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Commentary :: Labor

Meet the new boss, same as the old one: Lula in Power

Anarchists have long opposed the idea that radicals should stand for elections. We have consistently argued that such a tactic is flawed. It breeds reformism, centralisation and bureaucratic manoeuvring within the organisations that use it. Even if a reformist/radical party got in, the pressures from the state bureaucracy and big business would ensure its reforms would be, at best, minor while, in the main, it would implement policies favourable to the ruling elite.

And time and again we have been proved right. Regards of the wealth of empirical evidence in support of the anarchist analysis, radicals consistently argue for participation in elections. Marxists are particularly prone to this. Forgetting that they claim to be "scientific socialists" they favour Marx over Bakunin in spite of the fact history has proven the Russian correct.

Perhaps the developments in Brazil may cause them to reconsider. In 2002, left-winger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidential election. Since then, his administration has simply imposed policies identical to its right-wing predecessor (and using the traditional discourse of conservative Brazilian elites to defend them). Ironically, Lula's greatest accomplishment has been the implementation of the very policies against which his own party (the Workers Party, or PT) was created.

Founded in by a new generation of union leaders, it was initially a party to the left of traditional Communist parties. It soon drew in sectors of the progressive Catholic Church, social movements, independent intellectuals, and the non-Communist Left. It's internal democracy was impressive, with its congresses deciding everything from the party's program to the composition of its directorship. Successes in the mayoral races in the 1980s and 1990s soon followed, making it the most widely voted party in urban Brazil.

Lula stood for president three times before winning. By the 2002 election, it was decided that "realism" was required by the PT in order to win. Radical policies were abandoned. For example, foreign debt, considered in 1989 as illegitimate, became in 2002 something that had to be paid. Once in power this betrayal of principles became the norm. Internally, the party's democracy eroded along with its principles. From a perspective which argued that politics should not be the toy of oligarchies, the party has (d)evolved into bureaucratic and technocratic organisation. A caste of bureaucrats exercises real power, despising internal party democracy.

After two years in power the PT has reformed the pension system in a way undreamt of by the 1990s neoliberals. It voluntarily raised (without concessions) the share of Brazil's GDP offered to pay down interest on the foreign debt. It has concentrated economic decision making powers in the hands of the Central Bank, which now determines economic policy. Unsurprisingly, the Bank has pursued exactly the same monetarist orthodoxy of the past, focusing on inflation to justify policies that favour finance capital. A presidential decree authorised the planting of GM soybean seeds.

Rather than use his popular mandate to pursue social justice, Lula has governed for the rich. Not a single social indicator has significantly changed during this time, nor is there any indication that they will in the future. Damningly, Lula's administration may be beaten by the previous right-wing ones in matters of literacy, infant mortality and poverty rates. The government celebrates, however, the achievement of "inflation goals" and the maintenance of an economic "stability" that favours the rich. It also introduced a Public-Private Partnership law (which, needless to say, profits capital).

To force through these measures, the PT has turned its internal democracy into a hollow shell. The resolutions of the PT congresses have no a say in how the country is run. Party activists have been expelled (or left in disgust). While Lula's government continues to boast of its high the levels of approval, a closer look suggests that its highest approval ratings are obtained from the wealthiest sectors.

This "Tropical Blairism" comes as no surprise to anarchists. Perhaps some radicals will still hold illusions that the Lula administration will change its track, but more realistic people will seek alternatives. Faced with yet another betrayal by a left-wing party against its founding principles perhaps people will start to reconsider the anarchist alternative of direct action and solidarity outside of bourgeois politics, of self-managed self-organisation in our workplaces and communities. Only pressure from below can force politicians to consider the interests of people, not profit. And only such a social movement can realise in the streets and workplaces that which politicians can never achieve in Parliament -- Social Justice and Freedom.
 
 

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