[Silvas campaign] is the ideal administrative facade for reinforcing the status quo. After all, one aspect that has prevented the PT administrations from replicating the PSDB’s policies is its leftist ideological commitment to social assistance and its working-class roots. The rejection of this commitment would make Marina Silva not very different from the PSDB candidate, Aécio Neves, except that her project intends on retaining some of PT’s social gains as a technocratic symbol of social growth and democratic management. Silva’s proposal to give the Brazilian Central Bank autonomy from the state is intended to appeal to the share of the population dealing with political melancholia, those who are still disillusioned with electoral politics due to corruption scandals and the continuous weakening of public services, as well as the fear of rising inflation. Of course, a Central Bank even more at the mercy of the markets is hardly the answer for that. Anti-corruption was an important theme in the June 2013 protests in Brazil, although the moralist turn taken by the crowd drowned out a socialist critique of corruption and eventually facilitated a right-wing approach to anti-corruption that targeted the PT and the rest of the Left by association. A proposal like Central Bank autonomy not only fulfills Silva’s commitment to the financial market, but also captures the votes and attention of those primarily concerned with the connection between a corrupt state and monetary policy.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 01:36:46 +0000
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