PT’s crisis and degeneration (Part II): the delusions of “humane capitalism”
This is the second article of the series “PT’s crisis and degeneration”, whose goal is to provide our readers with a background of the history and origins of the bankruptcy of the PT’s project.
Faced with the growing unpopularity of the Dilma government, with the corruption scandals and the crisis of the PT, the main defense of the leadership of this party is to claim that during their governments workers’ living conditions improved. However, although there were benefits to some sectors for a brief period, in the end it was all a mirage which is now being undone by this very government.
For years, the PT sold the delusion that it would be possible for workers to improve their lives permanently and steadily within the capitalist system, as long as it would be humanized by income distribution policies promoted by the State. And, naturally, under the management of PT governments and their allies.
As such, the working class would not need to wage a tough fight to win over and defend their rights and to improve their living standards against the increasing exploitation of the bourgeoisie. It also would not need to organize collectively for that. The individual effort of each worker to ascend would suffice, with the support of the State and the generosity of the capitalists. Politically, it would just have to vote for the PT.
In office, the income distribution measures were directed to the poorest sections of the working class with the so-called compensatory social policies (Bolsa Família-“Family Allowance”, Luz para Todos-“Light For Everybody”, Mais Médicos-“More Doctors”, among others). The second aspect of this policy was a kind of quantitative easing, facilitating credit and encouraging consumption of working families. An important part of this incentive were the mortgage loans by the Minha Casa, Minha Vida – “My House, My Life” program.
Another policy was that of stimulating the natural desire of workers to escape from their condition of wage earners and to have their own business. For this, the government encouraged entrepreneurship, facilitating credit to micro and small entrepreneurs. Similarly, it sought to meet the aspiration for upward social mobility through access to university education, by facilitating student credit (government-provided loans) through Fies and ProUni.
The end of an illusion…
Why do we say that all these measures were part of a grand illusion? On one hand, many of them, such as Bolsa Família, are palliative, i.e. do not solve the central problem of the working class: they do not attack capitalist exploitation and do not even guarantee employment, a decent income and labor and social rights in a lasting way. Furthermore, they can be revoked by the next government.
On the other hand, the credit measures, in addition to compromising the budget of working families for years, are permanently threatened by economic crises that could cause workers to lose their goods, their efforts and even their homes.
However, for a while, these measures seemed to work. The economic situation of the country was stable, mainly due to the high international price for commodities exports, which allowed the government to maintain these policies. The ideologues of the PT created the myth that a new middle class was born, due to the increasing consumption of working families. This is utterly false: those are only workers able to consume over a brief period the cost of going into debt. With the economic crisis, this illusion is definitely over.
Fiscal adjustment: the PT against workers
Upon fully reaching Brazil, the global economic crisis has shown the true face of the PT. In words, they talk of protection of workers, in favor of reforms to improve their standard of living. In deeds, however, they are in favor of the capitalists and against the workers. This can be seen now in the actual policies carried out by the government.
The capitalists have demanded from Dilma government a harsh fiscal adjustment, which means that workers must bear the cost of crisis with the loss of hard-won social rights, increased inflation and unemployment. That’s the global politics of imperialism. Let it be said, for example, by the workers of Greece, of Spain, of Portugal, of all Europe.
The PT has not only totally agreed with such austerity policy, it has become the leading executive manager of its application, thus, the agent of the imperialist policy. Dilma appointed a banker, Joaquim Levy, from the Bradesco bank, as finance minister, to apply the adjustment with the full support of President Dilma.
The leadership of the PT, including Lula himself, claims that the setting is a necessary sacrifice. According to them, in a time of economic hardships, we must do as families that go through difficult situations: cut expenses to get their finances in order and to prosper again when the worst has passed.
The problem is that this comparison is a scam to give the impression that the whole country is making sacrifices to overcome the crisis. An utter lie. There is no adjustment for the rich. The banks and the agribusiness maintain massive profits. The automakers and other companies have benefited from tax exemptions and kept their profits. The only ones who are suffering from the adjustment of the PT and the capitalists are the workers and the poor.
Harsh attacks…
The provisional acts 664 and 665 promoted by the government affect mainly the youth and working women. The reduction of funding by the Fies program harms students who believed in it and became indebted to try to get a university degree. Thousands can’t go on because of the cuts. The government increased the light fares by more than 40%. The rising of fuel prices extends to all the products and penalizes the population. The cuts in health, education and on the PAC construction sites cause thousands of layoffs.
To make matters worse, it is the working class who pay for corruption. The scandal in Petrobras, besides showing the outright theft of public money by governing coalition parties and the cartel of contractors, also led to the crisis of the company, to the suspension of construction works, and to the dismissal of thousands of workers, as in the case of the Comperj (Petrochemical Complex of Rio de Janeiro) in the state of Rio.
The National Congress, headed today by the PMDB of Eduardo Cunha, speaker of the House, and Renan Calheiros, president of the Senate, adds itself to this attack. The House passed the Bill of Outsourcing that will cause the dismissal of millions of workers and the hiring of outsourced workers for much lower wages. The PT’s representatives voted against the Bill, but Dilma’s government, which has the decisive weight in the matter, has not taken a single action against the project, other than merely ensuring that there are no tax losses.
There is no such thing as humane capitalism
Workers need to draw some pressing conclusions on the current situation. The first is that the income distribution measures advocated by the PT as a major breakthrough, in addition to not solving the key problem of the working class, are small, fragile and temporary. And even then, they were only possible because there was a favorable economic environment.
The second conclusion is that when capitalist conditions change and economic crises ensue, these small improvements in income distribution are destroyed by the capitalists and the politicians at their service. As good defenders of capitalism, the PT governments are attacking the same measures they swore to defend.
But the most important conclusion is that, contrary to what is said by the PT leadership, the root of the problem of the working class can’t be found in the unequal distribution of wealth, though it is increasingly brutal and unjust. The explanation for the situation of the working class under capitalism, including the exploitation and inequality, lies in the fact that the means of production and distribution of the society (factories, infrastructure, and banks) and the land are private property of the big capitalists.
The logic of a production system based on this type of property is that there is an unavoidable tendency towards the accumulation and concentration of capital (that is, the elimination of the weakest) and towards the increase in inequality. There might be a temporary improvement, but when the crises come, a reduction of national income inevitably takes place. The bourgeoisie increases exploitation to preserve their profits and destroy the previous distributive policies.
Therefore, contrary to what the PT always preached, inequality will not be solved with small improvements in income distribution. Inequality will only end with the expropriation of the means of production and the land that are now in the hands of big capitalists, turning them into collective property, run by a government of workers and poor people.
Finally, it must be said that the illusions spread by the PT have a nefarious effect on workers. They make their class consciousness – that is, awareness of their unavoidable wage-slave situation within the capitalist system and the need to organize a political struggle as a class to do away with this system – go several steps backwards.
The independent struggle of workers is the solution
The above findings do not mean that workers should not fight against inequality. Quite the opposite, indeed: this fight is a key issue to ensuring the survival of the working class. The defense of better wages and jobs is an example. The same goes for the defense of all the achievements of the class however small they might be.
The problem is that these improvements and achievements can only be defended with a lot of fighting and not with allegedly kind measures that capitalists give with one hand and take away with the other. And above all, this struggle should have a goal: that the working class comes to power and implants a workers’ government that puts an end not only to inequality, but, once and for all, to this system of exploitation.
A struggle carried out in this way requires a strong organization of workers in combative labor unions and a genuine workers’ party: socialist, revolutionary, democratic, independent of the bosses. Precisely the opposite of what the PT represents.
