Por Salvador Passos
Gostaria de fazer uma relação entre a morte da ex-primeira ministra inglesa e um artigo publicado por Nassif no blog a cerca de uma semana (http://www.advivo.com.br/blog/luisnassif/a-economia-e-o-renascimento-da-…). Neste artigo Nassif comenta um estudo que mostrava que por vezes políticas que buscavam reduzir “imperfeições de mercado” tinham como custo desequilibrar a relação de forças políticas. Neste artigo Nassif escreveu:
“Tome-se o caso do enfraquecimento dos sindicatos nos Estados Unidos. Sem o contrapeso, houve um aumento extraordinário do poder dos executivos, em vários escândalos corporativos e, mais que isso, em uma ampliação tal da desregulação financeira que levou à grande crise de 2008.”
Creio que o mesmo pode ser atribuindo a Margareth Thatcher. Em artigo publicado no The Guardian Seumas Milne afirma algo semelhante (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/04/margaret-thatcher-st…)
“A common British establishment view – and the implicit position of The Iron Lady – is that while Thatcher took harsh measures and “went too far”, it was necessary medicine to restore the sick economy of the 1970s to healthy growth.
It did nothing of the sort. Average growth in the Thatcherite 80s, at 2.4%, was exactly the same as in the sick 70s – and considerably lower than during the corporatist 60s. Her government’s savage deflation destroyed a fifth of Britain’s industrial base in two years, hollowed out manufacturing, and delivered a “productivity miracle” that never was, and we’re living with the consequences today.
What she did succeed in doing was to restore class privilege, boosting profitability while slashing employees’ share of national income from 65% to 53% through her assault on unions. Britain faced a structural crisis in the 1970s, but there were multiple routes out of it. Thatcher imposed a neoliberal model now seen to have failed across the world.
It’s hardly surprising that some might want to put a benign gloss on Thatcher’s record when another Tory-led government is forcing through Thatcher-like policies – and riots, mounting unemployment and swingeing benefits cuts echo her years in power. The rehabilitation isn’t so much about then as now, which is one reason it can’t go unchallenged. Thatcher wasn’t a “great leader”. She was the most socially destructive prime minister of modern times.”
Ao atacar pesadamente os sindicatos Thatcher deu o tom do que seria o neoliberalismo. Pela via da liberalização financeira e ataque aos direitos trabalhistas. Estas duas políticas foram responsáveis pela crise pela via da desregulamentação e pela dificuldade de se encontrar alternativas. Os ataques aos sindicatos desmobilizou a população e esvaziou movimentos políticos tradicionalmente ligados aos sindicatos. O que resta são movimentos alter-mundistas do tipo Occupy, com inspiração anarquista que apesar de terem ganhado capacidade de mobilização pela utilização das tecnologias de comunicação, perderam a conexão com os partidos políticos tradicionais. A assimetria de poder entre corporações e sociedade civil foi ampliada pelas políticas de Thatcher.
Os partidos trabalhistas acabaram por abraçar a agenda neoliberal, os sindicatos perderam representatividade política. A maior parte dos lideres ingleses segue prestando homenagens a ex-primeira ministra. Vale dar uma olhada na entrevista de Tariq Ali ao site americano Democracy Now onde o mesmo confirma que as políticas de Thatcher não morreram:
“TARIQ ALI: …Her legacy is still very much in force, so she’s not at all dead in terms of what is going on in this country. Her policies are being carried out by the coalition government. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, New Labour prime ministers, were completely enthralled to her. She was the first person invited by Blair to 10 Downing Street when he became prime minister, to show how much he owed her, and Gordon Brown did exactly the same thing. So we have had a continuum, that the process Margaret Thatcher started off was carried on by Blair, who used rhetoric on the Iraq, Kosovo and Afghan wars very similar to the rhetoric she used on the Falklands. And this policy has continued. So her legacy is effectively to have wrecked Britain economically and to have made it a total vassal state of the American empire…”
Tariq conclui:
“…on every level, Amy, domestic level, international level, Thatcherism continues. One shouldn’t imagine that it’s over. And I hate to say this, but the fact that we haven’t come up, or no one has—neither the center-left or anyone else has managed to come up with an alternative to the Wall Street crash of 2008, does indicate that there was some truth in her statement that there is no alternative, at least as far as the mainstream is concerned.”
Segue um link para o video da entrevista completa de Tariq Ali e a trancrição em inglês
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