Without goals, the New Industry is old – 01/23/2024 – Elio Gaspari

Long ago, when President Ernesto Geisel’s government released its National Development Plan, professor Mário Henrique Simonsen, his Finance Minister, commented: “I don’t read works of fiction.” Anyone who reads them may waste some time with the Nova Indústria Brasil program and its “aspirational goals”, with six missions. It is even likely that Viúva will put credits worth R$300 billion on the table by 2026.

(During the speech by Geraldo Alckmin, Minister of Development and vice-president, the camera panned part of the audience; at least nine guests — three of whom were ministerial colleagues — were reading papers or messages on their cell phones.)

Praise the authors. They called the goals “aspirational.” They expressed desires instead of making promises. For example, in mission 3 the aim is to “reduce travel time from home to work by 20% (currently this average time is 4.8 hours per week).”

In defense of this new industrial policy, the doctors repeated that countries like Korea and Japan grew because their industries were supported by the government. Leaving aside the fact that thieves there go to jail and receive no relief from the Federal Supreme Court, this is an old issue. In Japan and Korea there were targets, commitments and penalties. What will be the goals that companies are required to meet with the New Industry? For now, not a word.

It is known that these goals will be defined in ninety days, but they may be changed. In other words, the goals will also be “aspirational”. The meeting spent around 6 of its 97 minutes in tedious greetings. In it, the only person who explicitly associated aspirations with some type of demand for the “consequences of the act we are discussing” was Lula: “The problem doesn’t end here, it starts here.”

At 78 years old, Lula is part of a unique generation in history: he financed three shipbuilding centers, each with worse results than the previous one. The first came with Juscelino Kubitschek, the second with Geisel and the third with Lula 01. For now, the fourth naval hub is outside the aspirational goals, but no one loses out by waiting.

The government knows how to propagate aspirations. In January 2007, Lula announced his first Growth Acceleration Program. A year later, he included the Trem-Bala that would connect Rio to São Paulo and Campinas. He gave what he gave.

Industrial policies work when the government forces the benefiting entrepreneurs to meet targets and does not subvert the rules of the game.

The first round of applause for the Nova Indústria program came from Fiesp. Bad sign. In January 2020, Dr. Paulo Skaf, president of “poderosa”, published an article entitled “Nice to meet you, we are Fiesp”. His message was short and thick: “We support Bolsonaro, who has put the country on the right path.” At Monday’s meeting, the representative of the National Confederation of Industry reported: “We are on the right path.” They supported Bolsonaro and will support all his successors, as long as they offer good credit.

As Lula said at the end of his speech, “may God bless us and may we fulfill what we wrote on paper.”

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