The fall of the neoliberal order and the valorization of politics – 04/11/2023 – Policies and Justice

Oxford University professor Gary Gerstle published last year the book “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order”. Gerstle makes an interesting analysis of how neoliberalism produced a value system that governed the US and shaped left and right across most of the world between the late 1970s and early 2010s.

This system, which was imposed as an alternative to the welfare state model, transfers the responsibility for solving — or managing — the vast majority of social problems from the state to the market.

As the title of the book points out, for Gerstle neoliberalism is a model already in decline. This drop can be noted by the strength of the Chinese model, which has the State as the main driver of development. It was also seen in the responses given by different governments, first to the 2008 banking crisis and, mainly, during the pandemic. It is also present in the market’s inability to deal with gigantic challenges such as the climate crisis. The idea that it is possible to create a development model that does not have the State as its main driver hardly finds support in the global debate anymore.

The most recent example of this is the ambitious plan approved by the Biden Administration, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This package of measures proposes the use of US$ 4 trillion for a green and fair transition in the US, assuming the central role of the State in directing the economy. A program of this order and with this format would have been impossible a few years ago.

The neoliberal model, by relegating the production and implementation of public policies to the private sector, ended up strengthening the view that there is only one technically correct solution for each social problem. And that it is the market that has the ability to find that answer. The market, however, does not find a technical, apolitical solution. It finds a political solution and disguises this decision as a technique. This view depoliticizes the problems and distances them from democratic debates, generating an aversion in society to everything that is called political.

Any social problem can be solved in several ways. Each of these forms will generate different losers and winners. And that choice, in democracies, is political.

A development policy for the Amazon, for example, can be done with the destruction of forests and disrespect for local populations, or it can be done in a way that looks at the standing forest as an important asset for the country. An employment policy can prioritize workers’ rights or ease of hiring. These alternatives have to listen to technical subsidies, but they cannot escape the political choices they imply.

When the whole world transfers the mission of dealing with social problems back to the State, it will no longer be possible to run away from political debates to find public policy solutions.

Every public decision must explicitly recognize the winners and losers, and this debate must guide democratic discussions. The era of supposedly neutral or apolitical discussion of public policy is over. The big challenge is how to balance technical subsidies with the construction of clear alternatives so that democracy can choose fair paths.

Brazil has the advantage of having a broad guide so that the policy can measure whether or not it is on the right track. This guide is in the 1988 Constitution, which, in its 3rd article, lists the objectives of our Republic: “Building a free, fair and solidary society; guaranteeing national development; eradicating poverty and marginalization and reducing social and regional inequalities; promote the good of all, without prejudice of origin, race, sex, color, age and any other forms of discrimination.”

With the consensus that neoliberalism will not bring us closer to these goals, it is clear that the Brazilian State should be the engine of this process. And, for our democracy to be able to do this, it is essential to revalue politics as the only one capable of leading the State to equate our social problems.

The editor, Michael França, asks each participant of the space “Politics and Justice” of the Sheet suggest a song to the readers. In this text, the one chosen by Pedro Abramovay was “A dream”, by “Gilberto Gil”.

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