In Brazil, hunger and malnutrition are part of a syndrome that includes
illiteracy, inadequate schooling, unemployment, poor health
care, family breakdown and substance abuse. Targeting hunger
may not be the best way to break this syndrome. Lula's first
priority has to be to avoid an Argentina-like catastrophe.

Ted Goertzel

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's most dramatic initiative since taking office has been his Fome Zero or Zero Hunger program. After an inspiring speech inaugurating the program (Lula da Silva, 2003a), he highlighted the fight against hunger in his speeches to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil (Lula da Silva, 2003b) and to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (Lula da Silva, 2003c). His poignant vision of a Brazil where every citizen has three square meals a day is reminiscent of Herbert Hoover's image of a chicken in every pot. It is a vision that everyone can share, even though it may not be the best way to make life better for Brazil's poor.

Brazil does not suffer from famine such as the world has seen recently in Ethiopia, the Sudan or North Korea (Estado de S. Paulo, 2002). There is no need for emergency shipments of food to Brazil from foreign countries. Brazil produces plenty of food for its domestic needs and has a large food export industry. Of course, relief programs are needed in cases of drought and localized emergencies, and Brazil can do better in these cases. But Brazil's fundamental problems are poverty and inequality in the midst of relative abundance. Malnutrition is an important consequence of poverty. But hunger and malnutrition are part of a syndrome that includes illiteracy, inadequate schooling, unemployment, poor health care, family breakdown and substance abuse. Targeting hunger may not be the best way to break this syndrome.

Agricultural economics professor José Graziano (2002) inspired the Fome Zero program. He thought the main problem was that the Brazilian government did not care enough about hunger. All that was needed, he thought, was a political decision to spend an easily affordable $5 billion reais (US$ 1.53 billion) a year. Lula bought this idea, made ending Fome Zero a centerpiece of his administration, and appointed Graziano to run the program.

Graziano soon found that he was quite wrong about the previous Brazilian government. The Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, which ruled Brazil for the eight years before Lula, was serious about fighting hunger and poverty (Coitinho, 2002; Sabóia, 2003). Indeed, the Cardoso administration's programs (Secretaria de Estado, 2002: 37-67; Presidência da República, 2002) were in many ways better than the ones Graziano's hunger task force had designed (Instituto Cidadania, 2002).

Cardoso, a sociologist with a profound understanding of the social nature of poverty, embedded his anti-hunger program in a comprehensive Social Protection Network. A central element in this Network is a School Grant that provides R$15 a month for each child between the ages of 6 and 15 who goes to school on a regular basis. The money goes directly to the mother, as a means of increasing the value of women in society, and stresses their responsibility to make sure their children go to school.

A poor family can have up to three children enrolled in the program and receive R$45 per month. The money is delivered through a magnetic School Grant Card. Each family is entitled to one card delivered to the mother with her name on it. There is also a Food Grant program that provides an equivalent grant for mothers with children up to six years of age.

These programs are combined with other anti-poverty programs including adult literacy, basic education for adults, the elimination of child labor, drinking water and sanitation programs, family health and community health agents, programs for pregnant women and nursing mothers, and support for young people 15-24 who are in situations of vulnerability or socially at risk.

The School Grant program is very popular across the political spectrum and the Workers Party shares credit for it. A prominent Workers Party leader, Cristovam Buarque, implemented the first large-scale School Grant program when he was Governor of the Federal District. Fortunately, these programs remain in effect and Lula has promised to continue them. Indeed, he and his advisors want to strengthen them. A very effective way to fight hunger would have been to simply increase the size of the School and Food Grants. This would have involved no additional bureaucracy or administrative costs and would have given poor families money to meet their most urgent needs as they defined them.

But, in the 2002 election campaign, the Workers Party had criticized the Cardoso administration and promised the electorate bold new initiatives. It promised to make social policy the main "axis of development." Vague slogans like this sound good in a political campaign, but they must be translated into specific policy initiatives after winning an election. The Cardoso administration had already appropriated the new and innovative ideas in the anti-poverty field. So the Workers Party dusted off an old one.

They decided to institute a food stamp program modeled, oddly enough, on a program begun by the United States government during the great depression (Graziano, 2002). Instead of giving families cash, this program would give them food stamps, or a magnetic card, that could be used only to purchase food.

Knowledgeable experts, including Cristovam Buarque, were concerned that this would be a step backward from what the Brazilian government was already doing (Dimenstein, 2002a). It ran the risk of creating dependency instead of helping people to make their lives better. Wanda Engel (Bragon, 2002), the head of the Cardoso administration's anti-poverty programs, observed that "our problem is not the lack of food, but the lack of financial resources to buy food. Hunger, in truth, is a symptom of a situation of absolute poverty. which means that 24 million people do not have enough income to acquire the minimum calories necessary to maintain life."¹

If the problem is poverty, not a lack of food, why create a new anti-hunger bureaucracy instead of using existing mechanisms to give people more money? Is Fome Zero, as journalist Gilberto Dimenstein (2002a) feared, little more than "a marketing campaign designed to burnish Lula's social image?"² This is too cynical. There is no reason to question the Workers Party's sincerity in wanting to end misery in Brazil. They had simply demonized the Cardoso administration for so long that they could not appreciate the positive things it had done.

To his credit, Lula has taken the constructive criticisms of his initiative seriously and has been eager to incorporate them in his program. He made Cristovam Buarque Education Minister despite his criticism of the Fome Zero program. He very much wants his program to work. As he says, he wants to give people fish and also to teach them how to fish.

In his speech to the world's economic leaders at Davos, Lula was careful to put the anti-hunger program in a broad social context. He recognized that "eliminating hunger presupposes structural changes, including good jobs, more and better investments, a substantial increase in internal savings, expansion of markets within the country and abroad, quality health and education, and cultural, scientific and technological development" (Lula da Silva, 2003c).³

This is indeed the crux of the matter. Lula's success in eliminating hunger and malnutrition in Brazil will depend primarily on the success of his economic model, not on anti-hunger programs. In his campaign rhetoric, Lula promised a "new economic model" that would be a historic break with the neoliberal, Washington consensus policies of the past. But he also committed himself to honoring the country's agreements with the International Monetary Fund, including servicing the country's debts. These commitments severely restrict his ability to change the country's economic model (Goertzel, 2003). His Finance Minister, Antônio Palocci, has strongly defended the government's plans to stick to these commitments, despite vigorous protests from the left-wing of the Workers Party (Madueño, 2003).

The bad news, then, is that Lula's Finance Minister believes the country cannot break significantly with Fernando Henrique Cardoso's economic model. Or is this the good news? Cardoso's economic model was not a resounding success, as Chile's has been in the last dozen years, but neither was it a calamitous failure, like Argentina's. Abandoning Cardoso's model might be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Lula's most important decision may be which example to follow: Chile or Argentina.

Comparisons with Argentina and Chile

In 2001, Argentine President Fernando de la Rúa and his Economy Minister, Domingo Cavallo, faced pressures from leftists who thought that the solution to their country's problems was to break with the "neoliberal" model and default on their nation's debt. De la Rúa and Cavallo were forced from office by street demonstrations orchestrated by politicians who opposed their austerity policies. Cavallo had proposed that civil servants accept a 12 percent to 15 percent pay cut so as to balance the budget and meet the I.M.F.'s demands. Instead of accepting that, the opposition defaulted on the debt. The result was an economic collapse that caused all workers, in the both the private and the public sectors, and including the poor, to suffer a 30 percent cut in real wages.

While all sectors of Argentine society suffered from this collapse, it was felt most severely by the poor. According to the director of the National Statistical Institute, 5.2 million people were thrown into poverty (Olivera, 2002; INDEC, 2002). In 1998, 27 percent of the residents of urban areas had been living in poverty. In May, 2002, the rate reached 53 percent. The percent classified as indigent increased from 6 percent to 25 percent. Among children, 70 percent were living in poverty and 37 percent in indigence.

These statistics can be questioned (Bermúdez, 2003), but there is no doubt the suffering was greatest among the poor. Bank accounts were frozen while dollar savings accounts were converted to pesos that rapidly lost most of their value. Unemployment and crime skyrocketed, businesses closed, and people jammed the foreign embassies in hopes of getting a visa to emigrate. There was a pervasive feeling that Argentina had failed as a society.

Meanwhile, across the Andes in Chile, things have gone remarkably well. A World Bank (2001: 4) study observed that "Chile remains one of the outstanding countries in Latin America in terms of its record in reducing poverty. A combination of strong growth and well directed social programs have combined to reduce the poverty rate in half during a period of just eleven years." Brazil's record during the same period was much better than Argentina's, but not as good as Chile's.

A report issued at the end of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's eight years as president observed that in Brazil, "the number of people living below the poverty line declined from a 1990-94 average of 63 million to a 1995-2000 average of 54 million" (Secretaria de Estado, 2002: 20). Over the same period of time, the percentage of the population living in poverty declined from 42 percent to 34 percent and the percentage living in extreme poverty or indigence fell from 20 percent to 14 percent.

Argentina, Brazil and Chile provide a striking contrast between catastrophic failure, modest progress and outstanding success in the struggle against poverty in South America. At least this is true from our vantage point in 2003. If we were to go back a decade, however, to 1993, the comparison would be a little different. At that time the Argentine economy was booming thanks to the then new Convertibility Plan, while the Brazilians were still fighting hyperinflation.

The Chilean economy has been booming since the mid 1980s, but it was in crisis under a neoliberal regime in the early 1980s and also under a socialist government in the early 1970s. If we compare the economic trajectories of the three countries since 1970, Brazil has shown strong economic growth with cyclical interruptions. Chile was stagnant until the mid 1980s when it took off into rapid growth. Argentine economic growth has been sluggish for the entire period, save only the brief boom in the early 1990s.

It is more difficult to compare trends in poverty, since the measures are problematic and not always comparable from one country to another (Woodin, et al, 2001). Better data exist for infant mortality, which is a sensitive indicator of the well being of the poor. When we compare trends in infant mortality in the three countries since 1960, Chile's achievement is again the most remarkable. However, the greatest advances were made during the period from 1960 to 1980, when economic growth was sluggish. The improvement in infant mortality in Chile during this period was steady despite the political and economic turmoil of the Allende years and the 1973 military coup d'état.

The improvement slowed just as the economy took off in the mid 1980s, but by this time the rates quite low. In Brazil, also, the decline in infant mortality rates has been steady through periods of economic boom and bust, military and civilian rule. In 1960, Argentina's infant mortality rate was much lower than either of the other two countries. It declined steadily since then, but at a slower rate. By 1980, Chile had surpassed Argentina in lowering infant mortality, while the gap between Argentina and Brazil was closing.

Fiscal stability and economic growth are clearly the most important contribution a government can make to lessening poverty and hunger. But targeted social policies, especially in education and health, also have a measurable impact (World Bank, 2001). Ideally, governments should fight poverty with vigorous economic growth combined with social policies to redistribute income, improve health and education, provide employment, encourage family planning, and break down gender, ethnic, racial and cultural barriers. But resources are limited, so it is important to find out where intervention can be most effective. There may also be complex interactions between these variables. Redistributing income through welfare programs, for example, may lessen incentives for work.

Comparing several cases, instead of just looking at Brazil or any other single country, provides a more rigorous test of our ideas. Looking just at the Argentine case, for example, we might conclude that "neoliberalism" has failed as a method of generating economic growth. Looking at the Chilean case, we would conclude just the opposite. This article contrasts three countries that have had different results for reasons that are not immediately apparent. We will look at each country separately before making comparisons.

Chile.

Chile was the first Latin American country to adopt the export-oriented, free market economic policies referred to variously as "the new economic policy, the Washington consensus, neoliberalism, or neoconservatism" (Foxley, 1983; Bulmer-Thomas, 1996; Richards, 1997; Mesa-Lago, 2000). These policies were adopted abruptly by a military dictatorship in 1973 after an attempt at socialist transformation had led to hyperinflation and economic chaos. The neo-conservative approach was successful in greatly reducing inflation and allowing economic growth to resume, but at the cost of severe repression of living standards of the working and lower classes. In 1981 the country was plunged into a deep recession. The purist "Chicago boys" who had pioneered the experiment with neo-conservative economics were replaced by a more moderate economic leadership. This group was not successful either, and in 1983 they were replaced with another neo-conservative team. At this point, the model began to work, with rapid economic growth.

Chile has been in the "neoliberal" camp since 1973 in the sense of having a market economy that is open to global trade and investment. However, there have been changes within this framework. Sheehan (1997) classifies these changes into three periods: the "standard model" (1973-1980), the "competitive model" (1982-1990) and the "competitive-plus-social model" (since 1990). The standard model was a form of shock treatment that left labor and capital markets almost entirely unregulated, while keeping the exchange rate fixed to stop inflation. This was possible only with a brutal military dictatorship, which suppressed the working classes. The consumption levels of the poorest 40 percent of the households declined by nearly a third, while that of the highest fifth of the households increased slightly (Sheehan, 1997: 12).

The competitive model began as an attempt to recover from the 1982-1983 depression, with the government taking some responsibility for stimulating production, employment and exports. The exchange rate was allowed to float, devaluing the currency and making the country more competitive. At first, poverty continued to increase, from 32 percent in 1980 to 38 percent in 1987, but then it came down to 35 percent by 1990 (Sheehan, 1997: 17).

Over these first two periods, however, progress in lessening poverty was not good. A study of Greater Santiago found that the poverty rate had increased from 26 percent in 1969 to 49 percent by 1987, while real wages in 1975 had fallen to 62 percent of their 1970 value, recovering to only 91 percent in 1989 (Oppenheim, 1993: 154).

In 1990, the country finally made the transition from military to civilian rule. The new civilian government was led by a Christian Democrat, in alliance with the Socialist Party, but it retained the fundamentals of the market economy as instituted by the military regime. It supplemented them with increased social spending, something that was possible because rapid growth provided increased government revenues. As summarized by finance minister Alejandro Foxley (1991), the key policy steps taken by this government were:

· working hard to maintain a political consensus, including sending important bills to the conservative parties for advice and consent

· reducing government expenditures so as to maintain a budget surplus and cut inflation

· increasing taxes to fund increased spending on education, health, youth training and housing for the poor

· greatly increasing the investment rate, including direct foreign investment

This "competitive-plus-social" model has achieved remarkable results in cutting poverty (Sheahan, 1997; World Bank, 2001; Contreras, 2001; Contreras, et al, 2001). It seems as if the Chileans have found the formula for solving Latin America's problem by combining free market economics, export promotion and vigorous social programs. This model cuts poverty by raising everyone's boat, not by lessening inequality.

The market economy provides the economic resources to pay for the social programs. This is not a new model, of course, it is the model followed in Western Europe, North America, Japan and many other successful countries (Legrain, 2002). A troublesome historical question is whether the period of military repression was necessary to establish this model successfully in Chile or, if so, whether it could have been shorter and less severe.

Argentina.

If Chile has found the path to success, where has Argentina gone wrong? In the early 1990s, Argentina was often referred to as the "poster child for neoliberalism." Argentina generally outperformed its Latin American neighbors until 1997 (Perry and Servén, 2002). But the growth in the 1990s was an exception. Argentine economic growth had been sluggish for the last half century, when compared to its neighbors, or to the European countries with which it used to compare itself.

A great many explanations have been offered for Argentina's failure to thrive. Many of these are predictable and seem largely concerned with assigning blame. Marxists naturally blame the collapse on "Argentina's capitalist class, supported and prodded by the U. S. Treasury and by the International Monetary Fund." (Halevi, 2002). But this does not explain why the capitalists of Chile and Brazil have done so much better.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill blames corrupt Argentine politicians, saying that no more money should be lent to Argentina without guarantees that it won't end up in someone's Swiss bank account. But the Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (2002), former chief economist of the World Bank, insists that "budget profligacy or corruption" were not the most primary problems, and blames the U.S. and the I.M.F. for not giving Argentina more help. Another Nobel laureate in Economics, Gary Becker (2002), insists that "the current crisis again is mainly due to politicians who continued to borrow on the international capital market to finance large and growing budget deficits."

I.M.F. economist Michael Mussa (2002: 10) argues that the fundamental cause of the disaster was "the chronic inability of the Argentine authorities to maintain a responsible fiscal policy. This is an old, sad story for Argentina. To satisfy various political needs and pressures, the government (at all levels) has a persistent tendency to spend significantly more than can be raised in taxes…the Argentine government is like a chronic alcoholic—once it starts to imbibe the political pleasures of deficit spending, it keeps on going until it reaches the economic equivalent of falling-down drunk." The fiscal and monetary policies that led to the Argentine disaster were not imposed by the I.M.F. or any other international body. They were made in Argentina by Argentines. If the I.M.F. failed, Mussa argues, it was by not cutting Argentina off sooner than it did.

If the criticisms from foreigners seem harsh, they are nothing compared to the writings of the Argentines themselves. Shoe manufacturer Eduardo Bakchellian writes of El Error de Ser Argentino (2000) and attributes the country's incorrigible decadence to structural deficiencies, corruption, stupidity, perversion and economic fundamentalism. Economist Walter Graziano writes of Las Siete Plagas de la Argentina (2001), the worst of which is the mental rigidity and dogmatism that pervades all sectors of society.

Sociologist and journalist Mariano Grondona (2002) accuses his compatriots of being out of touch with reality, believing that they can live off the riches of the countryside without having to compete in the modern world. Writer Marcos Aguinas writes of El Atroz Encanto de Ser Argentinos (2001: 31) and insists that "the impediments to our progress are derived, in the first place, from ourselves. We are infected with a fever of profound origin, which makes us resistant to civic discipline and social altruism."⁴

From the left, Marxist Joseph Halevi (2001) is more angry at Argentina's "voracious and rapacious local capitalists" than he is at the I.M.F. And, on the right, former finance minister Domingo Cavallo (1997) denounces the habit of living off the state and the corruption of the mafias that control the Argentine government.

Halevi believes that capitalism is doomed in South America and recommends a centrally planned socialist economy. But if the Argentine state cannot competently administer capitalism, a task well within the reach of the Chilean and many other governments, it would be foolish to expect it to be successful with a system that has failed everywhere else in the world. Domingo Cavallo (2002), on the other hand, believes that market economics can be made to work in Argentina as it is in Chile. Indeed, he believes that the meltdown of 2001 could have been avoided if were not for an odd convergence of thinking between conservative American economists and populist Argentine politicians, both of whom believed that default could be a relatively painless solution to Argentina's problems.

Conclusions.

If Lula wants to end hunger and poverty in Brazil, his first priority has to be to avoid a catastrophe such as that suffered by Argentina. This risk is very real. Bolivia is clearly in danger of sliding into a very similar crisis this year (Quispe Huanca, 2003; Forero, 2003). Venezuela's crisis under Hugh Chavez (Arismendi, 2002) is an example of another way things might go wrong in Brazil if Lula should move towards the populist left. There are certainly groups in Brazil that advocate policies such as those that caused the Argentine breakdown. Indeed, these groups are very powerful in Lula's own party.

In the planning for the 2002 elections, a leftist group within the Workers Party wanted to break the nation's agreement with the I.M.F. (Lopes, 2003). This resolution was defeated because the Party knew it would lose the election if it ran on that platform. Instead, Lula's campaign platform (Coligação Lula Presidente, 2002) spoke in general terms about a new economic model but clearly asserted the necessity of honoring the country's economic commitments.

Lula and his ministers are firm about sticking to their commitments, despite objections from the left wing of the Workers Party. This is not just a matter of honoring campaign promises. They understand that defaulting on the nation's commitments would lead to an Argentine-style catastrophe. Consider Finance Minister Antônio Palocci's response to party leftists who accused him of continuing Cardoso's economic policies (Madueño, 2003):

"If our policy vision is focused on monetary and fiscal policies, on interest rates and exchange rates, I think the economy would explode. We were not elected to improve exchange rate policies. Some people say, intervene in the exchange rate. What do you want me to do about the exchange rates? I do not have dollars to sell. If I had, I would sell them to help Brazil. What would it mean to control the exchange rates? To do what Argentina did? Some of you say that we have done nothing to control the exchange rates. I do not know any way to do this, except a forced mechanism, such as Argentina had. Fernando Henrique Cardoso did that, and it in the end exploded. We are still paying for this in dollars."⁵

Lula and his advisors have learned from Argentina's mistakes and Chile's successes. They are determined to avoid a meltdown, which means servicing their debts and keeping limits on public expenditures. This does not mean they have become "neoliberals," if by this we mean what John Sheehan (1997) called "standard model" as followed by the Chilean military dictatorship in the 1970s. They are trying to follow what Sheehan called the "competitive-plus-social model" or what Fernando Henrique Cardoso simply called "social democracy." This means respect for the free market as the engine of development and encouragement of foreign as well as domestic investment, combined with vigorous social programs to redistribute income and help the least advantaged.

This model can only work if there is a sufficient consensus within the society to make it work, cutting across class and political divisions. Fortunately, consensus building is Lula's strong point, and the major opposition parties are eager to cooperate. There is widespread consensus on the importance of completing social security and tax reforms that were left uncompleted by Cardoso, in large part, ironically, because of Workers Party opposition. The new government is continuing the many innovative social programs begun in the past by Workers Party governments on the state and municipal level, as well as by Cardoso's federal government.

Focusing on hunger may not be the best way of understanding the poverty problem, but it is good public relations. It gives poverty a new sense of urgency and helps to forge a much needed social consensus. The Fome Zero program makes the most sense in backward areas in the northeast where drought is a persistent problem and food supplies are often short. It should be viewed as an emergency program to deal with acute crises.

Establishing a nationwide food stamp program, however, is probably not wise for Brazil because it would be an inefficient duplication of existing social service programs that could spend the money better. Strengthening the School Grant and Food Grant programs would be better, because they encourage behavioral changes. Those programs do exactly what Lula says he wants to do, teach people how to fish as well as giving them fish.

Even with all the safeguards built into the existing programs, there are disturbing stories of welfare dependency. The director of the Fome Zero program in Piauí, Aury Lessa, reports that "each family has the right to include three undernourished children in the Food Grant program. The community agents say that families have no interest in making sure their children are well nourished because they would lose the grant. They want the children to remain permanently undernourished so that they can keep getting the R$15 a month."

Families are also reported to keep their children working, instead of going to school, so as to qualify for R$15 a month from the Program to Eliminate Child Labor. As Aury observes, "these are perverse effects of the program, effects which need to be evaluated. This attitude reflects the culture and poverty of these people. Poverty of food, of spirit and of knowledge. Poverty in all its aspects" (Ribeiro, 2003).⁶

It is deeply disturbing to hear of people keeping children malnourished in order to receive less than US$5 a month. The community workers also report hearing that people are moving to the communities where the Fome Zero pilot programs are being established, even though these communities have no running water, so as to be sure of getting on the program. In these desperate parts of the country, programs that distribute food rather than cash may well be necessary. Fortunately, the government is experimenting with these programs first in these regions where there is the greatest need.

Lula's goal of a Brazil where everyone has three square meals every day is unassailable. And his government has the expertise, the dedication and the flexibility to try out different kinds of programs and stick with the ones that work best. But everything depends on economic growth to provide employment and revenues to pay for social programs. Lula is on the right road here as well, but progress may be slower than he promised during the campaign, especially if the international economy continues in recession. If so, Brazilians will have to resist giving in to the populist illusions that have caused so many problems in neighboring countries.

On March 10, 2003, Lula announced the formation of a group of planning specialists to outline a program for Brazil's development. He said (Ramon and Saad, 2003):

"We are going to specify the sectors where Brazil can compete in international markets without getting caught in the trap of thinking of ourselves as a pitiful Third World nation suffering from imperialism, or of believing that we are poor because Europe is rich. We have been an emerging nation for forty years because we could have made structural reforms, agrarian reform, and invested in education and health, and we did not do it. We are paying the price for not having done what we needed to do when we needed to do it. This is not the fault of the president of the Republic, nor of the governors, nor of the mayors. It is the fault of all Brazilians."⁷

Instead of proposing a new model for Brazil, Lula is proposing something much more challenging. He is proposing to complete the ambitious project begun by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This means implementing tax, social security and labor law reforms that were stymied, in part by Workers Party opposition, during the Cardoso administration. It means taking on the public employee unions, the middle-aged retirees and the left-over leftists who have not yet reconciled themselves to the realities of the twenty-first century. It means learning from Chile's success and from Argentina's tragedy, and putting together a mix of policies that will allow Brazil to build on the significant accomplishments of the last eight years. Fortunately, Lula has the credibility, personal charisma and political skills to do what must be done, if anyone can.
 

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¹ O nosso problema não é inexistência de comida, mas a inexistência de recursos financeiros para a aquisição de comida. A fome, na verdade, é sintoma de uma situação de pobreza absoluta que faz com que 24 milhões de pessoas não tenham renda suficiente para adquirir o mínimo de calorias necessárias à manutenção da vida.

² campanha de marketing, destinada a burilar a imagem de social de Lula

³ A erradicação da fome pressupõe transformações estruturais, exige a criação de empregos dignos, mais e melhores investimentos, aumento substancial da poupança interna, expansão dos mercados no país e no exterior, saúde e educação de qualidade, desenvolvimento cultural, científico e tecnológico.

⁴ las trabas a nuestro progreso derivan, en primer lugar, de nosotros mismos. Que estamos afiebrados por vicios de profundo origen, que no resistimos a la disciplina cuidana y al altriusmo social

⁵ Se nós tivermos nosso processo político baseado numa visão focada de política monetária, fiscal, juros e câmbio, acho que vamos nos arrebentar. Nós não fomos eleitos para melhorar a política cambial. Alguém diz, mexe no câmbio. Você quer que eu faça o que com o câmbio? Eu não tenho dólar para vender. Se tivesse, venderia para ajudar o Brasil. O que é controlar o câmbio? É fazer o que a Argentina fez? Alguém diz que não se fez nada contra o câmbio. Alguém tem uma medida? Não conheço mecanismo capaz a não ser o mecanismo forçado, como fez a Argentina, como fez FHC e no final explodiu. Pagamos em dólar o preço disso."

⁶ Cada família tem direito a incluir três crianças desnutridas no Bolsa-Alimentação. Os agentes de comunidade contam que as famílias não têm interesse em que as crianças fiquem nutridas porque assim elas perdem a bolsa. Elas querem que as crianças permaneçam desnutridas para continuar recebendo R$ 15 por mês." "São efeitos perversos dos programas, que devem ser reavaliados. Essa atitude representa a cultura e a pobreza dessa gente. Pobreza de falta de alimentos, de espírito, de conhecimento. Pobreza em todos os aspectos."

⁷ "Vamos marcar em quais setores o Brasil pode disputar mercados internacionalmente, sem mantermos a mania de sermos pobrezinhos, coitados, do Terceiro Mundo, porque nós sofremos por causa do imperialismo ou se somos pobres porque a Europa é rica. Somos um país emergente há 40 anos, porque poderíamos ter feito as reformas estruturais, a reforma agrária, investir em educação e saúde e não o fizemos. Pagamos o preço de não termos feito as coisas certas na hora certa e isso não é culpa do presidente da República, nem dos governadores e nem dos prefeitos. É culpa de todos os brasileiros.

Ted Goertzel, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University in Camden, NJ. He is the author of a biography of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, available in English and in Portuguese. He can be contacted at goertzel@camden.rutgers.edu  and his WEB page can be found at http://goertzel.org/ted

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