THE HARDEST PART BEGINS NOW
In the 44 years that went by between the first and the thousandth edition of EXAME, Brazil evolved from the status of a poor to an emerging nation. Now it is time to join the club of the wealthy.
André Lahóz
The fall of the Berlin wall, one of those rare events in history that set two eras apart, lifted a lot of the ideological mist that blanketed intellectual debate, both in Brazil and the world over. The physical toppling of the bricks also leveled a mental scheme that had the world divided into three parts, one in which capitalists and socialists pursued to seize allies in what was then known as the Third World and in which we were unequivocally included. The post-wall global system is formed by three conglomerates of nations as well; however, it is no longer the socialistic countries that are standing between wealthy and poor, but the emerging economies instead. This block of nations - comprising huge economies and societies such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil - has overcome a broad condition of misery, become relevant to global growth, but has not, as of yet, reached development. The new division of the world allows for a clearer view on the Brazilian performance in the 44 years that separate the first from this
thousandth edition of EXAME.
It was in this period that we were able to move up from the third to the second group. And a lot has been done. Obfuscated by the brilliant American example, we always had a sense of near pleasure in making reference to an alleged failure as a nation - we would be, as the old joke went, the eternal nation of the future. Perhaps it is time to reassess the path we have followed in order to be able to look forward.
The Brazil of 1967 was backward to the fullest possible extent. Nearly 40% of the people aged more than 15 years were illiterate. Only half of the children were enrolled in schools. Life expectancy at birth was 52 years, and 131 infants out of 1,000 babies born alive died before their first birthdays. In a rural, backward nation, modernity was confined to a half-dozen cities, particularly Rio de Janeiro. "There is a lot of yearning for those bygone days, but people forget how exculpatory society was," said Paula Louzano, who holds a PhD in Educational Policies from Harvard University and is a Lemann Foundation researcher. "The much talked about quality public education received a handful of students picked from among the best in the nation. The masses were poor, and only now are going to school."
Changing such a dramatic scenario in and of itself would be no easy task. But some profound societal transformations
were added to the historically open wound in society that coincided in time and made the equation even more complex. The Brazil of 1967 had 90 million inhabitants
We now add up to 192 million inhabitants. You can count on the fingers of one hand the nations that had to incorporate so many people - providing housing, schools, hospitals, jobs - in so little time. We also had, in those decades of massive migration to cities, a process that took more than a century to play out in wealthy nations. Finally, it was also in this period that most of our industrialization took place, a shift with a strong propensity towards modernization but which always rattles preexisting bases.
"The sum of so many simultaneous shifts left deep, long-lasting scars, and there is an overall feeling of bitterness regarding that period," says political scientist Bolívar Lamounier. He recalls the country had been blossoming slowly, but positively until the 1950's. From then on we experienced ruptures, both in the political and in the economic spheres. "But we got ourselves back on our feet. We are currently more developed than people might think."
from impoverished to emerging to...
Brazil now stands out as one of the most promising nations to the eyes of the investors. We also have a lot of work ahead of us, as anyone who keeps up-to-date with the news will realize. Criminality became a hallmark of Brazil. Corruption is there for all to see and offends
Brazilians who work hard to pay their taxes. Social needs are still huge.
But none of this changes the fact that the closed, state-controlled economy of the 1960's gave way to an emerging powerhouse. The Brazilian GDP has skyrocketed nearly sevenfold since 1967. The fleet of vehicles soared from 2.5 million units to 65 million of them. We used to have a million telephones, and now have upwards of 200 million. Brazil's first shopping center,
Iguatemi, had just opened its doors in São Paulo. There are now nearly 500 of them spread across all Brazilian states. These are figures that show that the quantitative challenges Brazil is up against are being solved.
The population is growing increasingly less, and migration to cities, which put so much pressure on the urban infrastructure, is a process that is nearing its completion. Even the end of the misery turned into a true possibility. The leap we need to make now no longer concerns quantity, rather quality. Yes, kids are in school, but are they learning too? Are the cities nice places to live and work in? Does our health care system meet the needs of the population as a whole with dignity? Does the business environment treat our businessmen and entrepreneurs appropriately? Is the government respectful for the money it gets from the citizen? Unfortunately, no. Being able to say yes to questions like these is a key for us to be able to step out of the group of emerging nations and become a developed one. It is no simple task. Over the past 40 years, almost no nation took a leap of this magnitude. For some reason that still challenges social scientists, it has been easier to transition from a poor to an emerging nation than completing the course. But we have some margin for optimism. "The sedimentation of democracy helps changes take place, because it allows problems to be singled out more quickly. Authoritarianism causes mistakes to drag on longer, and this costs us dearly," said economist Marcos Lisboa, vice-president of the Itaú bank. It is this leap - from an emerging to a wealthy nation - EXAME hopes to be able to narrate over the next 1,000 editions. Preferably, well before that.