Video transcript
allTV - Painel Haddad (12/08/2019) - LAURA CARVALHO
212 statements · 1 politicians · August 13, 2019 · 32 min
Statements by Fernando Haddad. 212 transcribed statements, with topic and stance on the ones the analysis classified.
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212 statementsFull transcript of the video. Statements the analysis classified carry topic and stance.
Hello, we're here again on OLTV and on various internet platforms to discuss the reality of our country and of Latin America.
My guest today is a professor of Economics at USP.
She has a bachelor's degree and a master's from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a doctorate from the New School in the United States.
Additionally, she is a columnist for Folha de São Paulo.
Good evening, Laura Carvalho.
Good evening.
It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Thank you for the invitation.
Listen, how do you explain a book of economics—which, after all, isn't exactly easy reading, not fiction—having become the success it has, now nearing 30,000 copies, counting the e-book and the print edition?
How did you react to those numbers, to that success?
Desconhecido
Well, I think there's an element which is the timing of the book's release.
Desconhecido
It came out in May of last year, in 2018, before the election campaign, at a moment when the economic crisis... proved to be much more enduring, permanent and even deeper than had been suggested.
Desconhecido
So, many people were selling the idea that the impeachment would be enough for the economy to start growing again, and that the approval of the PEC establishing the spending ceiling would restore confidence.
Desconhecido
And I think that in 2018 we arrived at an electoral process with a very clear sense that the solutions presented up to then were not... leading us to that greater growth, something which, by the way, proved even more true this year.
Desconhecido
So the book, I think, fills that gap, so to speak, of looking at the past while trying to identify the factors behind that crisis, both external and internal, while highlighting the correct steps and the mistakes, and everything that could be done in the future so that we would keep only the correct parts and move toward a new model of development.
Desconhecido
So, I think that was a bit of it.
Desconhecido
Of course, there's the fact that I started writing for newspapers and learned to use a language
Desconhecido
that strays somewhat from 'economese', or from that tougher econo-jargon that blocks people and that, incidentally, I think serves a role in keeping people away from the economic debate.
Many economists, recently including liberals, have revived the debate from the 1940s and 1950s, recalling the controversy between the so-called liberals and the so-called developmentalists.
This debate, in a way, is being reclaimed in various ways, by both sides, curiously, to defend their points of view, as if to say 'see how I was right?'
But what would you say about the liberal paradigm and the developmentalist paradigm, at least in that old frame?
Where do you position yourself in that debate?
Desconhecido
Look, I actually think that if we consider these paradigms in terms of the role of the State in generating economic growth and well-being for society, which is what really matters, it's evident that I would be much closer to the so-called developmentalists, because I believe the idea of leaving the market alone to allocate all resources for society—that this would be more efficient, more effective, and that people would have greater access to the products, income and services they desire—has proven mistaken, not once, nor twice.
Desconhecido
I think the 2008 crisis, in fact, revolutionized economic thought worldwide, not for nothing.
Desconhecido
The deregulation of financial markets, the deregulation of labor markets.
Desconhecido
In those countries, over recent years, strengthened by globalization over the past decades since the 1980s, it seems to me they did not take the world economy to something better; quite the opposite.
Desconhecido
We have seen inequality increase in those countries, and now we are even bearing the consequences of that for democracy.
Desconhecido
And this right-wing populist wave has a lot to do with that.
Desconhecido
So my sense is that not even multilateral institutions, the IMF, research bodies, or the economic mainstream today view radical liberalism, let's say, those ultra ideas of having no State, as something respectable.
Desconhecido
In fact, everyone is concerned with finding mechanisms within the State, in economic policy and income distribution—which can be done through spending, taxation, and the necessary and best possible regulatory mechanisms—so that the private sector, too, can prosper in a way that benefits society as a whole.
One curious thing that happened in Brazil is that there was a common development in terms of—I wouldn't call them social classes exactly, but social strata, social segments.
And you pointed out in some of your articles that this squeeze of the middle class, the so-called 40% in the middle.
This is in the international literature; there are already studies showing that this is a generalized phenomenon post-globalization.
Indeed, you have the middle 40% that have been squeezed everywhere.
This is no different in Brazil.
In Brazil, I wouldn't say that this middle class became poorer during the Lula years, but it did, from a relative point of view...
Desconhecido
It earned less.
It earned less.
Or earned much less.
But, in a developed world, you did not have the phenomenon of the poor becoming less poor.
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