Mariana Mortágua, deputada do Bloco de Esquerda, terá sido muito aplaudida num encontro de socialistas por produzir afirmações como a seguinte:
as desigualdades vêm necessariamente do próprio funcionamento do sistema capitalista
Ora, não é preciso ser economista ou historiador para perceber que esta ideia, generalizada entre muita gente de esquerda, é totalmente falsa. Basta ter presente o que aconteceu recentemente na China quando substitui o comunismo pelo capitalismo. No entanto, para os interessados noutros exemplos e em saber porque é que o capitalismo, pelo contrário, contribui para reduzir as desigualdades, sugiro a leitura do capítulo 8 do meu livro “The Beauty of Capitalism”.
Um equívoco muito comum na esquerda é confundir o aumento da riqueza com desigualdade. Um exemplo numérico muito simples esclarece a diferença.
Imagine-se que em Portugal havia 100 pessoas, uma rica com 901 mil Euros e as restantes 99 pobres com apenas mil Euros cada. O rico e os pobres reinvestiam o seu património durante 10 anos com um rendimento de 1%. A pessoa rica pagava 40% de IRS todos os anos. Os 99 pobres não pagavam IRS e pelo contrário recebiam do estado um quinto do imposto pago pelo rico.
Qual seria o património de ambos ao fim dos dez anos? O rico teria 956,5 mil Euros e os pobres teriam 1126 Euros. Isto é, a desigualdade máxima entre ricos e pobres baixaria ligeiramente de 901 para 809.
Consideremos agora dois cenários alternativos. No primeiro, Portugal enveredava por um sistema de capitalismo de mercado em que os capitais passavam a ganhar 4% ao ano. No segundo cenário, Portugal transformava-se numa republica socialista do tipo Venezuela, ao gosto do Bloco de Esquerda, onde o governo expropriava 80% do património do rico e distribuía um quinto pelos pobres passando o capital a perder 4% ao ano. Quais seriam os resultados ao fim de 10 anos?
No cenário da Venezuela o rico passaria a ter um património 120 mil Euros, isto é, 73 vezes maior que o dos pobres que passariam a ter 1633 Euros.
No cenário de capitalismo de mercado, o património do rico passaria a valer 1142 mil Euros, isto é, 612 vezes o dos pobres, que passaria a valer 1867 Euros.
Estariam os pobres disponíveis para sacrificar 234 Euros só para reduzir a desigualdade máxima entre ricos e pobres? Parece-me que a maioria não o desejaria.
Mas esta não é a história completa. Os prejuízos acumulados pelo capital desincentivariam o investimento e o emprego diminuindo os salários reais dos pobres. Em suma, o empobrecimento geral não seria bom para ninguém!
Showing posts with label Venezuela. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Venezuela. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Monday, 16 November 2015
Why socialism often ends-up in dictatorship
In contrast to a capitalist system, socialist regimes invariably transform into authoritarian or totalitarian political regimes; regardless of whether they reached power through popular vote or revolution.
That revolution often ends up in non-democratic regimes is an historical fact that can be explained by the revolutionaries desire to cling to power, regardless of whether they are pro or anti-socialists and anti-democracy.
What needs explaining is why socialists who were voted into power and promised to respect democracy also turned into non-democratic regimes. We can find two different routes.
First, when socialism evolves into communism. Then, it necessarily abandons its pro-democracy ideals because communism was based on the concept of a class (proletariat) dictatorship later renamed popular democracy.
Whether socialism will inevitably degenerate into communism was already debated in the XIX century. For instance, in Bastiat’s Law (1850), the author claimed that “men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work… As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder”.
Indeed, one hundred years later, a similar pessimism about human nature was the basis for Schumpeter’s (1942) prediction that capitalism would degenerate into a form of corporatism to be replaced by socialism.
Fortunately, history has shown that socialism does not always evolves into national socialism or communism and sometimes reverses into social-democracy, which accepts both capitalism and democracy. However, as the Scandinavian experience shows, this reversion has to be substantial otherwise the regime will not survive.
There is another possibility for socialism to survive temporarily within a democracy by exploring what we may call Latin-American populism.
The most emblematic example is found in Venezuela, a country with the oldest bipartisan democracy in the region. Former President Hugo Chavez was elected with the support of a largely impoverished population which was “bribed” to re-elect him through state sponsored social programs paid by the middle classes and the un-economic exploitation of the rich natural resources of the country for the benefit of a small group of trusted cronies.
However, this model of socialism is inevitably doomed for two main reasons: 1) the economic inefficiency of the system is so high that even the dilapidation of natural resources is not to enough to hide a generalized economic decline, and 2) the demands of its supporters on the welfare state rises with any new benefit so that public finances soon collapse.
These two factors are abundantly seen in Venezuela, where the socialist rulers, faced with growing opposition, have introduced all sorts of paranoiac prohibitions and persecutions in order to hang on to power, including the prohibition of travelling abroad for media directors and the detention of the opposition leader.
In conclusion, socialism will inevitably send democracy to a kind of limbo, from which it is only possible to exit by reversing its path towards social-democracy or by evolving towards state capitalism or communism and dictatorship.
That revolution often ends up in non-democratic regimes is an historical fact that can be explained by the revolutionaries desire to cling to power, regardless of whether they are pro or anti-socialists and anti-democracy.
What needs explaining is why socialists who were voted into power and promised to respect democracy also turned into non-democratic regimes. We can find two different routes.
First, when socialism evolves into communism. Then, it necessarily abandons its pro-democracy ideals because communism was based on the concept of a class (proletariat) dictatorship later renamed popular democracy.
Whether socialism will inevitably degenerate into communism was already debated in the XIX century. For instance, in Bastiat’s Law (1850), the author claimed that “men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work… As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder”.
Indeed, one hundred years later, a similar pessimism about human nature was the basis for Schumpeter’s (1942) prediction that capitalism would degenerate into a form of corporatism to be replaced by socialism.
Fortunately, history has shown that socialism does not always evolves into national socialism or communism and sometimes reverses into social-democracy, which accepts both capitalism and democracy. However, as the Scandinavian experience shows, this reversion has to be substantial otherwise the regime will not survive.
There is another possibility for socialism to survive temporarily within a democracy by exploring what we may call Latin-American populism.
The most emblematic example is found in Venezuela, a country with the oldest bipartisan democracy in the region. Former President Hugo Chavez was elected with the support of a largely impoverished population which was “bribed” to re-elect him through state sponsored social programs paid by the middle classes and the un-economic exploitation of the rich natural resources of the country for the benefit of a small group of trusted cronies.
However, this model of socialism is inevitably doomed for two main reasons: 1) the economic inefficiency of the system is so high that even the dilapidation of natural resources is not to enough to hide a generalized economic decline, and 2) the demands of its supporters on the welfare state rises with any new benefit so that public finances soon collapse.
These two factors are abundantly seen in Venezuela, where the socialist rulers, faced with growing opposition, have introduced all sorts of paranoiac prohibitions and persecutions in order to hang on to power, including the prohibition of travelling abroad for media directors and the detention of the opposition leader.
In conclusion, socialism will inevitably send democracy to a kind of limbo, from which it is only possible to exit by reversing its path towards social-democracy or by evolving towards state capitalism or communism and dictatorship.
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