The bureaucratization of the ‘Yes’ – 06/06/2023 – Policies and Justice

If the bureaucracy currently followed the same configuration as when it was conceived, in theory we would be better off. This is because, in this way, the bureaucracy would once again be related to a cohesive governance process and not to the inefficiency and proliferation of rules of dubious necessity.

Among these norms, there are those that develop according to customs and others that aim to direct behavior.

There would be no threat to the status quo if there were no challenging agents produced by randomness. The continuous questioning of the “no” has caused changes and the complexity of today’s world adopts increasingly sophisticated and unusual facets.

Mathematics once again makes sense and manages to encode the real world, between the numbers ‘zero’ and ‘one’ there is a welcome infinity of possibilities. The reality we know has incorporated this diverse and plural perspective and our dogmas have been challenged by the notion of alterity. This challenge is necessary, since it democratizes and makes it clear that the world belongs to everyone.

Gradually, the world ceases to be like a closed company with concentrated control and we begin to recognize it with the possibility of being a public company with diffused control, and this has a series of implications.

On the premise that what is right is everyone’s benefit, the bureaucratic process would have the responsibility of making it possible and not making it unfeasible, being the structure that allows the “yes”, and not the one that disguises the “no”.

In recent years, it is undeniable that access to technology has streamlined various processes and allowed the State to have the opportunity to reach a significant portion of the population. It is also important to remember that the other portion remains on the sidelines.

According to a study promoted by PwC and Instituto Locomotiva: “The Digital Abism”, there are only 49.4 million Brazilians who can be considered fully connected. In opposition to this number, we have 75.7 million Brazilians considered underconnected or disconnected.

As a result of financial limitations, 95.7 million Brazilians who own cell phones have prepaid plans and need to use data only within pre-established limits — and classes C, D and E represent 82% of this public. “There is a Brazil that is prosperous. Another one doesn’t change”, sang Elza Soares.

In Brazil, the human development index is 0.754, occupying the 87th position in the ranking in 2021. If we consider the Sertão Northeast separately, the same index drops to 0.487 (IBGE and ONU), which would leave this portion of the population in conditions of development short of, for example, Eritrea.

The bureaucratization of the “yes” is the sympathetic mask of the “no”: the inconvenient difference between having a subjective right, expressed by the possibility of claiming something, and having a supposed claim effectively materialized. This goes through problems that cross our country, through exploitation and exclusion tools linked to the level of education, economic inequality, precarious connectivity and the patriarchal and racist culture.

Not even Max Weber thought that authority would be legitimized by digital social networks based on the obvious and superficial, that their operators’ low education and lack of purpose would be a political, social and economic problem, and that technology would not be a ally for bureaucracy to have a positive connotation today.

The process of legitimizing authority needs to be rethought, there is a need for conscious and purposeful leaders and technology has to be on our side. Thus, we will no longer be divided between Copper Brazil and Tin Brazil. And, let us be the Brazil of All.

Editor Michael França requests that each participant in the space “Politics and Justice” of the Sheet suggest a song to the readers. In this text, the one chosen by Eduardo Alves was “Brasis” by Elza Soares.

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