USA

"America was the greatest country in the history of the world because our people have always believed in two great ideas: first, that tomorrow can be better than today, and second, that each of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so."
Carroll Quigley

Climagate Wall Street Journal

Climategate: Science Is Dying By DANIEL HENNINGER

Climagate

Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk the credibility of everyone in science. The nature of that risk has been twofold: First, that the claims of the climate scientists might buckle beneath the weight of their breathtaking complexity. Second, that the crudeness of modern politics, once in motion, would trample the traditions and culture of science to achieve its own policy goals. With the scandal at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, both have happened at once.

I don't think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn't only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. Most people could not name three other subjects they would associate with the work of serious scientists. This was it. The public was told repeatedly that something called "the scientific community" had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry.

Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.

What is happening at East Anglia is an epochal event. As the hard sciences?physics, biology, chemistry, electrical engineering?came to dominate intellectual life in the last century, some academics in the humanities devised the theory of postmodernism, which liberated them from their colleagues in the sciences. Postmodernism, a self-consciously "unprovable" theory, replaced formal structures with subjectivity. With the revelations of East Anglia, this slippery and variable intellectual world has crossed into the hard sciences.

This has harsh implications for the credibility of science generally. Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and "messy" as, say, gender studies.

The East Anglians' mistreatment of scientists who challenged global warming's claims?plotting to shut them up and shut down their ability to publish?evokes the attempt to silence Galileo. The exchanges between Penn State's Michael Mann and East Anglia CRU director Phil Jones sound like Father Firenzuola, the Commissary-General of the Inquisition.

For three centuries Galileo has symbolized dissent in science. In our time, most scientists outside this circle have kept silent as their climatologist fellows, helped by the cardinals of the press, mocked and ostracized scientists who questioned this grand theory of global doom.

Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." The global-warming establishment says we know "enough" to impose new rules on the world's use of carbon fuels. The dissenters say this demotes science's traditional standards of evidence.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's dramatic Endangerment Finding in April that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as an air pollutant?with implications for a vast new regulatory regime?used what the agency called a precautionary approach. The EPA admitted "varying degrees of uncertainty across many of these scientific issues." Again, this puts hard science in the new position of saying, close enough is good enough. One hopes civil engineers never build bridges under this theory.

If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

WSJ

Historian Jack N. Rakove of Stanford University in his biography of James Madison:

"The simple truth, Madison believed, was that incompetent legislators were passing too many laws, and these poorly drawn acts were being repealed or revised before anyone could discover how well they were actually working. Such proceedings brought the very concept of law into contempt. In a republic obedience to law rested neither on the efficiency of monarchy or on the influence of an able aristocracy but on the free compliance of citizens who believed that the laws were rightly made and fairly executed. Call that faith into question, Madison understood, and the willingness to abide by law would crumble. (Rakove, 47)"

O futuro do Brasil e o de Lula -O ESTADO DE S. PAULO by Miguel Reale Júnior

O futuro do Brasil e o de Lula -O ESTADO DE S. PAULO by Miguel Reale Júnior

Em 1982, Lula, candidato ao governo do Estado em disputa com Franco Montoro, tinha como propaganda o slogan "vote em um homem como você". Perdeu a eleição. Nas seguintes disputas, para a Presidência da República (uma contra Collor e duas contra Fernando Henrique), apresentou-se como alguém oriundo da classe trabalhadora, suado, de roupa esporte, sem cuidado maior com a aparência. Perdeu as eleições. No pleito consagrador de 2002 foi diferente. Não se mostrou como "um homem igual a você", caro eleitor, mas, obedientemente, foi submetido a repaginamento por um personal stylist, por obra do seu marqueteiro, e vestido de executivo, com ternos e gravatas impecáveis, personagem acima do homem comum, digno de ser votado para presidente.

O seu inegável carisma teve de ser repaginado de modo a que a imagem gerasse o reconhecimento de que poderia vir a ser o supremo magistrado da Nação, um homem que não era comum. Conforme correu o exercício da Presidência, porém, Lula sentiu-se cada vez mais livre para se desvestir da roupagem de executivo, para voltar a ser ele próprio o comunicador da Presidência, sem porta-voz, porque ninguém como ele sabe falar com o povo, com a maioria dos brasileiros. A cada ano Lula foi se sentindo mais seguro para usar expressões chulas, reincidir nos erros gramaticais, dizer impropriedades a mancheias, a ponto de se transformar em costume falar o que bem entende. É o pitoresco, o exótico, admitido e concedido a quem tem imensa popularidade.

Esse quadro de alta popularidade permite, agora, ao presidente ser não apenas um "homem como você", brasileiro das classes C e D, mas romper com todas as liturgias do cargo, sendo cada vez mais seduzido a mostrar que um homem comum pode "chegar lá".

Assim, o presidente permite-se todas as liberdades. O Lula é capaz de dizer, por exemplo, que o mensalão - cuja denúncia foi bem lastreada e recebida em larga decisão fundamentada pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal - não passou de uma tentativa de golpe de Estado, com a infiltração de agentes da oposição nas hostes petistas para comprometer os ingênuos companheiros em tramoias arquitetadas para derrubá-lo. Antes dissera que de nada sabia, depois que errar é humano e os amigos deveriam ser perdoados. Agora vem a tese conspiratória, a demonstrar ter-se liberado absolutamente para proclamar o que sua ampla imaginação criadora lhe inspira, sem censura alguma.

Em outro exemplo, pode-se mesmo dizer que o presidente emite ideias sem pudor, como na explicação dada à formação de alianças com as forças menos respeitáveis da nossa vida política. Em entrevista, Lula disse: "Quem vier para cá não montará governo fora da realidade política. Se Jesus Cristo viesse para cá, e Judas tivesse a votação num partido qualquer, Jesus teria de chamar Judas para fazer coalizão."

Assim, sua declaração, de duas décadas, de ser o Congresso formado por 300 picaretas, a traduzir um juízo com rigor moral, amainou e transformou os picaretas de ontem, a serem expungidos, nos Judas de hoje, a serem chamados para fazer coalizão.

Mesmo ainda preso a ressentimentos - pois justifica qualquer crítica como "inveja dos poderosos por verem um trabalhador na Presidência" -, Lula agora sente a mais plena liberdade em razão da popularidade alcançada, a ponto de desfazer da verdade, inventando conspirações alucinadas, ou de defender a desnecessidade de moralidade na vida pública, ao instituir a regra da acomodação ao espírito rasteiro prevalecente de colocar o interesse pessoal de poder acima do interesse público, mediante acordos espúrios com políticos sequiosos de poder para fins egoísticos: os Judas, hoje discípulos, mas amanhã traidores.

Assim, misturam-se forças negativas e positivas no mesmo saco, tornando a política inodora e insossa, sem diferenças, a fazer-se o diferente igual.

Basta verificar a base aliada, composta por muitos próceres políticos que ontem eram oposição ao PT, ministros do governo de Fernando Henrique, que "nada fez em comparação com o atual", segundo mantra repetido à exaustão, para constatar a prevalência do adesismo. A consequência é o desfazimento da vida democrática, formada pela contraposição de visões, graças à mitificação de um líder que dissolve valores morais e desconsidera fatos evidentes, para a doce imposição de uma unanimidade de interesse.

Qual será o futuro da Nação neste panorama?

Lula crê, como acreditava Ademar de Barros, outro falastrão, poder eleger um poste, mesmo num país com apagão. Mas terá surpresas numa base aliada composta por vários Judas, cujo interesse é se eleger deputado ou senador, pouco importando estar diretamente no poder central, pois sempre irá negociar com esse poder, na obtenção de vantagens. A reforma política começa pelo exemplo de exigência de firmeza de posições, por isso a legitimação da coalizão com Judas é desastrosa para o futuro de nosso país. Embora a mudança do sistema eleitoral e dos partidos possa até ajudar, o principal está no exemplo a vir de cima.

Manter o PT no poder interessa aos milhares de companheiros colocados nos inúmeros cargos em comissão, criados como "nunca antes neste país", mas não é, a meu ver, uma questão de vida ou morte para Lula.

Qual o futuro de Lula?

Com a repercussão internacional, muito em vista de sua pessoa carismática, com o charme de ser, aos olhos do Primeiro Mundo, o primeiro operário na Presidência, Lula aspira a posições no concerto internacional. Não interessaria mais o que se dá na nossa terrinha.

Importa promover seu reconhecimento internacional, aspirando à posição de secretário-geral da ONU ou ao Prêmio Nobel da Paz. Se assim for, Lula não deixará de conceder a extradição de Battisti para a Itália, a fim de não criar arestas com a comunidade europeia.

Será Lula lá fora.

Miguel Reale Júnior, advogado, professor titular da Faculdade de Direito da USP, membro da Academia Paulista de Letras, foi ministro da Justiça

James Madison

“As far as laws are necessary, to mark with precision the duties of those who are to obey them, and to take from those who are to administer them a discretion, which might be abused, their number is the price of liberty. As far as the laws exceed this limit, they are a nusance: a nusance of the most pestilent kind. Try the Codes of the several States by this test, and what a luxuriancy of legislation do they present. The short period of independency has filled as many pages as the century which preceded it. Every year, almost every session, adds a new volume.” James Madison

Worrisome Thoughts on the Way to the Jobs Summit by Robert Reich

Worrisome Thoughts on the Way to the Jobs Summit

Most ideas for creating more jobs assume jobs will return when the economy recovers. So the immediate goal is to accelerate the process. A second stimulus would be helpful, especially directed at state governments that are now mounting an anti-stimulus package (tax increases, job cuts, service cuts) of over $200 billion this year and next. If the deficit hawks threaten to take flight, the administration should use the remaining TARP funds.

Other less expensive ideas include a new jobs tax credit for any firm creating net new jobs. Lending directed at small businesses, which are having a hard time getting credit but are responsible for most new jobs. A one-year payroll tax holiday on the first, say, $20,000 of income – which would quickly put money into peoples’ pockets and simultaneously make it cheaper for businesses to hire because they pay half the payroll tax. And a WPA style program that hires jobless workers directly to, say, insulate homes.

Most of this would be helpful. Together, they might take the official unemployment rate down a notch or two.

But here's the real worry. The basic assumption that jobs will eventually return when the economy recovers is probably wrong. Some jobs will come back, of course. But the reality that no one wants to talk about is a structural change in the economy that's been going on for years but which the Great Recession has dramatically accelerated.

Under the pressure of this awful recession, many companies have found ways to cut their payrolls for good. They’ve discovered that new software and computer technologies have made workers in Asia and Latin America just about as productive as Americans, and that the Internet allows far more work to be efficiently outsourced abroad.

This means many Americans won’t be rehired unless they’re willing to settle for much lower wages and benefits. Today's official unemployment numbers hide the extent to which Americans are already on this path. Among those with jobs, a large and growing number have had to accept lower pay as a condition for keeping them. Or they've lost higher-paying jobs and are now in a new ones that pays less.

Yet reducing unemployment by cutting wages merely exchanges one problem for another. We'll get jobs back but have more people working for pay they consider inadequate, more working families at or near poverty, and widening inequality. The nation will also have a harder time restarting the economy because so many more Americans lack the money they need to buy all the goods and services the economy can produce.

So let's be clear: The goal isn’t just more jobs. It's more jobs with good wages. Which means the fix isn’t just temporary measures to accelerate a jobs recovery, but permanent new investments in the productivity of Americans.

What sort of investments? Big ones that span many years: early childhood education for every young child, excellent K-12, fully-funded public higher education, more generous aid for kids from middle-class and poor families to attend college, good health care, more basic R&D that's done here in the U.S., better and more efficient public transit like light rail, a power grid that's up to the task, and so on.

Without these sorts of productivity-enhancing investments, a steadily increasing number of Americans will be priced out of competition in world economy. More and more Americans will face a Hobson's choice of no job or a job with lousy wages. It's already happening.

Robert Reich Blog

WSJ.com - U.S. Faces Rising Resistance to Its Latin American Policy

By JOSé DE CóRDOBA and DAVID LUHNOW
The U.S., which once considered Latin America its own backyard, is having an increasingly tough time calling the shots in a region where countries like Brazil and China are vying for influence, and where even tiny Honduras stands up to the "Colossus to the North."

While the U.S. remains the dominant player in Latin America, its clout is curtailed by several factors, including Brazil's rise as a regional power, the influence of a clique of anti-American nations led by oil-rich Venezuela, and the growing muscle of China, which sees Latin American resources as key to its own economic growth.

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Associated Press

At a recent protest in Caracas, a Chavez supporter's sign reads: 'We don't want the empire's boot in Latin America.'
.The Obama administration, though popular in much of the region, has found itself squabbling over a host of issues, from Cuba to the U.S. military's use of bases in Colombia to how best to resolve the Honduran crisis.

Honduras stood firm on the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. The U.S. and other foreign governments pressured the interim government to let Mr. Zelaya serve out his term, which ends in January. But the provisional government hung on long enough to hold Sunday's presidential election without reinstating Mr. Zelaya.

Honduras's refusal to buckle startled the U.S., which has historically cast a long shadow over the country -- the original "banana republic," where through much of the 20th century, American fruit companies exerted enormous influence on governments. In the 1980s, Honduras served as a base for U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista government next door in Nicaragua.

Analysts say the Obama administration and many Latin American nations underestimated how strongly Honduras's provisional government felt about the threat posed by Mr. Zelaya, a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

"Everybody underestimated just how widespread the fear of Chavismo -- rightly or wrongly -- was in Honduras," says Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington.

Resenting their historic dependence on the U.S., Latin American countries complain when it ignores them, but condemn what they see as American interference -- all the while looking to the U.S. for answers to Latin American problems.

Contradicting the U.S. used to be "unthinkable," said Moises Starkman, who serves as an adviser to the interim government and also advised Mr. Zelaya. But "we felt our whole system was hanging in the balance," he said.

The U.S. eventually changed course, signaling it would recognize the Honduran vote as the only way to clear the impasse. In doing so, it broke with much of Latin America, including Brazil.

That split is the latest fly in the ointment in relations with the region. Washington was especially angered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Brazil, part of a tour during which he also visited Venezuela and Bolivia, and won backing for his country's controversial nuclear program. Brazil has raised questions recently about the expanded U.S. use of military bases in Colombia, while Venezuela has called the move a prelude to U.S. invasion.

One reason the U.S. is having a harder time carrying out its agenda is that Latin America is deeply divided between pro-U.S. nations such as Mexico, Colombia and Peru, and a bloc of populist countries including Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Mr. Chávez also has sometimes found allies in Argentina and Brazil.

Brazil's emergence as the hemispheric powerhouse is turning into a challenge and -- in foreign-policy terms -- a disappointment for President Barack Obama, who, like George W. Bush, developed a close relationship with charismatic President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. "The world was hoping that it would become a responsible global player and stakeholder, but instead Brazil is behaving like an immature developing country with a chip on its shoulder," says Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Economic woes have also diminished U.S. influence. China is financing Brazil's state-owned oil company to the tune of $10 billion. "We don't have $10 billion to give. We have deficits, China has surpluses," says Riordan Roett, a Latin America expert at Johns Hopkins University.

The Honduran crisis showed the double standard, when Mr. Chávez complained Washington wasn't doing enough to press Honduras to restore Mr. Zelaya.

Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda says the crisis is a lesson for Mr. Obama in the limits of cooperation. "You can't follow the Latin Americans given how polarized the region is," says Mr. Castañeda. "You have to take a stance, and hope that the others will follow you."

—Nicholas Casey contributed to this article.
Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com

Mansao das Heras ,Rio de janeiro, Brazil

Brazil takes off

Nov 12th 2009
From The Economist
Now the risk for Latin America’s big success story is hubris
Rex Features
WHEN, back in 2001, economists at Goldman Sachs bracketed Brazil with Russia, India and China as the economies that would come to dominate the world, there was much sniping about the B in the BRIC acronym. Brazil? A country with a growth rate as skimpy as its swimsuits, prey to any financial crisis that was around, a place of chronic political instability, whose infinite capacity to squander its obvious potential was as legendary as its talent for football and carnivals, did not seem to belong with those emerging titans.
Now that scepticism looks misplaced. China may be leading the world economy out of recession but Brazil is also on a roll. It did not avoid the downturn, but was among the last in and the first out. Its economy is growing again at an annualised rate of 5%. It should pick up more speed over the next few years as big new deep-sea oilfields come on stream, and as Asian countries still hunger for food and minerals from Brazil’s vast and bountiful land. Forecasts vary, but sometime in the decade after 2014—rather sooner than Goldman Sachs envisaged—Brazil is likely to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, overtaking Britain and France. By 2025 São Paulo will be its fifth-wealthiest city, according to PwC, a consultancy.

And, in some ways, Brazil outclasses the other BRICs. Unlike China, it is a democracy. Unlike India, it has no insurgents, no ethnic and religious conflicts nor hostile neighbours. Unlike Russia, it exports more than oil and arms, and treats foreign investors with respect. Under the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former trade-union leader born in poverty, its government has moved to reduce the searing inequalities that have long disfigured it. Indeed, when it comes to smart social policy and boosting consumption at home, the developing world has much more to learn from Brazil than from China. In short, Brazil suddenly seems to have made an entrance onto the world stage. Its arrival was symbolically marked last month by the award of the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro; two years earlier, Brazil will host football’s World Cup.
At last, economic sense
In fact, Brazil’s emergence has been steady, not sudden. The first steps were taken in the 1990s when, having exhausted all other options, it settled on a sensible set of economic policies. Inflation was tamed, and spendthrift local and federal governments were required by law to rein in their debts. The Central Bank was granted autonomy, charged with keeping inflation low and ensuring that banks eschew the adventurism that has damaged Britain and America. The economy was thrown open to foreign trade and investment, and many state industries were privatised.
All this helped spawn a troupe of new and ambitious Brazilian multinationals (see our special report). Some are formerly state-owned companies that are flourishing as a result of being allowed to operate at arm’s length from the government. That goes for the national oil company, Petrobras, for Vale, a mining giant, and Embraer, an aircraft-maker. Others are private firms, like Gerdau, a steelmaker, or JBS, soon to be the world’s biggest meat producer. Below them stands a new cohort of nimble entrepreneurs, battle-hardened by that bad old past. Foreign investment is pouring in, attracted by a market boosted by falling poverty and a swelling lower-middle class. The country has established some strong political institutions. A free and vigorous press uncovers corruption—though there is plenty of it, and it mostly goes unpunished.
Just as it would be a mistake to underestimate the new Brazil, so it would be to gloss over its weaknesses. Some of these are depressingly familiar. Government spending is growing faster than the economy as a whole, but both private and public sectors still invest too little, planting a question-mark over those rosy growth forecasts. Too much public money is going on the wrong things. The federal government’s payroll has increased by 13% since September 2008. Social-security and pension spending rose by 7% over the same period although the population is relatively young. Despite recent improvements, education and infrastructure still lag behind China’s or South Korea’s (as a big power cut this week reminded Brazilians). In some parts of Brazil, violent crime is still rampant.
National champions and national handicaps
There are new problems on the horizon, just beyond those oil platforms offshore. The real has gained almost 50% against the dollar since early December. That boosts Brazilians’ living standards by making imports cheaper. But it makes life hard for exporters. The government last month imposed a tax on short-term capital inflows. But that is unlikely to stop the currency’s appreciation, especially once the oil starts pumping.
Lula’s instinctive response to this dilemma is industrial policy. The government will require oil-industry supplies—from pipes to ships—to be produced locally. It is bossing Vale into building a big new steelworks. It is true that public policy helped to create Brazil’s industrial base. But privatisation and openness whipped this into shape. Meanwhile, the government is doing nothing to dismantle many of the obstacles to doing business—notably the baroque rules on everything from paying taxes to employing people. Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s candidate in next October’s presidential election, insists that no reform of the archaic labour law is needed (see article).
And perhaps that is the biggest danger facing Brazil: hubris. Lula is right to say that his country deserves respect, just as he deserves much of the adulation he enjoys. But he has also been a lucky president, reaping the rewards of the commodity boom and operating from the solid platform for growth erected by his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Maintaining Brazil’s improved performance in a world suffering harder times means that Lula’s successor will have to tackle some of the problems that he has felt able to ignore. So the outcome of the election may determine the speed with which Brazil advances in the post-Lula era. Nevertheless, the country’s course seems to be set. Its take-off is all the more admirable because it has been achieved through reform and democratic consensus-building. If only China could say the same.

Thomas Jefferson

"If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it."

Assimetria by Demétrio Magnoli

Pascal Lamy, diretor-geral da Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC), diagnosticou no seu relatório anual que, de modo geral, "a economia global está quase tão aberta ao comércio hoje quanto antes do início da crise" e conclamou as nações a "anunciar estratégias de saída para remover as restrições ao comércio e os subsídios à produção que introduziram temporariamente a fim de neutralizar os efeitos da crise". Lamy finge desconhecer que o câmbio funciona como o principal preço na economia mundial. Por isso seu diagnóstico é ilusório e sua conclamação, uma perigosa utopia.

O ciclo de crescimento global anterior à crise assentou-se sobre o eixo de desequilíbrio EUA-China. A poupança forçada do oceano de camponeses pobres chineses financiou o consumo exuberante da classe média americana. A assimetria refletiu-se sob as formas complementares dos crescentes saldos em conta corrente da China e dos monumentais déficits americanos. O motor das altas finanças simulou um equilíbrio virtual, apoiado na rotação acelerada dos capitais especulativos, que perdurou até o colapso do Lehman Brothers. Hoje, ao fim de um ano de crise, a política cambial chinesa restaura o desequilíbrio prévio, mas sem as molas de amortecimento que conferiram longevidade à expansão econômica.

Sete meses atrás, num comunicado retumbante, o banco central chinês apresentou o programa de uma reforma do sistema monetário internacional baseada na substituição do dólar por "uma moeda de reserva internacional de valor estável" emitida pelo FMI. A leitura otimista do comunicado sugeria que os chineses estavam prontos a trocar sua política cambial mercantilista pela participação num condomínio de gestão do sistema monetário internacional. Hoje, só Lamy simula não entender que aquilo não passava de chantagem. A China colou sua moeda ao dólar, operando de fato uma desvalorização do yuan em relação ao euro e às divisas dos países emergentes.

No dia seguinte ao comunicado célebre, o presidente do Banco da China pronunciou um outro discurso, pouco comentado, mas revelador. Zhou Xiaochuan falou por hipérboles, mas efetivamente atribuiu os elevados níveis de poupança chineses aos valores "antiextravagância" do confucionismo e alertou que "não é a hora certa" para a ampliação da poupança nos EUA. Aquelas palavras eram a senha para decifrar a política chinesa de reiteração do jogo da assimetria ao longo da crise, exportando os custos da recuperação econômica global.

A política cambial chinesa descreve oscilações cíclicas, mas obedece a uma lógica de longo prazo destinada a conservar a suposta virtude confucionista da poupança forçada. A depreciação do yuan, que atingiu o máximo em 1994, foi o pano de fundo da crise asiática de 1997 e a plataforma para a etapa atual de ascensão chinesa no comércio mundial. A última oscilação para cima do yuan iniciou-se em 2006, mas foi interrompida após o colapso financeiro nos EUA, frustrando as expectativas americanas de uma expansão sustentada do consumo chinês. Na sua visita a Pequim, Barack Obama ouviu de Hu Jintao um sonoro não à sua demanda de valorização da moeda chinesa.

O totalitarismo chinês já exibe fendas e rachaduras, mas conserva sua natureza fundamental. É o sistema político da China, não um projeto abstrato de desenvolvimento nacional, que dita a continuidade de sua estratégia mercantilista. Numa ponta, o crescimento significativo do consumo interno tem como requisitos a criação de direitos trabalhistas, a implantação de mecanismos de seguridade social e a expansão do crédito, que, por sua vez, exige a consolidação dos direitos de propriedade, até mesmo sobre a terra agrícola. Na outra ponta, o crescimento da renda média implica aumento das desigualdades sociais e das pressões reivindicatórias. Nada disso é compatível com o monopólio do poder político pelo partido-Estado.

O dogma do yuan fraco está no cerne do capitalismo de Estado chinês. No passado recente, quando a China ainda era um ator periférico, a sua estratégia mercantilista podia ser absorvida pela economia mundial. O cenário mudou desde o início do século, mas a incompatibilidade foi reciclada temporariamente pelas engrenagens combinadas da especulação financeira e da política fiscal expansionista dos EUA. Há um ano tais engrenagens emperraram e agora, independentemente da vontade de Zhou Xiaochuan, o mercado americano não pode drenar o excesso de poupança da China. O dumping cambial chinês converteu-se numa substância tóxica de efeitos globais.

A recuperação americana patina, pois a inevitável contração das importações não foi acompanhada por uma expansão das exportações. A apreciação generalizada das moedas dos países emergentes em relação ao dólar (e, portanto, ao yuan) provocou retração das exportações e perda de mercados de bens industriais para os chineses, ameaçando o equilíbrio das contas externas. Nos grandes produtores de commodities, como o Brasil, as exportações para a China ainda disfarçam os efeitos da assimetria global. Entretanto, o custo desse disfarce é pago pelo setor industrial, que tende a encolher sob o impacto da concorrência chinesa.

Quando disparou a sirene da crise mundial, o Ministério do Comércio da China declarou que seu país "é contra qualquer forma de protecionismo" e está comprometido com os princípios sagrados de livre-comércio. A gestão cambial praticada pelos chineses, contudo, representa uma forma radical de subsídio, disponível apenas para uma ditadura totalitária capaz de negar os direitos básicos de cidadania numa nação de renda média. Não é casual que pela primeira vez se discuta a hipótese de adoção de uma tarifa comum internacional para contrabalançar o dumping cambial da China.

Isso não consta do relatório de Lamy nem de nenhum manual de livre-comércio. Mas, agora, o nome do jogo é assimetria sem amortecedores.

Demétrio Magnoli é sociólogo e doutor em Geografia
Humana pela USP. E-mail: demetrio.magnoli@terra.com.br

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We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and, ultimately, human fulfillment are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire post-war period, contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development. The societies that have achieved the most spectacular, broad-based progress are neither the most tightly controlled, nor the biggest in size, nor the wealthiest in natural resources. No, what unites them all is their willingness to believe in the magic of the marketplace.

Ronald Reagan

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Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC - 65 AD)