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 At the end of the 19th century, Brazil abolished the slave-ocratic system. As this 21st century begins, the rich must be liberated from the golden prison in which they live. To achieve this new abolition, the first one must be completed. The first abolition liberated the slaves from the slave quarters but it condemned the poor to the streets and to the favelas without urban services, thus imprisoning the rich in their gated condominiums.
The abolition without agrarian reform guaranteeing land to the slaves led them to "invade" the urban centers and condemned the rich to the prison of armored automobiles, menacing pedestrians lurking near traffic lights, and lightning kidnappings.
The lack of schooling for the ex-slaves' children imprisoned the rich in a socially inefficient country without education. That incomplete abolition - without schooling, employment, or land - made 21st century Brazil the champion of income concentration, imprisoning the rich in the worldwide shame of a society of great wealth for 10% of the population and of extreme misery for almost 50%.
The first abolition was incomplete for the poor, and it imprisoned the rich in a divided, insecure and inefficient society every bit as shameful for us today as was slavery in the 19th century.
Brazil needs to liberate the rich from the prison of their gated condominiums, their locked cars, their impassable urban centers, their constant fear, their uncertainty about the future, their international shame, their permanent protection, their extremely high cost of living securely in an unequal society. To liberate the rich of the 21st century, we must complete the abolition of the 19th.
First, Brazilian thought must be liberated from the three premises imprisoning the social strategies: that economic growth is sufficient to eradicate poverty; that it is income alone that determines the wealth of a person and his or her family; and that to pay is to lose.
The first step in completing the Lei Áurea, which freed Brazilian slaves in 1888, is to overcome the mistaken logic, which inspired the 20th century social strategies, that economic growth is the road to overcoming poverty and constructing a just society.
The economy produced positive results in augmenting wealth but failed to reduce inequality. To achieve a complete abolition of slavery that will liberate the rich, Brazil needs to implement public policies that will truly confront the problem of poverty and do this without the false illusion that economic growth will accomplish the task.
Brazil's national revenue is nearly 2 trillion reais (US$ 889 billion) per year and its public resources amount to nearly 700 billion reais (US$ 311 billion), sufficient for the investments necessary to complete the abolition.
The country knows very well which policies - in the areas of education, health care, public transportation, housing, sanitation, water, sewerage, garbage collection, security, culture, special attention to children, young people and the elderly - will permit Brazil to achieve full abolition of poverty and the liberation of the country's rich in a few years.
These policies have not been fully implemented because the rich and their special interests believe their quality of life depends only upon their bank balance. As a consequence of this highly unintelligent egotism, the wealthy portion of society, which controls the allocation of public resources, thinks that the financing of programs for the poor causes a loss for the rich. Believing that paying is synonymous with losing, these wealthy Brazilians do not see that, in exchange for paying, they could receive a benefit greater than the price paid.
The result is the greatest of the present-day complications: The rich have created a corrupt political system in which they themselves do not believe. They believe that designating part of the resources for public policies will lead to losses, corruption and inefficiency.
And they do not concede to replacing stupid egotism with intelligent egotism because of the long investment period between the payment and the result. They distrust - and with reason - the institutions of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, and, to avoid waiting for their own liberation, the rich prefer to continue paying the costs of their own imprisonment.
Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). You can visit his homepage - www.cristovam.com.br - and write to him at cristovam@senador.gov.br.
Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome - LinJerome@cs.com.
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