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 The United States might never have survived long enough
to become an industrial giant had it not been for good fortune
and the fact that so much of what we have today
was forcibly taken from others who owned it.
By Philip Mizewski
Who in the United States really understands Brazil? Who in Brazil really
understands Brazil? After more than a dozen trips to Brazil I know what I should already
have known from life here; that opinions of Brazil vary even among Brazilians. The United
States and Brazil are very large countries with large populations of varying origins
living in different environments and seeing the world in different ways. But I think we
can draw some general conclusions about Brazil and life in Brazil, just as we could about
the United States and our own lives here.
I have a neighbor whose views on Brazil seem fairly typical here in Indiana. He can't
understand why a country as large (actually slightly larger than) the continental United
States, with such an abundance of natural resources, can't simply "pull itself up by
its bootstraps" and enjoy the kind of prosperity we've become accustomed to here.
This view frustrates me. Traveling in Brazil is often an alternately exhilarating and
depressing experience, since the wonders of its grandeur and its colorful culture are so
often interlaced with extreme poverty and a sense that there will be no end to the misery
there. Brazil faces many challenges, some of which place an enormous strain on the fabric
of its society. But the conclusions of my neighbor are as founded in assumptions and
mythologies about who we (North Americans) are as they are in assumptions and
mythologies about who Brazilians are and how they arrived at where they are today.
Brazil and the United States aren't "peas from a pod", and the United States
didn't emerge as the leader of the free world through little more than grit and
determination. Lets view the history of the United States, for a moment, as though life
and society here had been subjected to the influences that determined the course of
Brazilian history.
Suppose that the majority of immigrants to the British colonies of North America had
not been European. Imagine that the "elite" here had been a social elite,
rather than an intellectual elite. Imagine that the idealism that pervaded the
thinking of our founding fathers (who arrived here for different reasons than the early
immigrants to Brazil) had been more or less absent. If the course of North American
history had followed that of Brazil the majority of its early population would have been
African slaves. Roughly eight times as many were transported to Brazil as to the British
colonies of North America.
The balance of social caste was set early in Brazil such that the creativity of free
men in a free society would not be unleashed with such energy and impact as occurred later
in the fledgling United States. Similarly, free enterprise did not provide significant
momentum for explosive economic growth in Brazil, nor much opportunity for the majority of
its (African slave) inhabitants to elevate themselves and their future generations to a
higher standard of living. Economic incentive was replaced by the threat of severe
punishment for failure to produce. Slave laborers in Brazil were treated as disposable
resources far more frequently than here because sugar, not cotton, was the driving force
behind the African slave trade.
Sugar cane, which is much more labor intensive to grow and process than cotton, was
needed to supply European households with something to negate the bitter aspects of the
coffee, tea and cocoa as they were introduced in the early 1500s. So, in our imagined
revision of North American history, the great majority of the population would have been
African slave laborers. Those African-Americans would have been dominated, rather than
merely governed, by a very small minority of wealthy individuals who would have received a
lion's share of the benefit from all of the productive activity in that society.
A primary incentive for North American immigrants was land ownership, which provided
them with the ability to sustain themselves and to generate income above and beyond the
sustenance level. Ownership of property also made it possible to pass down to later
generations wealth earned and accumulated as a result of dedication and hardships
overcome. But in our imagined revised history that would generally not have been possible.
Virtually all land would have been sequestered in the hands of the smallest imaginable
minority.
The great expanse of Brazil was apportioned into "captaincies", rather than
divided into colonies that were further re-divided and subdivided to the point where far
more people could secure a portion to themselves and their families. And the Brazilian
interior was a far more inhospitable environment with far less arable land. The land that was
arable was often far less nutrient rich and much of it was annually alternately baked and
flooded by searing tropical heat and torrential rains respectively. So, in our imagined
revised scenario, the environment here would've been similarly uninviting and punishing.
Sure, in our actual history, a particularly brutal winter might be followed by
sustained months of drought. But, in an average year, a farmer had real hope for a
successful growing season. This was often not the case in Brazil, which historically
relied on large single product cash crops like sugar cane, rubber and coffee that were
particularly suitable to the land and its climate. Prosperity derived from dominating
these markets was vulnerable to climactic extremes and advances in technology.
Development of beet sugar and synthetic rubber triggered the collapse of economies
based on the production of sugar cane and natural rubber with few apparent options to
replace them. Tobacco, tea and cotton picked up some slack but competition was severe.
Coffee proved to be another "boom" crop, but over production in good years
artificially deflated prices on world markets so that income in lean years was
insufficient to ward off predictable economic disaster. So, in our revisionist view of
history the United States would have, until only recently, experienced the same disruptive
economic "boom & bust" cycles.
The United States might never have survived long enough to become an industrial giant
had it not been for good fortune and the fact that so much of what we have today was
forcibly taken from others who owned it. Does anyone study in history anymore that our
capital was once burned at the hands of an invading army? Do history classes not recount
how easily the course of the Civil War might have turned had the confederate army won at
Gettysburg? Do we stop to consider that the outcome of that conflict was a virtual
"pick em" almost until it was over?
The Black Factor
Suppose, as was the case in Brazil, that an end to slavery meant having to absorb eight
times as many slaves into society with no reasonable plan for doing so? Large numbers of
slave owners, as happened in Brazil, discarded their former labor as quickly as
immigration could be accelerated to replace them with Italian, German and Japanese
laborers. Would you have expected that these overwhelming numbers of displaced Africans
and their descendents would have been able to secure capital, or influence, to avoid
becoming a drain on the economy? Would you have expected them to stop procreating? As
their numbers increased the weight of them on society, as happened in Brazil, would also
have increased.
The North American society built by the sweat and blood of their labor would have
turned away from them and we would not have been able to avoid the limiting factor of
their presence on economic and social growth. Is anyone imagining that we North Americans
would have been less racist and more thoughtful in our handling of such large numbers of
former slaves? Does anyone not recall that it wasn't until the Civil Rights Movement of
the 1960s that African Americans first began to truly realize some hope for sharing in the
American dream? And do we not recognize that, even today, we are far from establishing
parity of opportunity between the races?
Suppose that Lincoln had been assassinated three years earlier. Or that Germany had won
the First World War? If there hadn't been a Second World War would the United States be
the preeminent economic and industrial power it is today? Did you know that when Douglas
McArthur was appointed Chief of Staff of the US Army in the 1930s our army ranked 16th
in the world behind Portugal and Greece? The outbreak of war triggered an explosion of
North American industrial capacity and production. Industrial growth in the US triggered
explosive economic growth after the war. And the explosive economic growth of the US
incubated in the absence of serious competition.
Our most serious potential economic competitor would have been the old Soviet Union,
which had relocated its entire industrial infrastructure to the far side of the Ural
Mountains to protect it from the German onslaught. But, following the war, the USSR
initially produced goods only for itself, and later for the Eastern Bloc. The United
States produced goods for North Americans and the Western World. Different markets meant
that there was no direct competition. German, Japanese & Italian industry had been
devastated. British industry was recovering. Whatever the US produced was selling and,
thanks to it's war-time triggered expansion of industrial capacity, it was producing
plenty.
The War Factor
The idea that we in the US simply worked harder than the rest of the world and emerged
victorious and robust as a result of that is not well founded. For sure we Americans are
largely hard working, God fearing, people. But it seems probable that had it not been for
the Second World War we would not have become as economically dominant as we are today.
So, from our revisionist historical perspective, we would have to assume that less
progress had been made in that area.
There were no Brazilian ships in Pearl Harbor, and Germany was not set upon the idea to
declare war on Brazil. Brazil was not presented with the same direct threat to its
survival. It was less a matter of character than the need to survive that motivated the
United States to progress so far, so fast, in its quest to become an industrial giant. And
the effects of everything we've considered in revising US history along the lines of
Brazilian history would have been cumulative.
So the ability of the US to grow industrially would have been far more limited in our
revised world, even if we'd still been attacked at Pearl Harbor. Although Germany and
Japan recovered from the devastation of war with amazing speed we have to remember that a
national social memory provided much of the knowledge base required for rapid
reconstruction. Moreover, had it not been for the leniency of the victors, coupled with
staggering amounts of foreign aid, it could never have happened. Latin America has never
been the recipient of commensurate amounts of constructive social engagement by US foreign
policy. In fact, quite the opposite has been the case.
North American intervention in Latin America has been generally limited, frequently
covert and often counter-productive. Freely elected Latin American governments were
destabilized and replaced with governments more sympathetic to North American political
and/or business interests. Some would suggest that this was a necessity during the Cold
War. Regardless, the consequences included retarded sociopolitical and economic
development, and reinforced an unwarranted perception that Latin Americans were incapable
of governing themselves. So we have to assume that a revised history would have included
covert activities by foreign governments that undermined US sociopolitical and economic
growth.
Did you know that the fabulous national highway system here in the US was not merely a
natural outgrowth of North American economic growth? I'd be willing to bet that most you
have never even questioned what prompted creation of so many fine roads that have so
effectively served commerce. Those roads weren't always there though. The bulk of our
national highway system resulted from our fear, during the 1950s, that we would end up in
a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Maybe that seems improbable to you, but when I was in grade school we had nuclear war
drills just as school children today have tornado drills. My grandfather built a bomb
shelter and stored root vegetables, water, blankets, batteries and canned goods there.
Bombers from Bunker Hill, later renamed Grissom, Air Force base capable of carrying
nuclear weapons rattled windows and knick-knacks in our houses as they broke the sound
barrier. Much of our national highway network was constructed to provide evacuation routes
for the millions of people who would be clogging road arteries when the bombs fell. What
actually happened though was that those arteries breathed even more oxygen into the
life-blood of US national commerce. Trucks rolled from coast to coast carrying
manufactured goods and produce to all corners of our lower 48 states. Not in our
"revised" history though, since Brazil never imagined itself directly threatened
by a foe with such destructive weaponry.
Are you beginning to think of the respective situations in Brazil and the United States
a little differently now? I hope so. Brazilians are no more or less capable than we are.
Brazilians are hard working, creative and—to the extent we are—God fearing.
Cultural differences are accounted for by the differing origins of their people, and the
fact that even this influence has been tempered in different ways by different
experiences. Primarily British and British descended slave owners in the United States
were much more determined to eliminate native African culture and religious practices. The
reasons why could spark an entire other discussion. The point is that African slaves and
their descendants in Brazil were far more successful in preserving traditional practices
brought with them from West Africa.
Consequently, they've made substantially greater contributions to Brazilian society
than African slaves and their descendents in North America were able to make. There exists
then, in Brazil, a foundation for personal pride based on known heritage that has been
denied African Americans. So well have African Brazilians preserved their cultural and
religious practices that Africans have been known to make pilgrimage to Brazil to
rediscover lost roots. In fact there are more people of African descent in Brazil than in
any country other than Nigeria.
Brazilian Inspiration
If we really want to understand Brazil today it's important to do so within the context
of Brazilian history, and it's important to avoid applying artificial standards that imply
inherent superiority based on character. This last issue smacks of racism to me. What
rationale, other than racism, could account for inherent genetic differences? Would we be
suggesting that Brazilians are inherently more lazy or less intelligent? Is there any
basis other than racism for making such an assertion?
I find extraordinary inspiration in the dedication of Brazilian work to redress
inequality and foster opportunity. Here in the United States that challenge pales when
compared to the majority of other places on earth. But if you want grandeur in Brazil you
can find that too. There is much to learn in Brazil. Places like Salvador, Rio de Janeiro
and Recife are treasure troves of history. But study of Brazil in Brazil is not supported
by an educational infrastructure equal to what we see here in the US. Since the majority
of Brazil's early inhabitants were slave laborers, and so few otherwise, no large number
of educational institutions were established early on.
The elite class in society maintained its position for so long that significant impetus
for creating a significant educational infrastructure was never generated. Near where I
live in Indianapolis alone we have Indiana University/Purdue University of Indianapolis,
the University of Indianapolis, Butler University and Marian College. Within a reasonably
short distance are the Indiana and Purdue University main campuses in Bloomington and West
Lafayette, respectively, and Depaul University some distance to the west of Indianapolis.
In Brazil there are far fewer Universities and Colleges than here. This would have to have
been accounted for in our revised history scenario as well.
A little more food for thought will further put the US/Brazil comparison into
perspective:
We in the United States are easily tempted to attribute the mastery of our lands to the
purity of great leadership early in US history and romantic notions of pioneers conquering
lands inhabited only by savages. In fact most of our founding fathers although clearly
remarkable men, owned other human beings. "Manifest Destiny" is often
articulated as a justifiable reason for the then "inevitable" westward expansion
that consolidated US hold of all lands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
What would be the perspective of native North American Indians on that rationale?
Acquisition of Texas and California (also Arizona and New Mexico I think) was orchestrated
in ways that some have suggested were questionable. The Louisiana Purchase, which ceded
large sections of the middle of the North American continent to us, occurred because
France was in a desperate situation. And Alaska, when we purchased it, was thought to be
no bargain at all. In fact, the man who championed the effort was viewed with contempt.
His last name was Seward and the purchase was known as "Seward's folly".
The majority of Brazilians, like the majority of Australians, live near the coast
because, as is the case in Australia, the most hospitable territory is away from the
interior. Slavery in the US ended in a great bloodletting. In Brazil it was simply decreed
to an end. In the United States government has been more stable and, since the revolution,
we have always had representative government with peaceful transition of power from one
administration to the next. When Brazil declared independence it did not embrace our form
of government; it embraced a monarchy of its own. If you remember how Brazil evolved this
will be understandable. Power in Brazil has not always transitioned peacefully, although
the nature of Brazilian military dictatorships differed somewhat from military
dictatorships elsewhere in Latin America. But that's clearly a subject for another time.
The US didn't become a "bread basket for the world" simply by working harder
or employing intrinsically superior farming practices. How farming should be practiced
depends on the climate and the soil. Tropical soils are generally far less fertile than
soils in temperate regions and North American farming practices often aren't very
effective there. Henry Ford discovered that when he lost untold millions of dollars trying
to grow rubber trees on a parcel of land (the size of Connecticut) that he purchased in
the Amazon. After 14 years (1924-1938) he just gave up and abandoned the effort. Daniel
Ludwig repeated Ford's errors decades later (1967-1982), except that he was attempting to
grow fruit trees and trees for paper. Ludwig even constructed a 17-story pulp mill in
Japan and had it towed on a barge for 17,000 miles across the Indian and Atlantic Ocean's
and then several hundred miles up the Amazon to a private deep-water port he'd installed
there. End result? Ludwig lost more than a billion dollars.
And the idea that Brazil, or anyone, should be able to "pull themselves up by
their bootstraps"? That grew out of a North American philosophy institutionalized in
the 1950s. It was known as the "American Work Ethic" and represented US national
belief (at the time) that we emerged as the greatest nation on the earth because we simply
worked harder. "Operation Bootstrap", in fact, was the name of a military
operation in Puerto Rico designed to elevate life on that island by infusing our work
ethic into society there. The truth, as I already noted, is that North Americans are (by
and large) truly hard working people. But "but for the grace of God" so
to speak our good fortune might be far less than it has come to be.
There's so much to understand about Brazil. I haven't even touched on the large numbers
of non-African-Brazilians who are also living on the margins of society. Many have been
displaced from interior lands that technology is increasingly finding ways to gain control
of. Many live in the desert-like regions of the caatinga in Bahia and the sertão
elsewhere in the Northeast. The MST, or "landless peasants movement" is a force
to be reckoned with in Brazil and is something that every serious student of Brazil should
know about. I haven't even mentioned the Amazon, the Pantanal and the great
energy-producing region of Foz de Iguaçu, the world's largest.
The upside of Brazilian potential today is more and more being realized. Brazil has
realized remarkable progress since the military dictatorship ended in 1985. Brazilians
frequently challenge this conclusion, perhaps because so many of them are still waiting to
share in that progress. But Brazil has become a stable, free enterprise based, society
governed by freely elected leaders.
The Catholic Church in Brazil was a powerful influence on its development and I
probably should have contrasted that with what happened here in the United States. Brazil
is just so large and diverse and interesting. Traveling there can be a special experience
made more special by careful preparation and study. Understanding as much as you can about
Brazil before going there will allow you to really focus on the experience. The journey,
then, should prove to be all the more memorable, enjoyable and worthwhile.
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