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28. Helio Jaguaribe
Professor Helio Jaguaribe was born in 1923 in Rio de Janeiro. He was graduated in law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Since then, he has specialized in political science with an emphasis on sociopolitical developments in Brazil and Latin America. Professor Jaguaribe has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and El Colegio de Méjico. He presently holds a chair at the University Institute in Rio de Janeiro. He is a member of the Club of Rome. Among his major works are Economic and Political Development and Political Developments.
Today, we find less freedom and democracy in South America than in 1961, when President Kennedy presented his famous Alliance for Progress plan for South America in Punta del Este.
Yes, basically this is true. But initially, developments in Latin America were only marginally affected by US politics. Ultimately, it was internal factors that had their consequences. External factors played their part and created favorable, and in some cases unfavorable conditions, but I think it is important for observers of the area to acknowledge that developments have been essentially determined by internal factors.
Why has Latin America become less democratic over the last few years? I think the answer is connected with the crisis of a typical Latin American experiment of the late forties and fifties: populism. Populism, as looked upon under Latin American conditions, is an alliance of classes which discovered that they had more interests in common than conflicts. Those classes were, roughly, the new industrial bourgoisie, emerging from the recent process of Latin American industrialization, plus the technical sectors of the middle class, plus the organized sectors of the working class. Opposed to them were some of the merchant bourgeoisie, which in another context are called the ’comprador’ bourgeoisie - the traditional sectors of the middle class - and, the lumpenproletariat, to a limited extent.
These great divisions of social groupings, during the late forties and the fifties, were such that the prevailing force was the one represented by the
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group under the leadership of the new industrialists, the new bourgeoisie, which was led, for objective reasons, to have a sort of loose alliance with the working class. The consequence of it all has been what we call Latin American populism.
This populism was a very unstable, unstructured, and ideologically ambiguous system. It was actually based on the fact that development was providing enough room for the bourgeoisie to give a compensation to the working class in such a way that all the members of this alliance had something to gain in the process of populist development. That process of development, however, was brought to a stop by the end of the fifties and, in some countries, by the middle of the sixties, as in the case of Brazil. Once the industrial bourgeoisie had no more surplus to distribute, the relationship of classes became classic, namely, a conflict between the haves and have-nots. At that moment the populist system entered into crisis. The crisis of the populist system has brought about, in general, two propensities. On the one hand, the radical sectors of the populist cluster were led to attempt some sort of socialistic solutions which, as a rule, have failed. On the other hand, and against these socialistic tendencies, groups interested in restoring conservative values and interests were led to a fascistic proclivity - and as a rule have won. Latin American societies are today, with some few exceptions, governed by conservatives, who are technocratically oriented and interested in maximizing the importance of the private sector. At the same time they are also interested in relaunching the process of development, as far as this is compatible with the maintenance of their privileges.
I believe that an additional clarification concerning the social structure of Latin American societies should be introduced into this picture. Once again we are making generalizations, since it is easy to understand that there are countries and countries in that diversified region. Most Latin American societies, however, have a population consisting, predominantly or to a very large extent, of peasants. They vary, insofar as the peasant population is concerned, from countries with a relatively small peasantry, like Argentina or Chile, to countries with very large peasant sectors, like Peru or the Central American countries. Brazil, the largest Latin American country, is somewhat in a medium situation, combining a huge peasant population with a very broad and modern industry.
Argentina, with a per capita income above one thousand dollars, and a relatively small and well-off peasant population with a low demographic growth, about one and a half percent, is, in social terms, a well-balanced class society. In that sense it is not representative of the Latin American social structure. The typical Latin American society, say, Peru, is
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characterized not only by a huge, very poor peasantry, but by a high demographic growth, around three percent per year and a heavy migration of poor peasants to the cities. There, however, they will not find the expected industrial jobs. For one thing, modern industry is increasingly laborsaving. For another, they are unskilled workers. So they join the marginal sector of the urban services. Marginality, therefore, is the main social characteristic of most Latin American societies. It is a marginality with two faces: the rural marginality of a peasantry living at the level of natural subsistence, and the urban marginality of the unskilled services, of the bootshining kind, also living at a strict subsistence level.
Once the process of populist development was brought to an end, these marginal sectors, although unorganized, start pressing toward some socialist solutions, calling for redistributive measures and a fairer socioeconomic participation. The Latin American upper sectors, in the frame of an informal but effective alliance between the bourgeoisie and the middle class - including the military - were confronted with the practical inevitability of the adoption of such measures, if the political process were to keep its democratic institutions. They were led, therefore, in defense of their privileges, to appeal to military regimes to contain the expectations of the masses.
China found one way of entering the nuclear age. India is still struggling to forge ahead by means centered around freedom and democracy. In Latin America, we have seen developments in Cuba in one corner of the continent, in Chile in the other. A People's Revolutionary Army is operating inside Argentina, and many other parts of Latin America are riddled with unrest, violence, and guerrilla warfare, often leading, as in the case of Brazil, to authoritarian rule. What further shocks do you anticipate before a measure of social justice will be achieved on your continent?
Two basic distinctions have to be introduced into the picture. The first concerns the difference between countries with a majority of citizens incorporated into their socioeconomic system, forming a kind of middle-class society, and countries with a majority of marginal populations, such as most of the Latin American ones. The second distinction concerns the time dimension.
Middle-class societies in Latin America tend to imitate European models of the welfare state. In the short run, that propensity is often still not acknowledged by several sectors - and here come the time dimension. The Argentinean young radicals, plotting a Troskyite revolution for union workers who wish to achieve, with Juan Péron, a sort of Willy Brandt type of
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social democracy, are as misled as, in their own way, are the Chilean military, who intend to establish a kind of Brazilian regime for a society where a majority of the population is integrated into the national system. In these middle-class societies violence predominantly results from mis-directed expectations from the extreme left and miscalculated fears from the extreme right. They will tend - although not automatically - to reach their balance with viable social-democratic institutions and procedures in the course of time.
For most Latin American countries, however, confronted with the problem of a huge rural and urban marginality and a defensive, minoritarian middle class, the situation is quite different. In such countries the present tendency is for military control, overtly or not, as the only possible way to preserve the status quo. Contrary to the former, in their case time tends to work against them. Except if they succeed - as the Peruvians do - in using the period of grace granted by the military interventions to successfully promote their own social development. Once again, consequences will not be automatic. Military dictatorships can last much longer than one supposes, note the case of Spain, and thus operate as a lengthy bridge between the dualistic societies of yesterday and their gradual expansion toward tomorrow's modernization. But it is very likely that, where social development is not actively promoted, the military regimes, in the long run, will not be able to contain the mounting pressures of the masses and of the increasingly dissatisfied sectors of their own middle class.
Mass revolutions, however, are historically rare phenomena and tend to become increasingly more difficult with the advance of technology. It should not be forgotten that the two last successful examples, Russia and China, have depended on the previous dismantling of the national armies, in lost wars, by foreign enemies. The internal splitting of the military, however, can produce an equivalent debilitation of the repressive capability of the armies and open the way toward mass revolutions.
Would you say that while the radical, the ‘angry,’ left, and the Communists, the orthodox left, in Latin America continue to fundamentally disagree on tactics, the rightists in Latin America are profiting from their quarrel?
The left tends to be more divisive, everywhere, than the right, because the left is mobilized by principles and the view of utopias, realizable or not, which imply distinct possible versions, whereas the right is mobilized by current interests, which have their own structure and a corresponding integrative effect. The divisions of the Latin American left - such as orthodox
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Communist parties versus the revolutionary left - certainly do not tend to increase their strength. It should be said, however, that the major trouble of the Latin American left is not so much its internal division as the contradiction, in each of its main sections, between strategy and the prevailing conditions.
Let us examine briefly the Communist parties and the movements of the revolutionary left. As a rule, the Communist parties have the support - where they have got some political significance - of the unions. Their cadres include some middle-class intellectual activists and union leaders, who tend to be professionals. In fact, they are increasingly becoming a sort of Labor Party - if a bit more radical - and would be compatible if they would adjust their rethoric and claims to their actual behavior and the ultimate expectations of the unionized workers, with a social democratic regime. By sticking to their rhetoric of revolution and often, although not always, opposing the moderate left, they weaken the democratic progressive movements and reinforce the strength and pretexts of the right.
Somehow the opposite happens with the revolutionary left. They claim to speak in the name and for the expectations of the working class. But they are young middle-class radicals, with practically no connections with the organized mass. They might be able, in most countries, if given enough freedom of action, to mobilize and organize enough contingents of the rural and urban marginal sectors to form a revolutionary army capable of confronting the official armies. But this is precisely what the official armies effectively prevent them from doing. So they remain a group of revolutionary officers without revolutionary soldiers. Incapable, in the present conditions, of promoting the revolution, they are limited to the practice of terrorism, particularly in less repressive and social-democractically inclined countries such as in Argentina. And so they contribute by their deeds - as the Communist Party contributes by its image - to the reinforcement of the pretexts and the strength of the right.
Brazil is now being compared with the gigantic economic rise of Japan after World War Two. Your exports jumped in 1973 by 53 percent to 6.2 billion dollars. You are sending sophisticated computers to Japan. Last year, Brazil recorded the largest percentage of economic growth in the world, 11.4 percent. But what is happening to the much-needed agriculture or to the peasants of Brazil?
There is in Brazil an extremely sharp imbalance between economic and social development. A large part of this situation has a historical origin, coming from the oligarchical system which prevailed in Brazil from colonial
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times to the middle-class, radical-liberal revolution of 1930. Up to 1889 agriculture was based on African slave labor. From 1889 to the first decades of this century the peasants, descendants of the slaves, if technically free, were totally dependent on the farmers and landowners.
Today the peasant population represents 42 percent of the total. Ninety percent of the peasants earn about forty-five dollars or less monthly, and live at the subsistence level. The Brazilian model of economic development during the last ten years of the military regime has been characterized by a strong concentration of wealth and income. The 70 percent lower section of the population earns only 28.2 percent of the total income, while the 10 percent higher group gets 47.8 of it, of which 34.9 percent is earned by the 5 percent highest sector.
This concentration of income, which has further increased over the past ten years, is regarded by official spokesmen for the government as an undesirable but unavoidable effect of a strong development process in the frame of a market- and free-enterprise economy. It is alleged that once a higher and stable level of economic development is achieved, redistributive measures can be adopted without hindering the economy. As a matter of fact, there is today in Brazil a growing controversy, even among supporters of the present regime, concerning the advisability of immediately starting a less regressive economic policy. The Geisel government seems to be inclined to adopt that policy.
Would you say with Ivan Illich that man will adjust to the facts of life as defined by Limits to Growth? Is Latin America becoming aware now that there are definite limits to development?
I am afraid that Limits to Growth is still only a matter of concern for a few intellecturals. Nevertheless, it is beginning to influence some decision makers. In that sense the irresponsible demographic policy of former times is changing. Several political leaders are becoming conscious of the correlation between the excessive expansion of population and the difficulties in improving the living standard of that same population. Perhaps the best example today is Mexico, a country with high population growth - more than three percent a year, which is considerable. But they have become demographic conscious and are now willing to plan their population.
In spite of the Church.
Yes, in spite of the Church. You know, everything in Mexico is being done in spite of the Church. For in Mexico, the Church, in contrast to what has happened in the rest of Latin America, remains very unprogressive.
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President Echeverría is a man profoundly conscious of social problems, profoundly interested in raising the living standard of the Mexican people, and therefore his government is now trying to establish a policy of demographic moderation.
Would you say with René Dumont that the haves, the rich countries, need more emphasis on civic and moral values?
I don't know all the books by Dumont, but I have read his books on Cuba. He is an expert on agriculture as well as sociologist. He wrote two books on Cuba; one very favorable, and a more recent one, a bit more skeptical, because he feels that Cuba is not taking what he considers to be the real socialist line. He contends that Cuba is becoming more authoritarian than truly socialist.
I believe that the problem of the developed areas of the world are extremely complicated. They are sometimes simplified by people from the area concerned and by people from the Third World. If you take the overall picture, the developed countries of the world are indeed quite well developed. But if you go into detail and closely examine the specific data about the developed countries, if you observe how Mr. Smith is living, you see that Mr. Smith is still living rather modestly. I believe that there is still a great deal of redistribution to be achieved also in the developed world. We are very, very far away - I would not say from a fair world - a fair world will perhaps never exist. But we are still far from what could be called, in today's terms, a tolerable world. There is a lot of poverty in America, a lot of poverty in Europe, so in fact there remains a tremendous amount of redistribution to be accomplished. You know, the rich everywhere have tended to play with the future. They say to the poor, Okay, you are poor now, but you will be a bit better off tomorrow! If there is development, although the rich get the lion's share of tomorrow, there's always something to be gained for the masses.
I believe that in the moment we are living now, and considering what we may expect to gain in the future, in the conditions of a world close to saturation, that the redistributive question becomes more important. I am thinking of redistribution, in the first place, from the rich to the poor sectors, both in the developed and the underdeveloped worlds. And, likewise of a redistribution from the developed to the underdeveloped countries, in the global context of our small planet.
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