This book provides a systematic description of the key challenges faced by Brazil today, and the main lines of action required to bring the country back on track.
Brazil is not a poor country; what it presently produces is sufficient to ensure everyone a dignified and comfortable life. Its problems are not economic in the sense of lack of resources, but rather in terms of social and political organization.
With President Lula governing the country as of 2023, structural challenges such as deep inequality, the environmental disaster and the financial chaos have become evident.
The present book is not only about Brazil, but about the challenges it has in common with so many third-world countries. Its resources, particularly financial resources, are not going where they are needed. On the contrary, the necessary initiatives are being financially drained or under-funded.
Powerful elites, in coordination with the international financial corporations and commodity traders, resist any attempt at building a more balanced society. This book seeks to combat these structural issues.
“With a special focus on Brazil, this lucid study offers concrete guidelines for escaping the tragedy of famine amidst plenty, underutilized resources, idle hands with so much work that should be done to benefit society as a whole, while the global economy regresses from creating capital for production to donate wealth to the few – all the result of policies that can be reversed by an informed and engaged public. A very valuable contribution in these troubled times.”
– Noam Chomsky
The subject is familiar to anyone who reads my books, but here I have focused on the “core” of the transformations we are experiencing. The final part presents a set of proposals to rescue common sense and the social utility of the economy.
Our problems are not in the lack of resources, whether economic or technological, but in our difficulty in making them useful. We are facing economic stagnation, social disruption and an environmental catastrophe.
If we are looking for the guilty ones to point our fingers at, it is the wrong approach. With a step back, we can see that our challenge is not only in the economic, social and environmental dramas, but in our helplessness in facing them.
It is a governance issue, the social decision process challenge. Here, from the Brazilian perspective, some common sense.
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