Opinion – Samuel Pessôa: Our first fiscal crisis

The book “Adeus, Senhor Portugal” will be launched this Monday (5), at Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo (av. 9 de Julho, 2029), with the subtitle “Crisis of absolutism and the independence of Brazil”. . An original contribution on the subject, the work was written by journalist and historian Rafael Cariello and professor at the São Paulo School of Economics Thales Pereira.

Rafael and Thales document that our independence resulted from a profound fiscal crisis, the effects of which were felt on both sides of the Atlantic. As is common in Brazilian history, but also in the histories of nations in general, regime changes often occur (or are triggered) by a serious crisis in public accounts.

In addition to triggering the political crisis that would lead to the emancipation of Portuguese America, the fiscal crisis of the late 1810s helps to understand why Brazil did not split in two, leaving the North, from Piauí to Amazonas, under the orbit from Lisbon. In the days of sailing ships, the connection between the North and Lisbon was much more agile than that of the North with Rio de Janeiro: contrary winds and currents made the direct connection by sea from the extreme North to the capitals of the Northeast and the Southeast.

Pressured by military threats in Europe, Portugal chose not to dedicate part of its scarce financial resources to organizing a fleet, even a small one, to defend Maranhão and Pará. The local elites loyal to Lisbon waited for the ghost ships that did not arrive, while a relatively small and disorganized army from Ceará and other northeastern provinces loyal to Rio de Janeiro managed to maintain the territorial unity of Portuguese America.

Independence is treated in this new interpretation within the context of the fiscal crises that shook absolutist states throughout the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The increase in wars, the result of technical changes, generated strong demand from the Treasury on revenue. The productive sector, in order to accept higher taxation, demanded a voice and a vote.

At the same time, new times and new ideas – the Enlightenment and Liberalism – would generate the ideology that would allow the construction of another regime. The rise of new worldviews and possibilities of organizing power, associated with the fiscal exhaustion of the absolutist state, led to the era of revolutions.

Revolutions, by leaps and bounds and each in its own way, created a fiscal governance in which the power to tax and manage the public debt passed, at first, to the propertied classes, nested in a Legislative House. The essential element was the enactment of a constitutional charter that limited the king’s discretion.

It was also like that in 1822, among us: the provinces of the Northeast only adhered to Rio de Janeiro, against Lisbon, after the guarantee of a local Constitution.

With the management of public debt under the responsibility of the creditors themselves, the risk of default dropped significantly and, consequently, the interest rates at which the State financed itself were reduced, allowing for higher levels of indebtedness.

But not only the defaults followed by debts produced the final crisis of absolutism. Inflation, as it is today, affected everyone, in the last years of the Ancien Régime in Brazil, and much more the poorest. The king’s loss of popularity as a result of famine, then, as today, is a central element in fiscal crises.

Rafael and Thales argue that our independence process is a chapter in this story.

The authors also recover the stories of important characters in this political process. In addition to the Andrada brothers, among others, the Bahian liberal journalist Cipriano Barata and the farmer Lino Coutinho, both representatives of Bahia in the Lisbon courts, stand out.

A better reading is impossible, as we celebrate 200 years of our Independence.