is fiscal stability. The State has to be solvent, that is, it has to be able to pay its public debt without having to resort to the inflationary tax.

The DM did not comment on the specific design of the construction of a structurally solvent fiscal position: whether through tax increases or via reforms that reduce public spending; more concentrated at the beginning of the next term or more diluted over time. These are policy choices that Congress and the new leadership for the next quadrennium will make.

​The launch can be followed this Monday at 15:00 on this link. The ebook can be downloaded from www.derrubandomuros.org/.