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[We are deeply grateful to Cícero Freitas of the
University of Brasilia for contributing this translation of part of the introduction of
Unger's book The Second Way: The Present and Future of Brazil. This
is the first and only part of The Second Way available in English
translation.]
Introduction
to The Second Way: The Present and Future of Brazil
By
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Translated by Cícero Freitas
In
Brazil, everybody has social concerns. Among the so-called friends of the social
cause, there are politicians from every party. Even the right-wing politicians
prefer to refer to themselves as supporters of a social-liberalism. The great
majority of the other forces, from center to left-wing, claims to be
social-democrat. Social-democracy would be the commitments with representative
democracy, with regulated market economy and with social policies designed to
moderate inequalities and exclusion. Since the emphasis on such policies is also
part of the liberal or neoliberal credo, in Brazil and everywhere, confusion in
generalized. The confusion’s name is “the third way”.
Every political leader contemplates him or herself in the mirror, surrounded by
his creeps, and wonders: Am I not the most social-friendly of them all, the most
sincere friend of the social cause, me, the one that knows how to reconcile
realism in finances and efficiency in production with the insistency in
correcting the injustices of market, me, the one who doesn’t forget the
outcast while striving so that the country will follow the triumphant example of
the North Atlantic rich democracies?
This speech of disillusioned realism and social lamentation is more than
predominant in today’s Brazilian politics. It is practically the only set of
political ideas that has survived in Brazil.
Some few follow a intransigent tradition within liberal thought, revived in
recent decades by conservative parties in Europe and the United States. They
intend to direct and restrict severely social spending, lightening the tax and
regulation burden on
production. Only thus, they say, market will be able to repeat, more freely, its
miracle of generating wealth and opportunity for an ever-growing number of
people.
The majority of the political nation - the educated and politically conscious
part of the country - never allowed itself to be seduced by "laissez-faire."
According to it, inequalities and exclusion in Brazil are so overwhelming,
restrict in such an extent ability to engage in economic and political life of
the country, that it is not possible to delay social action. In order to ensure
social achievements, it would be necessary to correct and complement the market.
Almost everybody in Brazil claims to be in favor of the social cause. Where is
the social cause? If so many support it, why is it so weak among us? In the
country the idea that prevails is that the social proposal does not prosper
because of a Brazilian heritage of interests, of atavisms and incompetencies
that undermine its execution.The commitment with the social cause, within the
acceptance of market and globalization, would be all that Brazil needs.
Nevertheless, abiding by this commitment facing powers, prejudices and
confusions would be a different story altogether.
There
are two ideas that are central in this book. The first idea is that the social,
market-humanizer speech that which is almost universally accepted in Brazil, is
useless. This social-democrat or social-liberal speech is useless to the world.
Particularly, it is useless to Brazil. The greatest problem is not its
execution. It is its content. The second idea of this book is that there is an
alternative that is practical and better. One of the names that I give it here
is the second way proposal.
Market must be reorganized, not simply regulated in its operations or
compensated, by means of social policies, in its effects. In order of this to
happen, democracy must also be reviewed and redesigned.
The second way is the democratizing development to be achieved way the
renovation of the institutions that define representative democracy, market
economy and free civil society. It is not enough to transfer resources from the
richer to poorer; it is necessary to engage in a path of reorganization of
political, economic and social institutions. This path is not revolutionary in
its method: it does not require instantaneous and radical rupture with known
solutions. It may advance, step by step and part by part, even though progress
achieved in one area may condition
the progress that might be expected in others.
Why second way? Because it is a developmentist and democratizing alternative to
what is offered, after the collapse of communism, as the only way in the world.
One of the premises of the single way conception is the thesis of institutional
convergence. The entire world would be converging, little by little, to the same
basic set of the best practices and institutions, those established, with little
variation in the United States and in Europe. Outside market and globalisation
there would be no salvation. What we can and must do is humanize maket practices
and globalization realities with social policies.
The
idea of a third way is simply the doctrine of the single way,
accompanied by the announcement of the intention of moralizing it. The third way
is the first way softened and humanized. Social policies would reconcile community
cohesion with economic efficiency. Such a project of humanization of the
inevitable lacks its own institutional content. This lack makes precarious the
difference between the third and the first ways. It is enough to understand the
historical context of the present idea of the third way to realize that it
represents little more than the disguise of a surrender.
Until recently, the idea of a contrast between two styles of capitalism exerted
great influence. There would be American capitalism, characterized by economic
flexibility and efficiency as much as by low social protection. There would also
be European or "Rhinish" capitalism - that is,
French and German. One of the features of this other capitalism would be the
effort to safeguard against market instability a basic set of rights and social
benefits. Another characteristic would the ability of governments of
negotiating, alongside labor unions and employers associations, agreements
destined to reconcile salary improvement with currency stability and business
rentability. The history of the last decades in North Atlantic is the history of the
practical and ideological weakening of this so-called "Rhinish" alternative.
Its techniques of social and economic stabilization ended up being seen as the
sacrifice of the collective interest in growth and employment in benefit of a
powerful minority of organized workers and protected enterprises. Its generosity
in social spending as incompatible with realism and responsibility in public
finances. And its defense of acquired labor rights is an onus on innovation and
efficiency that impoverished many in order to benefit a few.
With the collapse of communism, the crisis of European economies and the arrival
to power of administrations like those of Thatcher and Reagan, the idea of the
third way appeared, in the
hands of the ideologues of the fleeing progressive parties. It was nothing but the most recent of various
third ways that
appeared during the 20th century under different guises. This most recent
version involved accepting the inevitability
of the United States economic model, correcting, by means of policies of social
insurance and investment in people, its wildest aspects and its most
disintegrating consequences.
It was not sustained, however, by any idea of how to anchor people, education,
and community cohesion in a reformed strategy of economic growth. It accepted as
fate the division between productive vanguards and rearguards and the
cooling of politics in a world of relative peace. Since it was empty of
institutional content, it was poor in practical results. It ended up being
simply the first way itself, the only way, with a small discount found less in
acts than in words.
This was the doctrine that, under names like social democracy or social
liberalism, disseminated in countries like Brazil as the only realistic
and decent way of reconciling the necessary social aspects with inevitable
market and globalization. It is against this doctrine that the second way
proposal rebelled, shown in this book as a solution for Brazil.
Four main commitments guide the second way proposal.
The first guideline is the building of an active, enriched and able State that
counts on a high level of tax revenue and national savings. Without a high tax revenue,
national problems remain unsolved since
private initiative is insufficient. Cultural and economic resources people need
in order to became independent citizens and capable workers remain
uninsured.
The only way, however, of obtaining in the short run the revenue needed, without
discouraging labor, investment and production is to give great importance to one
widely recognized as regressive form of taxation: indirect consumption taxation.
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