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BRAZIL TOWARDS UNGOVERNABILITY

Fernando Alcoforado *

Dilma Rousseff won the presidential election, but she will have great difficulties to govern Brazil because the country is devastated economically and the result of the election showed that she does not have the support of the vast majority of the nation. 60% of the electorate did not vote for Dilma Rousseff. One must consider that the governance of a country is only achieved when the government has the support of the vast majority of the population and the different social classes, in addition to having a parliamentary majority to implement his policies. To be governance, the government needs to meet the demands of different social classes to get the support of civil society and should have the support of political parties in Parliament to obtain the approval of their legislative projects.

In short, governance is about political capacity of the government to decide, enabling the execution of public policy. According to Antonio Gramsci, Italian philosopher, the state does not only present as a political-military apparatus by which the ruling class (bourgeoisie) organizes coercion over other social classes. To ensure good governance, as well as having a monopoly of repression and violence, the State must win the support of the ruling classes and also the subaltern classes through persuasion, winning the consent of the dominated classes [GRAMSCI, Antonio. Escritos Políticos (Political Writings). Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2004).

It should be noted that to Karl Marx, society is composed of social classes that emerged with the creation of private ownership of means of production throughout history. Because of it, society is divided into owners and non-owners of means of production. In Brazil, are holders of the means of production, the State, through its state-owned enterprises, and the bourgeoisie which is also classified as the ruling class. Social classes that doesn´t hold the means of production relate to the petty bourgeoisie, the urban and rural proletariat and the lumpen proletariat who are classified as subaltern classes.

The bourgeoisie in Brazil consists of two groups: 1) large entrepreneurs of productive sector and businessmen linked to the financial sector, etc. with a contingent of 9,000; and, 2) small and medium entrepreneurs whose quota is 5.7 million. The petty bourgeoisie is composed of the upper middle class (executives of national private companies, executives of multinational companies, senior government bureaucrats and executives of state companies), traditional middle class (civil servants and professionals) and intellectuals (lawyers for large firms, university professors, academics, journalists, artists, filmmakers, etc.) having a quota of 108 million. The urban and rural proletariat are the workers of the industry, agriculture, trade and services totaling 46 million people in Brazil and the lumpen proletariat, also called the "common people", consists of 40.3 million people.

It should be noted that the petty bourgeoisie concerns to the middle class or urban middle layers that have the same values and aspirations of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat is one who has no means of livelihood except their labor power he sells receiving wages to survive. The lumpen proletariat, in turn, is the portion of the population lying socially below the proletariat fractions formed by miserable fractions, not only deprived of economic resources, but also devoid of political consciousness and

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class, and are therefore likely to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie and patronage political party.

The bourgeoisie made up of business leaders in the manufacturing sector and entrepreneurs linked to the financial sector would tend to oppose the Dilma Rousseff government because she demonstrated incompetence in the conduction of the national economy at the present time, there is menace of loss of continuity of the process of capital accumulation and the loss of profits of their businesses in the future. During the election campaign, it became apparent that the market (productive sector and the financial system) opposed the re-election of Dilma Rousseff. Most of the petty bourgeoisie would tend to oppose the Rousseff government because they feel threatened about their prospect of upward mobility, maintenance of their jobs and the decline of their purchasing power in the face of the current situation of stagflation of the Brazilian economy and the trend economic depression in the country.

The majority of the urban and rural proletariat would tend to support the first time the Dilma Rousseff government because the PT and allied parties control the major trade unions and labor unions in Brazil. However, much of the urban and rural proletariat could stand in opposition to the Rousseff government in the second moment if the government does not succeed in resuming economic growth and control inflation and the consequent rise in unemployment and loss of purchasing power of population due to increasing rates of inflation. The lumpen proletariat, also called the "common people", the basis for social support of PT governments, tend to support the Rousseff government because it will continue to benefit from the social programs like "Bolsa Família" and "Minha Casa, Minha Vida".

For these reasons, the Dilma Rousseff government may face immense difficulties to rule Brazil because she would have only the support of the lumpen proletariat and part of the proletariat and count on the opposition of the bourgeoisie and large sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. Dilma Rousseff will govern a divided country. Most likely, any domestic and foreign investor will invest in Brazil with a stagnant economy as it is right now with the deeply divided country. The stagnation of the Brazilian economy also would contribute to the decline in government revenues at all levels so that wouldn´t have availability of public resources for investment in enough quantity to invest in economic and social infrastructure as well as to maintain social transfer programs income as the "Bolsa Família" "The stagnation of the Brazilian economy that is would also occur falling government revenues at all levels so that there is no public funds for investment in enough to invest in economic and social infrastructure quantity as well as to maintain social programs of income transfer as the "Bolsa Familia".

It is worth noting that the level of welfare enjoyed by the population of a country determines the level of existing governance at a given time. Therefore, in order to govern, every government seeks to improve the material well being of the population. And to improve it, the government needs to promote economic development to generate employment and income distribution. The economic stagnation that tends to worsen in Brazil, in addition to increasing unemployment and negatively affect income distribution can reduce state revenues and demand cuts in the government budget. If economic stagnation and rising inflation are not reversed, the government tends to lose the support of public opinion that would associate the loss of budgetary resources required for the support of the population, of the parliamentary of governmental

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coalition and to preserve support or the consent of groups, businesses and social organizations that depend on the provision of state resources.

Finally, it should be clear that in the current stage of development of capitalism in Brazil, governance is only ensured if its rulers ensure the continuity of the process of capitalist accumulation for the benefit of the bourgeoisie and if increasing income redistribution in favor of classes subaltern (petty bourgeoisie, urban and rural proletariat and lumpen proletariat). For these reasons, the ungovernability, which is the domain of disorder is inevitable in Dilma Rousseff government because she will not be able to ensure continuity of the process of capitalist accumulation and redistribution of income in favor of the lower classes. The ungovernability tends to generate political and institutional instability with unpredictable consequences in a divided country like Brazil. This is the price that the Brazilian people decided to pay electing Dilma Rousseff as president of Republic.

* Fernando Alcoforado , member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011) and Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), among others.