Opinion – Latinoamérica21: Brazil: social participation on the ‘top floor’

There is only one answer to the current polarization of Brazilian society: more democracy. Brazilian democracy is perhaps, from an institutional point of view, one of the most permeable to social participation. Although in a formal and legal way, our Constitution provides for “the participation of society in the formulation, monitoring, control and evaluation processes” of social policies. In fact, practically all policies of our social protection system include participation via sectoral councils (health, environment, assistance, education, culture, etc.), made up of representatives of government, business and civil society.

Despite the difficulties to ensure effective participation through such councils, one cannot deny the importance of social control in the qualification of public policies in the country. We can say, without fear of being wrong, that the quality and consistency of policies such as the Unified Health System (SUS), the Unified Social Assistance System (Suas) and the National Environmental System (Sisnama), just to name a few examples , owe much to participation, whether in formulating the policy or in its management.

All this participation, however, does not reach the “upstairs” of the Brazilian State, or rather, the bodies that manage public finances and economic policies, such as the Ministry of Planning and Finance, as well as public banks. Under the cover of a technical reason, supposedly neutral, such bodies place themselves safe from public debate, being governed by a high degree of homogeneity of opinion and interests of a few (rentiers), worshipers of “austerity”, of “fiscal adjustment “.

Since the country’s re-democratization, we have been trapped by an endless fiscal adjustment, which, despite facing the imbalance of public accounts, only reproduces and deepens it, subjecting the Brazilian people to a job that not even Sisyphus could withstand. This is because the adjustment has always focused on social “expenditures”, in favor of loan sharking operated by the large creditors of the public debt.

It is not by chance that the implementation of good policies, constructed at great cost with social participation, almost always comes up against “fiscal restrictions”. The political moment in Brazil, with the election of a coalition government, under the leadership of a center-left party, represents a golden opportunity to open up the debate on the Brazilian economic and fiscal agenda. This would undoubtedly be an agenda that would allow the Lula government to escape political polarization, submitting the economic agenda to democratic control.

With the demoralization of the “spending cap”, it is already foreseen that the third Lula administration will need to institute a new fiscal rule. There is a commitment from the new government to discuss a tax reform, at least in relation to the Income Tax. Such agendas must be open to debate, to the participation of society.

There is no more room for the “fiscal adjustment” chant. The direction of economic and fiscal policy needs to be submitted to public scrutiny. Someone could object that these are subjects with a high level of technicality and complexity, which could hardly be the subject of a broader debate in society. Undoubtedly, all public policies, not just economic ones, always bring a certain degree of complexity. Hence the technicality argument for preventing participation in economic affairs is false and misleading.

It is therefore a question of discussing budgetary and monetary data with due transparency, the master guidelines of the country’s fiscal and economic policies. The Fiscal Responsibility Law itself foresees the “encouragement of popular participation during the processes of preparation and discussion of plans, the Law of Budgetary Guidelines and budgets”.

The experiences of “participatory budgeting” developed by city halls governed by the Workers’ Party (PT) are well known. Undoubtedly, such experiences represented an important test of involving participation in public finances, although normally limited to the portion of the municipal investment budget.

At the federal level, however, it is up to us to move forward on the fiscal and economic guidelines that guide the elaboration of the budget, under penalty of seeing frustrated the expectations of organizations and social movements for the resumption of the participation in the new Lula government.

It is enough to remember that in previous PT governments there was a process of great participation through the so-called national conferences, aimed at influencing the formulation of different sectoral government policies. This process was often frustrated by the non-implementation of policies resulting from participation, precisely because of “fiscal limits”.

Lula has already said that he intends to resume the agenda of national conferences. Well, it’s high time to think about a process of national conferences to discuss the country’s fiscal and economic agenda with representatives of civil society. In addition to the format and composition of such conferences, it is important to signal to society the end of shielding the fiscal and economic debate, currently monopolized by the hegemonic financial oligarchies and their spokespersons in academia and the media.

We need to debate whether we want to continue with a deeply regressive tax structure, which penalizes the poorest in favor of the richest. Whether fiscal control will continue to restrict social policies and investments, without setting limits on financial expenses. If we will continue with the highest real interest rates on the planet. Whether we are going to make use of public credit to favor deconcentration and productive diversification or continue on the path of deindustrialization, keeping the country hostage to agroextractive commodities.

We need more democracy, to project social participation onto the “upstairs” of the State. Perhaps this is one of the main tasks of Brazilian progressive sectors. Only then will we resume, from the hands of a few, the debate and definition of the nation’s directions and objectives.

In other times, the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) had already proposed, without major consequences, the participation of workers’ representatives in the Monetary Policy Council (Copom). There was also the experience of the BNDES Platform, which brought together, from 2007 to 2011, different organizations and social movements aimed at democratizing the operational policy of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development. This experience helped this public bank to adopt a socio-environmental and transparent policy, albeit fragile.

To those who fear the “market reaction” to their own demystification, we would like to remind you that the “king is already naked” and that, if we persist in not exposing his nudity, his shamelessness will find no limits, as Bolsonarism has done. demonstrate. The best way to advance democracy, exorcising authoritarian and neo-fascist practices, will be, precisely, by subjecting finance and the public economy to social control. This is the time!