Neoliberal Offensive Research Articles

Latin American Neostructuralism and Its Differentiation from Latin American Structuralism

Latin American neostructuralism emerged within the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean by 1990. As such, it was aimed at reviewing original Latin American structuralism and updating those contributions to the new phase of global capitalism. Notwithstanding this institutional point of view, this article argues that neostructuralism did not represent an update to Latin American structuralism but rather a differentiation from its critical and original contributions, which relies mainly on the displacement of the center-periphery concept. In the framework of the neoliberal offensive, this change toward capitalism was the result of the greater influence of theories and approaches generated in the center to problematize Latin America’s development, as well as of the requirement to depoliticize the discussion of development. JEL Classification: B2, B5, O1

Unions against neoliberal reform: Argentina's first attempt under democracy

ABSTRACT After the military dictatorship (1976–1983), the neoliberal offensive in Argentina continued under the newly formed democracy. One of its expressions was the labour reform bills proposed by Alfonsín’s administration during 1986. Such reform mainly sought to limit unions’ right to strike and promote company-level bargaining. These elements added to the broader structural adjustment that had begun in 1985. Here, we analyze the characteristics of this reform and the way in which the government's discourse tried to make it compatible with the new democracy, and reconstruct the elements of the historical process, which led it to failure.

The National Health Policy for people with disabilities in Brazil: an analysis of the content, context and the performance of social actors.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the circumstances in which the National Health Policy for Persons with Disabilities (PNSPCD) came into place in 2002 and the factors supporting or impeding its implementation from 2002 to 2018. The analysis was based on the Comprehensive Policy Analysis Model proposed by Walt and Gilson and focussed on understanding the context, process, content and actors involved in the formulation and implementation of the Policy. Data were obtained from two sources: document analysis of the key relevant documents and seven key informant interviews. Content analysis was undertaken using the Condensation of Meanings technique. The research demonstrates that the development and implementation of PNSPCD is marked by advances and retreats, determined, above all, by national and international macro-political decisions. The policy was formulated during Fernando Henrique’s governments, under pressure from social movements and the international agenda and constituted a breakthrough for the rights of persons with disabilities. However, progress on implementation only took place under subsequent centre-left governments with the establishment of a care network for people with disabilities and a defined specific budget. These developments resulted from the mobilization of social movements, the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the rights of people with disabilities and the adherence of these governments to the human rights agenda. The coming to power of ultra-right governments triggered fiscal austerity, a setback in the implementation of the care network and a weakening in the content of various social policies related to the care of people with disabilities. During this era, the political approach changed, with the attempt to evade the role of the State, and the perspective of guaranteeing social rights. Undoubtedly, the neoliberal offensive on social policies, especially the Unified Health System, is the main obstacle to the effective implementation of the PNPCD in Brazil.

A Política Nacional de Saúde Mental: uma reflexão acerca dos retrocessos nos governos Temer e Bolsonaro

Historicamente, uma série de mudanças tem ocorrido nos padrões de atenção à saúde mental no Brasil, por meio da Reforma Psiquiátrica (RP) e da Reforma Sanitária (RS), representando significativas conquistas para a sociedade civil. No entanto, apesar dos avanços, a mercantilização das políticas sociais tem prevalecido na conjuntura brasileira, dada a ofensiva neoliberal que a acompanha desde a década de 1990. Neste sentido, o presente artigo tem como objetivo discutir acerca das principais tendências da Política de Saúde Mental (PSM) brasileira, fazendo um recorte dos frequentes riscos de retrocessos empreendidos pelos governos Temer e Bolsonaro. Para tanto, o método de análise da realidade que pareceu pertinente para este estudo foi o crítico-dialético. Foi realizado uma revisão bibliográfica das principais categorias do estudo (Contrarreforma e Reforma Psiquiátrica) e uma pesquisa documental das principais legislações da PSM, com abordagem qualitativa. A discussão deste estudo aponta, portanto, que a PSM tem se desenvolvido na realidade brasileira, articulando avanço e conservadorismo, sobretudo a partir das propostas de tais governos, sob a ordem de um neoliberalismo ortodoxo, quando se verifica a volta de uma organização das forças restauradoras da saúde mental contra a RP.

Fundos de pensão no Brasil: princípios para uma crítica marxista

Resumo Sob a égide do acabouço teórico-metodológico marxista, este artigo tem por objetivo propor elementos críticos à dinâmica de funcionamento dos fundos de pensão no Brasil. Articulando-se a revisão bibliográfica sobre a temática e o uso de dados empíricos, o texto divide-se em duas seções. A primeira oferece uma visão panorâmica acerca do papel de tais fundos em países centrais e periféricos, tendo em perspectiva seu lugar estrutural no contexto capitalista de mundialização, crise estrutural e ofensiva neoliberal. A segunda seção apresenta as etapas estruturantes que forneceram as bases materiais para expansão dos ativos dos fundos de pensão no país, com destaque para os fundos destinados a servidores públicos. O artigo revela o maciço poder monetário desses fundos e sugere validade à hipótese de que estão configurados para estarem a serviço da alimentação dos mercados financeiros, em detrimento da proteção previdenciária.

A Universidade pública em tempos de ajustes neoliberais e desmonte de direitos

Resumo Neste estudo é apresentada uma análise da educação pública brasileira, com enfoque no ensino superior, que toma por base o histórico da contínua disputa entre projetos para área, considerando suas consequências para a educação brasileira ao longo do tempo. Ao mesmo tempo, busca-se expressar a perspectiva daqueles que estão comprometidos com a luta por uma alternativa transformadora e emancipatória para a educação, diante da conjuntura de ofensiva neoliberal e retirada de direitos. Através das categorias e concepções do pensamento gramsciano, apontam-se instrumentos potencialmente transformadores e fortalecedores da estratégia de resistência à hegemonia burguesa e neoliberal, fazendo deste conjunto de instrumentos um campo de intervenção para professores, pesquisadores e alunos comprometidos com a defesa e com o fortalecimento da universidade pública.

Strategic Social Action Plan for MERCOSUR: Income transfer programs in the context of a neoliberal offensive

Abstract This article analyzes the Strategic Social Action Plan for the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), based on its relationship with the Millennium Development Goals, which means articulating the reflection to the context of the neoliberal offensive in Latin America. Epistemologically the study is based on the dialectical-critical method, involving exploratory research, with a survey of documentary and bibliographic sources. This research revealed that the focus of the social agenda is the establishment of an exit door or the sustained emancipation of families, by means of individual training, based on the theory of human capital and neoliberal ideology. The scope of the study presupposes presenting the contents of the historic processes and the theoretical concepts that permeate the proposals contained in the Strategic Plan, to stimulate the debate about the issue.

Las razones del éxito de PODEMOS: populismo, comunicación audiovisual y marketing político

Este trabajo comienza describiendo la profunda crisis socio-economica y politica que se sufre en Espana, donde se manifiesta cada vez con mayor intensidad la descomposicion de los pilares maestros que sustentan el regimen politico actual (entre otros, la monarquia, el consenso entre las elites, el bipartidismo y el Estado social). La ofensiva neoliberal que ha empobrecido sistematicamente a las clases trabajadoras del mundo tuvo en nuestro pais un punto de ruptura social explosivamente manifestado en el movimiento del 15 de mayo de 2011 (15M), lo cual evidencio una profunda crisis de legitimidad y representatividad a la cual Podemos, el partido politico liderado por Pablo Iglesias, ha sabido dar respuesta mediante la construccion y comunicacion de un discurso participativo y radicalmente democratico. Esta estrategia de batallar la hegemonia, tomada de teoricos politicos como Gramsci y Laclau, se ha aplicado en el diseno de una nueva forma de liderazgo y la articulacion de una estrategia mediatica adecuada a la realidad concreta del pais, una democracia mediatica donde priman la desconfianza y la apatia ciudadana hacia la politica.La configuracion del discurso con base en conceptos como casta, pueblo, crisis de regimen o proceso constituyente ha tenido una gran acogida en la sociedad, y ello se demuestra crecientemente en las sucesivas elecciones, donde observamos un derrumbe del bipartidismo y una expectativa de cambio radical en el sistema politico espanol; la soberania popular, la democracia y el futuro de los pueblos de Espana estan en juego, y Podemos promete ser el jugador que decida el rumbo de la partida.

Grassroots Labor Organizations in Metropolitan Buenos Aires, 2003–2007

During the 1990s, the Argentine working class was hard-hit by the neoliberal offensive, which reversed many of the gains previously won. The decade saw a serious degradation of living conditions and an increase in inequality as a consequence of unemployment and precarious work. After the economic crisis of 2001, labor unions were strengthened by a decline in unemployment and the reactivation of collective bargaining. At the same time, the crisis generated a questioning of the traditional union leadership and the emergence of grassroots organizations (internal committees and bodies of delegates) that introduced democratic decision making to the workplace in accordance with developments at the time in the community assemblies, movements of unemployed workers, and recovered factories. During Néstor Kirchner’s presidency, these organizations led union struggles that had a strong political and social impact and even achieved coordination among themselves outside of the organic labor union groups. Durante la década de 1990, la clase obrera argentina fue muy impactada por la ofensiva neoliberal que revocó muchas de las ganancias previamente obtenidas. La década fue testigo de una degradación grave de las condiciones de vida y un aumento en la desigualdad como consecuencia del desempleo y el trabajo precario. Tras la crisis económica de 2001, los sindicatos fueron reforzados por una disminución del desempleo y la reactivación de la negociación colectiva. Al mismo tiempo, la crisis generó un cuestionamiento de la dirigencia sindical tradicional y el surgimiento de organizaciones de base (comités y cuerpos de delegados) que introdujo la toma de decisiones democrática a los lugares de trabajo en función de los acontecimientos de ese entonces en las asambleas comunitarias, movimientos de trabajadores desempleados, y las fábricas recuperadas. Durante la presidencia de Néstor Kirchner, estas organizaciones condujeron luchas sindicales que tuvieron un fuerte impacto político y social, e incluso lograron coordinación entre sí fuera de los grupos sindicales orgánicos.

Social movements in Latin America: neoliberalism and popular resistance

US Imperialism and the Neoliberal Offensive Capitalist Development, Labour and the Rural Poor: The Politics of Adjustment (Non-Resistance) Dynamics of Agrarian Transformation and Resistance Neoliberalism and the Social Movements: Mobilizing the Resistance Turning the Social Movements: Civil Society to the Rescue A Turning of the Tide: The Centre-Left Comes to Power Social Movements in a Time of Crisis Latin America in the Vortex of Social Change

Dreaming in Technicolour?

India is hardly the only country to suffer from having a brilliant future, even a glorious past, but always an unsatisfactory-if not wretched-present. The condition used to be called underdevelopment and, after centuries of capitalism and of development, it still affects most of the countries of the world, about 5/6th's of the world's population. But the word and the theories it represented-of dependency and imperialism-have all but disappeared from the discourse of social science. These theories were never part of social science's dominant discourse, but in the 1960s and 1970s they enjoyed a substantial presence, challenging the orthodoxies of modernization theory, the reigning discourse articulating the economic position and prospects of the third world in the 1960s. Against modernization theory's arguments that free markets, free trade, and free financial flows would foster development and end backwardness, dependency theory insisted that uncierdevelopment (not an original backwardness) was the result of precisely these policies. While many dependency theorists concluded that no development was possible under capitalism, others suggested that with extensive state intervention, managed trade, and control over international financial movements a version of it could be achieved. Soon after dependency theory emerged, however, the neoliberal offensive commenced. Neoliberalism's political success (it was never an intellectual one) came in tandem with the broader advance of the new globally. The result was to occlude talk of imperialism, dependency, and underdevelopment.The neoliberal offensive was conducted on many fronts. Amid the miraculous industrialization of the four East Asian tiger in the 19703,' neoliberalism sought to claim that their successes were the result of free-market strategies. Ensuing debates soon clarified, however, that these cases constituted no neoliberal refutations of dependency, nor were they viable neoliberal models for the rest of the developing world. Their intervened extensively in their economies and because they were major stakes in the Cold War, they had better external linkages (in terms of aid, access to markets etc.) than those available to any other developing country. A vast and sprawling literature emerged over the next decade that drew on the experience of these tigers to argue that the right kind of state with the right kind of strategy for intervention could successfully foster industrialization in third world contexts, thus conceding some of the main points of the dependency theory.2 However, this literature on states still overlooked many others: for example that the muchvaunted relative autonomy of the state that made key successful industrializers more effective and active in fostering industrial development was due to their being military and political allies of the US; or that the Cold War had created more favourable external linkages than would ever be available to other third world states.3 These oversights meant that while the tiger were indeed good examples of developmental states, they could not yield lessons for the rest of the third world.But such scholarly questions hardly undermined the political power of neoliberalism.4 In the rest of the developing world the debt crisis had struck, and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which had already become converts to neoliberalism, used the occasion to impose neoliberal orthodoxies on the vast majority of developing countries in the form of structural adjustment programs. As a result, the 19803 and 19903 became known as lost decades of development with a great many countries registering negative growth rates and experiencing IMF riots. So dismal was the record of neoliberal policies that the 19803 closed with the World Bank being forced to admit at least a mild state role in development.5 Once again, however, this advance of critical discourse was easily reversed as the enthusiasm of the next decade came to the fore: the tide of globalization-another name for neoliberal policies-was going to lift all boats, even the leakiest ones with the most tattered sails. …

From a policy of inequality to a proposal of equity: political processes and health care in the municipality of São Paulo.

A tentative analysis is made of the recent São Paulo experience in health care management, in which the chief guideline has been to create institutional space for grass-roots and health worker participation within the State apparatus. The analysis takes Brazil's recent health policies and the so-called Sanitary Reform movement as reference points. The issue is approached from the angle of democracy and democracy's possibilities in the context of a society characterized by tremendous social inequalities, and in the context of the current international and national neoliberal offensive.