One more factor of the international order to be taken into account is the (already mentioned) relative decadence of the USA. The question has been raised by more than one author, but among them P. Kennedy points out the issue from the perspective of the fallibility of the great powers in a work prior to the final downfall of socialism (1988) and in a moment when the USA is the greatest power in the world but it was not known that they would become the only power in so few years, which is very different.
But this does not matter, for Kennedy's analysis or speculations, on the contrary, I even believe his argumentation in what touches on the fallibility of the American empire is reinforced at the moment when this empire no longer has an opponent of dimension comparable. The two big problems this author sees posed for the US become even more difficult; note: originally, during the cold war, it was necessary to maintain a balance between their own defensive needs and the means available to meet the they, as well as the ability to preserve the technological and economic bases necessary to maintain this power against relative erosion against changers standards of global production, to which are now added the defensive needs of others, borne by the US taxpayer to some extent, and by the citizen American in person, often himself on the battlefield of others, as well as the greater complexity of the production pattern in the megablock economy that is consolidating.
Consider also, with Kennedy, the huge web of strategic commitments, of a military nature, the political commitments, assistance commitments and all the others that the US has been weaving since the XIX century. There is nothing, no interest on the face of the planet, that indirectly or directly fails to affect the taxpayer and the citizen (which is almost the same) of the USA. And consider the cost of bureaucracy required to administer these charges. To what extent will the US be interested in sustaining the planet's social well-being? (The precariousness with which they have been doing this, and other judgments, are a separate question.) The decline, if relative to economic and military problems presented by Kennedy, could still come about by pure electoral pressure, by pure American renouncement of the burden of being the greatest power in the world, or better, the only one.
This decline, so-called relative, or this renunciation, which is just a hypothesis, both have a common component. and that affects not only the US, but the entire world of the market economy: the fiscal crisis of welfare state. The distributive policies adopted in recent decades around the world are potentially bankrupt. The calculations originally made considered natural population growth curves; with the containment of demographic expansion through birth control, there is an aging of the population and a consequent decrease in the relative share of working age; result: the original calculations are no longer applicable, the system has gone bankrupt.
It is projected, for example, that, at the end of the first quarter of the next century, the current rates of Progression, US health and retirement spending will budget 20% of GDP (NB: GDP, not revenue Supervisor). Considering projections like this, concentrating policies have been adopted, which abandon the direct application of the method. deductive for analysis of national income determinants and subsequent evaluation of alternative policies, distributive; these policies are theoretically based on the good elaboration of the Lafer curve masquerading as "theory of supply", and have served groups that present their own interests as universal.
This problem, that of the public deficit on social assistance accounts alone, exemplified here in the case of the US, is not the only and perhaps not the most important one affecting the WSK; the crisis of full employment, diminished capital supply, draining savings by military spending are more some aspects that contribute significantly to aggravate the problem in a comprehensive and systemic way. It was my intention just to point out the issue, which is complex and beyond my main objective, but constitutes a component of the larger relevance for analysis and speculation of the international panorama and in the national aspect yes, because in any negotiation - politics, economic or social - there will always be two components to consider: income distribution (direct or through the state) and remuneration of the investment.
A final aspect of the recent new order under construction, and absolutely no less important, already mentioned several times in this text, is the question of the formation of economic blocks. And, within this aspect, Brazil's participation in Mercosur should be considered, despite its small size relative to the other blocs.
The International Colloquium "Regional Economic Integration: experiences and perspectives" promoted by USP in 1991 (it had its articles published in the Political Externa magazine) exhaustively addressed the theme.
A synthesis of what is known about the issue cannot fail to observe the following aspects: first – the unifying trend between regional markets, with a view to intercomplementarity, expansion of the absolute internal market, taking advantage of economies of scale, expansion of the capacity to bargain with partners outside the bloc, reciprocal protectionism; second – the blocks of an essentially economic nature overlap with other alliances, military pacts, ethnic communities, cultural identities, specific economic interests (oil for example), and eventually the same country belongs to more than one economic bloc, all of this produces a network of growing international, transnational and multinational interests and relations complexity; third – the members of the economic blocs do not have the same relative weight in internal negotiations, considering their GDPs and other economic indices, as well as being quite dissimilar in relation to their geographic, territorial, population, etc. dimensions, which leads to the observation that the blocks may come to be captained by whoever is more strong; fourth – the blocs are only sustainable insofar as there is compatibility between the regimes of the members and, hopefully, political, economic and social stability.
From this, what can be concluded is, on the one hand, the fragility of these blocks, the complexity of their operability, the ephemerality of its maintenance, only consented to as very subtle interests subsist; notwithstanding the fact that the blocks are in formation, they have been consolidated, their competence has been deepened. The institutions have so far worked.
THE INTEGRATION OF BRAZIL
The integration of Brazil into the international market, to be carried out through an equitable understanding of society in this process, is the great challenge currently and for the coming years.
Many of the problems to be faced are common to other NICs in South America: it will be necessary to promote the strengthening of the economic and social bases of democracy, as well as the strengthening of the political bases of development; to do so, it will be necessary to have a national project for which there are still specific problems: the lack of a social values framework and the lack of strategic governance.
For the viability of a new national project, some elements are emerging: the formation of the idea of partnership, replacing the omnipresence of the State, and replacing the patriarchal vision with which the State-society relationship has been taking place today and for a long time. time; the implementation of a new economic model, based on integration, scientific and technological acceleration, by means of massive, central investment in human capital, through an education proposal for the modernity.
It is necessary to overcome the lost decade (although it is argued that the decade was not lost for Brazil, as a democracy of masses in the country ) and for that the path would be the replacement of the technological scientific model (Linear) by the interaction between economy and society (Model Embracing).
Reis Velloso points out the new bases for achieving international competitiveness: the abandonment of Manichaeism such as outward X inward-oriented economy or neoliberalism X interventionism, to take advantage of the best in each of the models; the intensive development of human capital; the establishment of global macroeconomic relations; interactive development of: a) accumulation (learning-by-doing + learning-by-using + learning-by-interacting), b) agglomeration (upgrading of factors – geographically or by sector), c) synergies [(public+private) + (production+research)] + (national+international), d) externalities (linkages).
The risks for NICs and their potential for international competitiveness under the new paradigm are intertwined: they can overcome the barrier if they master the paradigm and raise the at the level of the workforce, they will not be able to miss the opportunity that is currently being presented, and will have to insert themselves in the enormous speed of the most important flows: money, information, knowledge.
According to Reis Velloso, Brazil will carry out a series of measures in order to make the necessary strategic connections for integration into the paradigm of the new order: for the industrial restructuring - construction of an international base in information technology, telecommunications and management, development of new dynamic comparative advantages, consolidation of existing ones (for example: platform oil exploration technology, banking automation, hydroelectric dams), improving competitiveness in the industrial goods industry. mass consumption; for accelerating technical-scientific progress – considering with greater care the growing preponderance of software (lato sensu) over hardware, and taking better advantage of the creative catching-up; for the implementation of education for modernity – define a national educational project, balance the different educational visions (humanist, citizen, developmental etc.), discuss the neo-sophist, Platonic and the "light" humanist models so that the educational system adapts to its most important function: transmission of the codes of modernity; to establish an effective connection with external knowledge matrices; to consolidate the connection with the political-institutional system.
Brazil, however, has so far been the most perfect example of exclusionary accumulation, and the fight against poverty is both an ethical imperative, in the words of R. Ç. of Albuquerque, as a sine qua non for national development itself.
This is the great challenge for Brazil: to integrate this important part of its community that until now has remained excluded; integrate it as productive in a sophisticated industrial and services system, as a consumer in a broad and diversified market, as a citizen in a pluralistic society, as a thinker in a world of ideas.
It is important for us to bring to the entire national production system and to all segments of society the changes that already affect how a whole world economy: the decoupling between primary production and the industrial economy, the decrease in employment in the area industrial without a reduction in the aggregate labor supply and, finally, the decoupling between the flows of goods and capital in the market international .
The world has changed, much more than the political map of a part of Europe has changed. The dynamics of the market have changed, the demands are no longer the same as in a decade or two. Many doomsday predictions have completely dissolved.
It is necessary for Brazil to have a real dimension of this transformation. But that this dimension is reached by a really significant portion of the population that, at the moment, still has demands characteristic of decades or even a century ago.
One of the ways to get the country and its people out of this lethargy in which it still largely finds itself is actually make the level of expectations of the population as a whole, especially the less favored segments, grow up. Increase demand pressure. And redirect demand according to the offers of the modern international market. And all this within the new components of this new and sophisticated market in the world of the new order.
THE NEW WORLD ORDER MARKET
What I have throughout all this work called market is the set of offers and demands in three specific but not always dissociable areas: political, economic and social. If in one of these areas the supply or demand tends to zero, the market does not exist there. Political demands (for example, which are easier than defining) are those for participation in the decision-making process, in the choice of directors; the economic ones are those by certain levels of income, by access to work, by participation in profits, by capital; the social ones are those for collective and private security, for social security, for access to collective goods.
But often these fields are not watertight, as one of the ways of processing a social or economic demand is through politics; other orders are possible. That is why I consider that, for the purpose of the superficiality with which each aspect is being approached, the demand and supply of these three areas can be considered in aggregate. I even consider that a demand is almost always channeled through more than one channel simultaneously.
What is important to note is that there has recently been a profound change (and expansion) in the offers of this market, in global terms, and that the demands have fundamentally changed.
From a political point of view, there is now a much more important offer of participation, in which it is considered that the vast majority of countries today have more or more cadres. less close to pluralist democracies, or at least far removed from totalitarian systems or bureaucratic-military regimes in force from a decade and before from that. And in these cases, of recent democratization, in general one of the most important demands became that of democratic consolidation, the maintenance of offers of participation at levels already reached or at levels still best.
These demands also go in the direction of institutionalizing pacts and other autonomous mechanisms of effective strategies to circumvent existing conflicts in democracies. But, in general, in today's world, the doubt characteristic of the democratic decision-making process is much more accepted as a component of uncertainty in a market where you can't always win, and this aspect is still different from what happened not so many years ago, in global terms, in many places particularly, and among us including.
And what is better, institutions have been accepted more and more as a forum for processing democratic uncertainties.
From a social point of view, having emerged different demands, the most notable thing however is that these demands have been processed in ways that are often different from those that would be customary for some years old. The institutional path is a constant, but the governmental path is not always the chosen one. Social demands often run counter to very strong economic and political interests, and have nevertheless been met. The balance of forces between the political, economic and social components has become more balanced, in my opinion, or, at the very least, less unequal.
Returning to a point I have already mentioned, I consider that the balance is closer to being found between competition and cooperation, in other words, between "solidarity" and "interests". And this balance takes place in the market, that is, cooperation, even though it may conceptually be opposed to competition, exists in the market and integrates it as a counterbalancing component, limiting the sphere of pure economic rationality and contributing to the consolidation of a market socialized.
This balance is being processed in all social spheres, from relations between States and between blocs, to the level of personal relations.
PROBLEMS FOR BRAZIL
An important element in the analytical consideration of a State is its efficiency in terms of capacity. of institutions to keep the market functioning, that is, that no demand or supply tends to zero.
A State's efficiency is its governability, its capacity to obtain results in its policies and intentions. Efficiency can also, from a liberal perspective, mean that the State interferes as little as possible in the market, as this has a series of operating modes that often completely dispense with the interference of the State.
The problem for Brazil, regarding this approach, is that facing the Brazilian constitutional problem (let us mention the tax issue, division of powers, system and regime as an example), the State has not been able to coordinate the Marketplace. All interference has seemed inept. Every time the Brazilian State abstains from interfering, it is accused of omission. There is no exact definition of the type of State desired, it is not understood which competences society wants to delegate to the State and which ones it wants to call upon itself.
As the problem of undefined goals, roles and strategies is not limited to the sphere of government, but extends by all institutions, the market's automatism mechanisms do not work or do not content.
No pacts are made because there is no one to make them work. Directions are not determined, as it is not known exactly what is intended.
CONCLUSION
Adapting national institutions to the market will mean, in the first place, making them know what they are for. Let them know their role.
Opting for a State with this or that characteristic and function, in a democracy, is the role of society. Our biggest problem will be, in this respect, to make important parts of our society, which at the moment are completely excluded from the market, to come to participate in it, so that an eventual national project can count on this portion of the population that, while excluded, delegitimizes any attempt at this sense.
We have the obligation and duty to bring news about what is happening in the world to all social strata, so that people have parameters to establish their expectations.
By adapting our institutions we will not be taking any steps towards the end of our history, we will not be leading any man to be the last of his species. We will be making a portion that is almost excluded from participation to be integrated into the historical process; we will be humanizing the portion of excluded people who, indeed, are often degraded by the absolute poverty line, standing at the lower limit of humanity or below it.
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Biography:
This article is the product of a course given at CEPEDERH / UNA (Cetro de Preparing Human Resources / Business and Administration Union) as Visiting Professor in the Postgraduate Course in Management Business; the article did not undergo substantial changes after it was written.
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