Desigualdade versus Liberdade

É um ponto de vista interessante:

"Inequality doesn’t just reduce freedom for workers. It reduces freedom for business owners too.Will says this is because countries that want to tax and redistribute must have a healthy economy, which requires business freedom. I suspect that there are two other mechanisms at work.

One is that many of the rich have no interest in economic freedom. They want to protect extractive institutions and the monopoly power of incumbents from competition. They thus favour red tape, which tends to bear heavier upon small firms than big ones. This, I suspect, explains why inequality and unfreedom go together in Latin America, for example.

Secondly, people have a strong urge for fairness. If they cannot achieve this through market forces, they’ll demand it via the ballot box in the form of state regulation. As Philippe Aghion and colleagues point out, there is a negative correlation between union density and minimum wages: minimum wage laws are more likely to be found where unions are weak. Regulations, in this sense, are a substitute for strong unions – and, I suspect, a bad substitute because they are more inflexible."

Stumbling and Mumbling: Inequality against freedom

Isto é impressionante; tem lições de aplicação mais geral, nomeadamente, para nós, cidadãos portugueses; tem informação politicamente incorrecta e é algo incontornável para perceber o que se está a passar nos EUA ...

É de leitura obrigatória e na sua totalidade. São transcritas duas pequenas partes do artigo - ele é extenso. O bold é meu:

California and Bust | Business | Vanity Fair

[....] His view of his seven years trying to run the state of California can be summarized as follows. He [Arnold Schwarzenegger] came to power accidentally, but not without ideas about what he wanted to do. At his core he thought government had become more problem than solution: an institution run less for the benefit of the people than for the benefit of politicians and other public employees. He behaved pretty much as Americans seem to imagine the ideal politician should behave: he made bold decisions without looking at polls; he didn’t sell favors; he treated his opponents fairly; he was quick to acknowledge his mistakes and to learn from them; and so on. He was the rare elected official who believed, with some reason, that he had nothing to lose, and behaved accordingly. When presented with the chance to pursue an agenda that violated his own narrow political self-interest for the sake of the public interest, he tended to leap at it. “There were a lot of times when we said, ‘You just can’t do that,’ ” says his former chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, a lifelong Democrat, whose hiring was one of those things a Republican governor was not supposed to do. “He was always like, ‘I don’t care.’ Ninety percent of the time it was a good thing.”

T wo years into his tenure, in mid-2005, he’d tried everything he could think of to persuade individual California state legislators to vote against the short-term desires of their constituents for the greater long-term good of all. “To me there were shocking moments,” he says. Having sped past a do not enter sign, we are now flying through intersections without pausing. I can’t help but notice that, if we weren’t breaking the law by going the wrong way down a one-way street, we’d be breaking the law by running stop signs. “When you want to do pension reform for the prison guards,” he says, “and all of a sudden the Republicans are all lined up against you. It was really incredible, and it happened over and over: people would say to me, ‘Yes, this is the best idea! I would love to vote for it! But if I vote for it some interest group is going to be angry with me, so I won’t do it.’ I couldn’t believe people could actually say that. You have soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they didn’t want to risk their political lives by doing the right thing.”

[....]I notice on his shelf a copy of Fortune magazine, with Meredith Whitney on the cover. And as he talked about the bankrupting of Vallejo, I realized that I had heard this story before, or a private-sector version of it. The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society to death. The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences. It’s not just a coincidence that the debts of cities and states spun out of control at the same time as the debts of individual Americans. Alone in a dark room with a pile of money, Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom. They’d been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people on Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans.

América

O que se está a passar no Wisconsin é exemplar na demonstração  de quanto a política norte-americana se radicalizou à direita, e de quão diferente essa direita é em comparação com as suas homólogas europeias (ver aqui e aqui). Abaixo mais uma referência a mais um artigo de Krugman sobre a questão.

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A. - NYTimes.com:

Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all. Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.

As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.” 

The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.

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América

Paul Krugman comenta os protestos sindicais no Wisconsin:

 

Wisconsin Power Play - Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com:

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

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E  um dos colaboradores do blogue Free exchange - The Economist comenta o comentário - a subida dos impostos é modalidade considerada aberrativa no actual contexto político-ideológico actual dos EUA:

Fiscal policy: The right to be certain | The Economist:

Indeed a severe recession borne of the financial crisis is what brought Wisconsin to fiscal meltdown. But this has merely accelerated a recognition of Wisconsin's bigger structural issues. Blaming Wall Street is a convenient way to avoid the elephant in the room—that people must rethink the social contract between state workers and taxpayers. As health care gets more expensive and people live longer, the old model simply isn't sustainable. This means that either benefits must be cut (which, given legal hurdles, is unlikely) or state residents must pay more taxes. 

The worst possible outcome is the cautionary tale provided by Prichard, Alabama. Hard choices where not made in time. The pension fund ran out of money and the local government did not have the tax base to pay benefits. The retirees stopped receiving their benefits and now face severe poverty and uncertainty in their old age. Perhaps if state workers took on a little risk now, such as less job security and private pension accounts, they’ll manage to avoid a similar fate.

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Constatações

As notas donde tiro as citações, e aquelas para onde estas remetem, devem ser lidas. Giram à volta da questão da caracterização do problema português como um problema económico e/ou político. As citações abaixo, dizendo respeito a isso, escolhi-as, no entanto, a primeira, pela informação sobre a taxa de sindicalização em Portugal, que não me surpreende de modo algum, porque vi o início sustentado  do processo de dessindicalização em finais da década de 70,  princípios da década de 80 (essa nota remete para mais informação, europeia, sobre a situação sindical em Portugal); a segunda, pelo que diz, sem necessidade de mais qualificações.

The Portuguese Economy: Cues about "the political problem": 

"In a sense, it seems 'too easy' (just change the rules and outcomes will change), with little attention to other sorts of 'institutions' (for example, the fact that the unionization rate in Portugal is below 20% while it is above 60% in Sweden certainly has to make some difference for what kind of policies are set, who they benefit and what kind of credible commitments can be reached). But it's a starting point for discussion.

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The Portuguese Economy: No political problem?: 

.... there is a certain way of doing things in Portugal, a certain way of dealing with public funds, a certain way of coupling (nominally) private companies, political parties and public rents; in a word, there is a certain way - let's call it our regime - of creating economic problems where there were none. This is surely political and it sure has economic consequences (deficient allocation of economic resources, for starters). It also generates pernicious moral consequences, which in turn will again create more economic problems.

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O momento da Zona Euro (VIII)

No livro de Dulce Neto sobre os anos em que Marçal Grilo foi Ministro da Educação [Difícil é sentá-los - A educação de Marçal Grilo, Oficina do Livro, 2001], diz aquele, a dada altura, a p.53, sobre o papel dos sindicatos (no caso, da educação, mas é acho que é possível generalizar): "Quando eles têm uma actuação exclusivamente corporativa e, em vez de considerarem a escola [e tudo o resto] como uma estrutura e uma instituição que tem um projecto, a considerarem apenas como um local de trabalho, nessa altura, eles fazem parte do problema [...]". Obviamente, os sindicatos constituem parte do problema português. Na Irlanda, face a um programa de estabilização das contas públicas, durissimo, a resposta dos sindicatos foi a de que seria possível contrariar a situação com outras medidas, e o que é relevante, é que apresentaram mesmo um programa de reformas de todo não descabidas. Cá, isso seria impensável, ou porque isso seria entendido como colaboracionismo, ou porque não existe capacidade de fazê-lo. Cá, faz-se greve para aumentar o quadro de pessoal.

Nota: Obviamente, que todos nós, eu incluído, fazemos parte do problema.

Como é vista a situação social e sindical na Europa do Sul:

•  Europe's pampered strikers: Take a close look at who is on strike in Europe | The Economist: "My point is political. For the moment, newspapers across the world are full of pictures of strikes in Greece, Spain and France, and photographs of anarchists punching policemen in Athens. You could easily get the impression that the ordinary workers of Europe are about to explode in rage, making it impossible for their governments to push through the painful austerity measures that are, alas, needed in so many European countries. But for the moment the reality on the ground is different. An awful lot of people on the streets are those who cannot lose their jobs, which makes them a privileged minority in a nasty recession, and they are protesting to defend perks and pay that others can only dream of. I hope European politicians are watching, and concluding that they have an opportunity here, to tell the truth to their voters about the mess they are in, and what needs to be done to fix it. I think most European voters know this is a big crisis, and though they are angry about bankers and speculators and what have you, they also know that everyone has been living beyond their means. As long as the burden is seen to fall fairly, we may get through this yet."

• Greece's generous pensions: What makes Germans so very cross about Greece? | The Economist

• The Euro's Final Battleground: Spain - WSJ.com: "Greece set off the crisis rattling the euro zone. Spain could determine whether the 16-nation currency stands or falls. The euro zone's No. 4 economy, Spain has an unemployment rate of 19%, a deflating housing bubble, big debts and a gaping budget deficit. Its gross domestic product contracted 3.6% in 2009 and is expected to shrink again this year, leaving Spain in its deepest and longest recession in a half-century."

Apontamentos de análise:

• Martin Wolf Makes Me Look Like Pollyanna - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

• The agonies of the eurozone reflect a far more significant hidden deficit | Timothy Garton Ash | Comment is free | The Guardian: "To survive and prosper, a European monetary union must develop at least a stronger element of economic union, and that in turn requires a stronger element of political union. Which, by the way, was one of the main motives for some of the chief political architects of what was then deliberately called "economic and monetary union", including François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl. This was not just, as is often said, Europe putting the (monetary) cart before the (political) horse. It was an attempt to use the cart to bring on the horse. It was the last big fling of the so-called ­"functionalist" approach, by which you build a politically integrated Europe through economic integration. Broadly speaking, that worked for half a century, from the 1950s to the 1990s; but in this case, it has not. Not unless this crisis catalyses further steps of integration, as earlier crises sometimes have." Para perceber o quadro geral, esta é de leitura absolutamente obrigatória.

• FT.com / Columnists / Gideon Rachman - Greece threatens more than the euro: "As Greece’s financial crisis rumbles onwards, it has become commonplace to argue that the roots of the problem stretch all the way back to the design of Europe’s single currency. Actually, it is worse than that. The Greek crisis is about the very basis on which European unity has been built for the last 60 years. It threatens not just the euro but the entire edifice of the European Union. The risk for Europe now is that if the EU does not move forward politically in response to the Greek crisis, it will move backwards – and the long process of European integration could start to unravel. The EU has always proceeded by creating economic “facts on the ground”, which were intended to trigger political effects. Ever since the 1950s this has worked admirably, as a modest coal and steel community turned into a common market and finally into a Union of 27 nations, with its own parliament, supreme court and foreign policy. Jacques Delors, the European Commission president who presided over the creation of a single market in the 1980s, said frankly: “We’re not here just to make a single market – that doesn’t interest me – but to make a political union.” The creation of the single market involved a huge expansion of European law and therefore deep erosions of national sovereignty."

E já agora, uma nota (antiga) sobre o impacto do Euro nos preços ao consumo:

• Les choses de la vie - La parole est à la dépense - François Reynaert - Chroniques - nouvelobs.com Mais peu importe ces péripéties, seules comptent les conclusions du livre, étonnantes mais sans appel : en fait, si l'on fait une moyenne entre ce qui a monté et aussi tout ce qui a baissé (la technologie, les vêtements), l'Insee a raison, depuis l'euro, les prix n'ont pas tant bougé. C'est une moyenne, par définition, injuste. La hausse de la nourriture pénalise les pauvres, la baisse de l'écran plat ne les concerne pas : quand on n'a pas à bouffer, on ne se commande pas une télé pour la finir avec les restes des steaks hachés d'hier. Evidemment, en parlant de façon globale, on oublie un peu vite les quelques-uns qui se sont scandaleusement goinfrés sur le dos du changement de monnaie : si vous commandez parfois un jambon-beurre ou un café, vous voyez de qui je parle. Mais en moyenne, donc, le pouvoir d'achat est resté stable, le pauvre euro est hors du coup, et pourtant vous savez que vous vous êtes appauvri. Pourquoi ? Tout simplement parce qu'entre tous les nouveaux produits qui sont entrés dans votre vie, les abonnements free truc et les téléphones box machin, vous achetez toujours plus et vous ne vous en rendez pas compte. Ne vous étonnez pas de ce paradoxe, il est à la base même d'un système qui ne rêve que de cela : vous faire consommer encore et encore et, dans le même temps, être sûr que vous en soyez frustré pour que vous dépensiez encore plus. Ce système s'appelle le libéralisme. Sans prétention et chiffres en main, ce petit livre en a mis à nu ce rouage pervers. Pour le coup, c'est sans prix.

Reivindicações intempestivas

Causa Nossa: "Os outros que paguem a crise [Publicado por Vital Moreira] «Frente Sindical quer aumento salarial de 2,5% em 2010». Os funcionários públicos tiveram um aumento real de remunerações de cerca de 5% no corrente ano (o que deve ser um record nacional), mercê da imprudente aumento de 3% e da deflação de quase 2% no custo de vida. Agora querem mais 2,5%, com a inerente sobrecarga orçamental. Tendo em conta o aumento exponencial do défice orçamental (que deve superar os 7%), por causa da crise, e a necessidade de contenção da despesa pública, é caso para dizer que os sindicatos da função pública acham que os seus interesses privativos devem prevalecer contra tudo o resto..."

O argumento sindical mais forte invoca a perda de poder de compra dos ordenados da FP ao longo dos anos. Admitindo a bondade do argumento, e esquecendo que a oferta de bens públicos e semi-públicos é cara no país devido à ineficiência e falta de produtividade, e não olhando para a discussão da questão em outros países europeus (na Irlanda discute-se a diminuição dos salários nominais dos funcionários públicos), a reivindicação é completamente intempestiva face à situação económica do país que é particularmente grave.

Os sindicatos da FP deveriam manifestar-se, e fazer greve, e denunciar o que está mal (por exemplo, situações de corrupção e de desperdício) e o que deveria ser feito para melhorar o funcionamento da Administração Pública porque assim exige o interesse dos seus associados - sem ganhos de eficiência e de produtividade, não pode haver melhorias salariais além da reposição do poder de compra perdido pela inflação (e nesta conjuntura, enfim...).