O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;

Meu Twitter: https://twitter.com/PauloAlmeida53

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulobooks

Mostrando postagens com marcador história econômica. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador história econômica. Mostrar todas as postagens

sexta-feira, 24 de junho de 2022

A ordem econômica mundial e a América Latina: ensaios sobre dois séculos de história econômica - livro de Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Eu, pessoalmente, gosto muito desse livro, pois que condensa muitos anos de pesquisa econômica e de sínteses de livros de história econômica, assim como de questões da atualidade econômica do Brasil e da América Latina: 

A ordem econômica mundial e a América Latina: ensaios sobre dois séculos de história econômica (Pensamento Político Livro 2) por [Paulo Roberto de Almeida]

A ordem econômica mundial e a América Latina: ensaios sobre dois séculos de história econômica 

(Pensamento Político Livro 2) eBook Kindle 


Os ensaios coletados neste livro consolidam uma longa trajetória de pesquisas acadêmicas e de atuação prática – no quadro da diplomacia brasileira – em torno dos grandes temas das relações econômicas internacionais, do século XIX à atualidade, e da inserção da América Latina na economia global. Eles resultam, por um lado, do estudo aplicado à história econômica mundial e, por outro, do papel nela desempenhado pelas economias dos principais países latino-americanos, assim como derivam da experiência adquirida pelo autor no campo da representação diplomática e das negociações práticas em diversos foros de debate e de conformação de acordos e instituições internacionais e regionais voltados para o comércio, as finanças e os investimentos internacionais, assim como aos processo de integração econômica. Eles condensam muitos anos, ou mesmo várias décadas, de leituras e de reflexões sobre os temas do desenvolvimento econômico e das relações internacionais do Brasil no contexto mundial e regional. 
Os ensaios podem tanto servir de guia de estudos para os estudantes dessas áreas, quanto como material de discussão sobre problemas concretos da economia internacional dos últimos dois séculos, com ênfase para a América Latina, desde o século XIX até a fase contemporânea. Os capítulos – complementados por muitas tabelas estatísticas e gráficos ilustrativos – são os seguintes: 
1. As ideias e as realidades: a economia mundial do século XIX ao XX
2. Economia mundial: de onde viemos, para onde vamos? 
3. O equilíbrio europeu de poderes e os imperialismos 
4. O que move o mundo? A energia e suas transformações
5. Os cinquenta anos que mudaram o mundo 
6. Sobressaltos da globalização, da belle époque ao entre guerras 
7. Economia mundial: do livre comércio ao protecionismo 
8. As grandes mudanças da ordem econômica mundial desde o século XIX
9. Os dois grandes conflitos globais: impactos econômicos 
10. Finanças internacionais: do padrão ouro às desvalorizações agressivas 
11. Fundamentos de uma nova ordem econômica mundial: Bretton Woods
12. A grande divergência e a América Latina, 1890-1940
13. A América Latina na ordem econômica mundial desde o século XIX
14. Dinâmicas da economia no século XX 
15. O Bric e a substituição de hegemonias: um exercício duvidoso
16. O Brasil no Brics
17. A longa trajetória da América Latina na economia mundial

https://www.amazon.com.br/ordem-econ%C3%B4mica-mundial-Am%C3%A9rica-Latina-ebook/dp/B08CCFDVM2/ref=sr_1_37?crid=38E44Y68V88S3&keywords=paulo+roberto+de+almeida&qid=1656119134&sprefix=Paulo+Roberto+de+%2Caps%2C320&sr=8-37 



sábado, 12 de março de 2022

A economia mundial em perspectiva histórica, artigo resenha (1996) - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A ECONOMIA MUNDIAL EM PERSPECTIVA HISTÓRICA

Artigo-resenha

 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Publicado na Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional

(vol. 39, n. 2, julho-dezembro 1996, p. 136-151). Relação de Publicados n. 199.

 

David Hackett Fischer:

The Great Wave: price revolutions and the rhythm of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 536 p.)

Charles P. Kindleberger:

World Economic Primacy: 1500 to 1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 270 p.)

Harold James: 

International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods (Washington: International Monetary Fund/New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 742 p.)

Jacob A. Frenkel e Morris Goldstein (eds):

International Financial Policy: essays in honor of Jacques J. Polak (Washington: International Monetary Fund/Nederlandsche Bank, 1991, 508 p.)

Brad Roberts (ed):

New Forces in the World Economy (Cambridge: Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996, 438 p.)

Craig N. Murphy:

International Organization and Industrial Change: global governance since 1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, 338 p.)

Daniel Verdier:

Democracy and International Trade: Britain, France and the United States, 1860-1990 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994, 388 p.)

 

Todos os livros aqui resenhados tratam, em função de prazos mais ou menos longos, da história do desenvolvimento econômico capitalista visto na perspectiva da longue durée. As exceções parciais são o trabalho de James e os  ensaios coletados em Frenkel-Goldstein sobre o primeiro meio século de vida do FMI e do sistema financeiro internacional e, de modo mais afirmado, a obra coletiva editada por Roberts que, constituindo uma coletânea de artigos contemporâneos, previamente publicados na revista de relações internacionais da Universidade de Washington, The Washington Quarterly, refere-se mais bem à “economia política internacional atual”, discutindo assim questões diversas do novo ordenamento econômico mundial no contexto dos anos 90. 

Os demais trabalhos, contudo, abordam, segundo ênfases temáticas, cortes geográficos e contextos diacrônicos que lhes são próprios, a emergência original, a afirmação progressiva, o desenvolvimento e a própria restruturação atual das grandes forças econômicas, políticas, monetárias e sociais que, atuando conjuntamente (ainda que não de forma coordenada), moldaram esse mesmo ordenamento mundial, a partir da época das grandes descobertas dos séculos XV-XVI — ou mesmo antes, no caso do livro de Fischer — até a crise e esgotamento do mundo de Bretton Woods, que epitomiza a própria essência do sistema liberal-capitalista no último meio século. Esses livros condensam o que de melhor o pensamento acadêmico anglo-saxão produziu recentemente em termos de pesquisa comparada e de síntese de boa qualidade de história econômica, suscetível de acolher diferentes abordagens metodológicas na iluminação do itinerário econômico da sociedade capitalista através de vastos períodos de tempo. Em espírito e motivação, eles também inovam substancialmente em relação àquela “velha” vertente eclética da história econômica universitária, de inspiração sobretudo britânica, ao estilo de um Eli Heckscher, de um Robert Tawney, ou da Economic History Review, na qual um “liberal” como Charles Wilson, de Anglo-Dutch Commerce and Finance e de Economic History and the Historian, digladiava intelectualmente com os “marxistas” Maurice Dobb, de Studies in the Development of Capitalism, Edward Thompson, de The Formation the English Working Class, Christopher Hill de The Century of Revolution e Reformation to Industrial Revolution ou, ainda, Eric Hobsbawm de Industry and Empire

Não se trata tanto, nestes livros, de história das “ideias” econômicas — à la Hobson, Sombart ou Schumpeter —, de análise de processos e tendências “fundacionais” — do tipo Capitalism and the Decline of Religion de Tawney, ou o seu contrário, Religion and the Decline of Capitalism de Canon Demant —, menos ainda de grandes “sínteses” de história econômica mundial — tais como as produzidas por Rostow, Rondo Cameron ou Herman van der Wee —, ou de ensaios de tipo “estrutural” — a exemplo de Simon Kuznets e Alexander Gerschenkron — ou, ainda, de “new economic history” — tal como produzida por cliometristas como Robert Fogel ou institucionalistas como Douglass North — mas, mais propriamente, de estudos comparados ou singulares sobre desenvolvimentos econômicos globais — os ensaios de amplo escopo histórico de Fischer e de Kindleberger —, de interpretações inovadoras sobre a emergência e evolução de organizações internacionais e de políticas nacionais — os livros de James, de Murphy e de Verdier — e de artigos de acadêmicos e de “policy-makers” sobre os elementos dinâmicos da economia mundial em transformação — as compilações de Roberts e de Frenkel-Goldstein. Vejamos cada um deles em particular.

(...)


Ler a íntegra em

Academia.edu (link: https://www.academia.edu/73613258/A_economia_mundial_em_perspectiva_histórica_artigo_resenha_1996_

ou em

Research Gate (link:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359195582_A_ECONOMIA_MUNDIAL_EM_PERSPECTIVA_HISTORICA_Artigo-resenha)


domingo, 9 de maio de 2021

História do pensamento econômico - Alexis Karklins-Marchay

  


O economista e historiador Alexis Karklins-Marchay, autor de uma obra de história econômica chamada Histoire impertinente de la pensée économique : D’Aristote à Jean Tirole (2016), publicou uma série de 24 tuites ilustrados para chamar a atenção para os verdadeiros criadores do pensamento econômico no século XVI, os religiosos da Universidade de Salamanca, cujo texto – à exclusão das belas imagens – tenho o prazer de transcrever abaixo.


https://twitter.com/alexiskarklins (8/05/2021)



1/ La pensée économique moderne n’est pas née dans le monde anglo-saxon aux XVIIIe-XIX siècles avec Adam Smith et David Ricardo, mais au XVIe siècle avec des théologiens issus de la prestigieuse université espagnole de Salamanque. 

 

2/ Ce fait, largement ignoré pendant des siècles et encore méconnu, a heureusement été révélé au XXe siècle, notamment grâce à Joseph Schumpeter dans sa monumentale Histoire de l’analyse économique (1954).

 

3/ Les théologiens de Salamanque se sont intéressés à de nombreux sujets en rapport avec la guerre et l’économie. S’il n’y pas d’homogénéité entre tous les auteurs, leur cheminement et leurs conclusions constituent un maillon essentiel de l’évolution de la pensée occidentale.

 

4/ Si au départ, ils se fondent sur les écrits bibliques et sur la philosophie de Thomas d’Aquin, leurs analyses dépassent tout ce qui avait pu été écrit avant eux. Le libéralisme aussi bien politique qu’économique se développe à Salamanque.

 

5/ Les théologiens reformulent en premier lieu la théorie du droit naturel en affirmant qu’il existe des lois naturelles valables pour chaque être humain. Ils concluent que tous les hommes sont égaux et ont les mêmes droits.

 

6/ Ils s’élèvent ainsi contre les préjugés et les conceptions de leur temps à l’encontre des Indiens massacrés par les conquérants espagnols et portugais. Ils s’interrogent en parallèle sur la légitimité elle-même de la conquête.

 

7/ Francisco de Vitoria (1480-1546), considéré comme l’inventeur du droit international, nie par exemple la validité des bulles papales relatives à la possession des terres découvertes sur le continent américain.

 

8/ Comme les Indiens occupaient les terres avant l’arrivée des Espagnols, ces derniers ne peuvent en devenir propriétaires de droit juste en les conquérant et en détruisant les populations autochtones.

 

9/ Les théologiens de Salamanque ont engagé des réflexions sur les fondements de la souveraineté. Etablissant une distinction centrale entre pouvoir naturel et pouvoir spirituel, ils rejettent l’autorité politique de l’Eglise ainsi que l’absolutisme.

 

10/ Selon Luis de Molina (1535-1600), le pouvoir d'une nation résiderait dans les mains de chacun des administrés. Seul le peuple est souverain et peut déléguer l’autorité politique à un ou à quelques hommes.

 

11/ Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) considère que la forme de gouvernement la plus naturelle est la démocratie, la monarchie ou l’oligarchie n’étant acceptables que si elles sont choisies et consenties par le peuple.

 

12/ En matière économique, Salamanque est le véritable berceau de la réflexion économique. Pour la première fois dans l’histoire, un groupe de penseurs façonne un véritable corpus d’analyses sur les thématiques centrales de l’économie.

 

13/ Francisco de Vitoria, interrogé par des marchands d’Anvers, conclut que le commerce est légitime, qu’il permet aux hommes de se rencontrer et qu’il contribue à la richesse de la communauté.

 

14/ Diego de Covarrubias (1512-1577) réaffirme la vision thomiste selon laquelle la propriété privée stimule l’activité économique. Luis de Molina rappelle lui que les biens sont mieux entretenus par un propriétaire privé que lorsqu’ils sont une propriété commune.

 

15/ Juan de Mariana (1536-1624) insiste sur le fait que l’interventionnisme du prince conduit à déstabiliser les conditions économiques : "Il est préférable de laisser ces conditions comme elles sont que de chercher à les modifier de force au détriment du plus grand nombre".

 

16/ Mariana explique que l’impôt étant une appropriation d’une partie de la richesse d’un sujet, il faut avoir le consentement du peuple avant de le prélever. Il condamne également toutes formes déguisées d’imposition (monopoles d’Etat, manipulation des cours des monnaies).

 

17/ Martin d’Azpilcueta (1491-1586) établit les bases de la théorie quantitative de la monnaie. Si l’Espagne veut combattre l’inflation, le budget royal doit être équilibré : "il n’y a aucun royaume au monde où il y a autant de prix, de commissions, de pensions, de postes".

 

18/ Diego Covarrubias et Luis de Molina fondent la théorie subjective de la valeur, théorie selon laquelle la valeur d’un bien ne dépend pas de la quantité de travail nécessaire à sa production mais de l'utilité de ce bien pour un acheteur.

 

19/ Luis Sarabia de la Calle affirme dans un traité rédigé en castillan "Instruccion de mercarderes" (Instruction pour les marchands) que "ceux qui mesurent le juste prix par le travail, les coûts et le risque d’un bien sont totalement dans l’erreur"

 

20/ Les théologiens de Salamanque s’affranchissent enfin de la vision scolastique réaffirmée lors du 2e concile de Latran (1139) selon laquelle toute forme d’intérêt sur un prêt serait illégitime. Les penseurs espagnols trouvent au contraire plusieurs raisons pour le justifier.

 

21/ Celui qui reçoit le prêt peut lui-même faire un profit. Il est donc juste qu’une partie de ce profit soit partagée avec celui qui a consenti les fonds. D'autre part, l’intérêt est légitime puisqu’il correspond à la prime de risque pour le prêteur.

 

22/ Enfin, selon Martin d’Azpilcueta, l’intérêt correspond à une renonciation à court terme. Il est moralement acceptable de prêter avec un intérêt à un emprunteur, cet intérêt compensant le manque à gagner pour le prêteur pour tout le temps où il se prive de l'argent,

 

23/ L’Ecole de Salamanque est véritablement "révolutionnaire" car non seulement, elle montre que le marché et la liberté sont plus efficaces d’un point de vue économique mais qu’ils sont également moralement justes.

 

24/ Il est temps de redécouvrir ces théologiens espagnols qui posèrent les fondements du libéralisme, philosophie politique et économique appelée à connaître un grand succès dans les siècles suivants.

 

FIN

 

sexta-feira, 7 de maio de 2021

Uma “mini-história” da globalização- Harold James (Foreign Affairs)

 Apenas acho que não se deveria chamar a expansão da economia mundial da segunda metade do século XIX (até 1914) de “primeira onda” da globalização. Para mim é a segunda, sendo a primeira a dos Decobrimentos, com Colombo, Vasco da Gama e Fernão de Magalhães como seus principais promotores. Claro, essa primeira onda seria logo interrompida pelos “exclusivos comerciais” criados pelos grandes impérios coloniais europeus, para só ressurgir como segunda onda após a navegação a vapor que se expande na segunda metade do século XIX. A terceira onda, por sua vez, só aparece, de fato, após a implosão do socialismo e a unificação dos mercados globais nos anos 1990: não creio que ela venha a ser interrompida agora pela pandemia, que representa apenas um pequeno choque de nacionalismo e introversão numa tendência geral de interdependência crescente. 

Antiglobalizadores e antiglobalistas são espécies em extinção, reacionários irracionais condenados ao desaparecimento nas dobras da História. Bolsonaro— assim como Trump, Modi e outros desglobalizadores — é um personagem menor, e completamente medíocre, dessa grande história.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 


Foreign Affairs, Nova York – 6/05/2021

Globalization’s Coming Golden Age

Why Crisis Ends in Connection

Harold James

 

The  thought that trade and globalization might make a comeback in the 2020s, picking up renewed vigor after the pandemic, may seem far-fetched. After all, COVID-19 is fragmenting the world, destroying multilateralism, and disrupting complex cross-border supply chains. The virus looks like it is completing the work of the 2008 financial crisis: the Great Recession produced more trade protectionism, forced governments to question globalization, increased hostility to migration, and, for the first time in over four decades, ushered in a sustained period in which global trade grew more slowly than global production. Even then, however, there was no complete reversal or deglobalization; rather, there was an uncertain, sputtering “slobalization.” In contrast, today’s vaccine nationalism is rapidly driving China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States into open confrontation and sowing bitter conflict within the EU. It is all too easy to extrapolate and see a future of “nobalization”—globalization vanishing in a viral haze.

Over the past two centuries, the course of trade and globalization has been shaped by how governments and people have responded to such crises. Globalization comes in cycles: periods of increasing integration are followed by shocks, crises, and destructive backlashes. After the Great Depression, the world slid into autarky, nationalism, authoritarianism, zero-sum thinking, and, ultimately, war—a series of events often presented as a grim parable of the consequences of globalization’s reversal. Yet history shows that many crises produce more, rather than less, globalization. Challenges can generate new creative energy, better communication, and a greater willingness to learn from effective solutions adopted elsewhere. Governments often realize that their ability to competently deliver the services their populations demand requires answers found abroad.

Modern globalization, for instance, began as a response to social and financial catastrophes in the 1840sThe most recent wave of globalization followed scarring economic disruptions in the 1970s. In both cases, shocks laid the foundation for new international connections and solutions, and the volume of world trade surged dramatically. The truth is that historic ruptures often generate and accelerate new global links. COVID-19 is no exception. After the pandemic, globalization will come roaring back.

 

THE FIRST TIME AROUND

 

The 1840s were a disaster. Crops failed, people went hungry, disease spread, and financial markets collapsed. The best-known catastrophe was the Irish potato famine, which began in 1845 and led to the deaths of nearly one million people, mostly from diseases caused by malnutrition. The same weather that made potatoes vulnerable to fungal rot also led to widespread crop failures and famine across Europe. In The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels articulated how global integration was driving the world toward social and political upheaval. “The development of Modern Industry,” they argued, “cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products.”

Europe was a tinderbox. In 1848, it ignited in an inferno of nationalist revolution, with populations rising up in France, Italy, and central Europe. But the economic shock of the 1840s did not reverse the course of global integration. Instead, trade expanded, governments reduced tariff barriers, capital mobility surged, and people moved across continents. Migration was not only a response to social and political immiseration; it also reflected the promise of new prosperity.

Historians now think of the second half of the nineteenth century as the first age of globalization. Food shortages highlighted the need for broad and diversified supply chains, and leaders realized that a modern state needed reliable access to supplies from beyond its borders. In the United Kingdom, the British government initially responded to the Irish famine by importing corn from outside Europe. At the time, The Economist argued that “except Russia, Egypt, and the United States, there are no countries in the world able to spare any quantity of grain worthy of mention.”

Historic ruptures often generate and accelerate new global links.

Imports, however, failed catastrophically. This was in part because the new food was unfamiliar, but above all, it was because London couldn’t work out how to pay for the goods. Trade deficits generated currency shortages, which pushed up interest rates in the United Kingdom and France. This intensified a manufacturing crisis—itself the result of a decline in purchasing power caused by surging food prices. Although the best solution was to sell more goods abroad, that would have required governments to lower trade barriers and open up their markets.

These shortages generated popular demands for more competent governments. Although it was only in 1981 that the economist Amartya Sen’s pioneering work on the 1943 great Bengal famine definitively showed that famines are often manmade, that intuition was already widely shared in the 1840s. John Mitchel, an Irish nationalist who emigrated to the United States, concluded, “No sack of Magdeburg, or ravage of the Palatinate, ever approached in horror and desolation to the slaughters done in Ireland by mere official red tape and stationery, and the principles of political economy.”

Governments everywhere eventually responded to these demands. That meant learning from successful efforts elsewhere. The United Kingdom enacted a series of civil service reforms, adopting a competitive examination process in place of arcane patronage. The most striking extension of state capacity, however, occurred across the English Channel, where Louis-Napoléon, the nephew of the emperor, was elected president of France in 1848. After a coup and a series of plebiscites advertising his competence and activism, Napoleon made himself president for life and, eventually, emperor—Napoleon III. His policies were designed to show the benefits of an efficient autocrat over divided liberal regimes. He initiated large-scale public works projects—including railroad expansions and Baron Haussmann’s famous rebuilding of Paris.

Napoleon also demonstrated his competence by negotiating the Anglo-French tariff agreement of 1860, which reduced duties on important goods traded across the channel. Other countries quickly followed suit and negotiated bilateral trade deals of their own across Europe. But even before 1860, improved communication and transportation meant commerce was surging: global trade in goods accounted for just 4.5 percent of output in 1846 but shot up to 8.9 percent in 1860.

The events of the 1840s also laid the foundation for a wave of institutional changes to address the proliferation of small states with a limited ability to deal with migration. The creation of new nation-states with novel currencies and banking systems, notably Germany and Italy, and administrative reform in the Habsburg empire—ending internal customs duties and serf labor—were all designed to push economic growth. In this context, the American Civil War and the Meiji Restoration in Japan were also nation-building efforts meant to maximize the effectiveness and capacity of institutions. The abolition of slavery in the United States and feudalism in Japan were profound social and economic transformations. Both upheavals, moreover, led to monetary and banking reforms.

Business competence was also newly in demand. In 1851, the United Kingdom celebrated its industrial strength with the Great Exhibition—an international fair intended to display British ingeniousness and mechanical superiority, as well as the virtues of peaceful commerce. Some of the most stunning products, however, were neither British nor particularly peaceful—among them, the steel cannon, invented by a German, Alfred Krupp, and the revolver, developed by an American, Samuel Colt. British observers saw continental Europeans catching up and overtaking their own country. To the British scientist Lyon Playfair, the exhibition showed “very clearly and distinctly that the rate of industrial advance of many European nations, even of those who were obviously in our rear, was at a greater rate than our own.” He went on: “In a long race the fastest sailing ship will win, even though they are for a time behind.” The event taught world leaders a powerful lesson: international trade was vital for enhancing national performance. Competition was central to generating competence.

The result was an abrupt psychological shift from catastrophism to optimism, and from despair to self-confidence. This new mood initiated the first wave of globalization—its so-called golden age, in which international trade and finance expanded rapidly. Eventually, however, this optimism gave way to complacency, then doubts about the benefits of globalization and increasing disillusion among those left behind (notably European farmers). The upswing came to an end with World War I. That conflict prompted a massive international rebuilding effort that faltered bloodily with the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the advent of World War II.

 

A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM

 

The makers of the postwar settlement in 1945 had learned a great deal from the mistakes of the last century. They created an extensive framework of international institutions but left substantial economic control in the hands of national authorities. As a result, the end of World War II did not immediately unleash waves of capital mobility like those that had characterized the nineteenth century. Nearly three decades later, however, the dilemmas raised by shortages and scarcity that had led to earlier versions of integration finally returned—setting the stage for the current era of globalization.

In the 1970s, after two large oil price hikes, the industrialized world saw its way of life threatened. Oil prices had been stable in the 1960s, but a surge in demand taught producers that they could exploit control over the world’s most important commodity. Adding to the crunch, the first oil shock, in 1973–74, was accompanied by a 30 percent rise in wheat prices, after the Soviet Union experienced poor harvests and bought up U.S. grain to compensate. Shortages reappeared. Some oil-importing countries imposed “car-free days” as a way of rationing gasoline consumption. As states spent more on oil, grain, and other commodities, they found their balance of payments squeezed. Unable to afford vital goods from abroad, governments had to make hard choices. Many floundered as they tried to ration scarce goods: mandating who could drive cars when or struggling over whether they should pay nurses more than teachers, police officers, or civil servants.

The immediate and instinctual response to scarcity was protectionism. In the United Kingdom, where the balance-of-payments problem appeared earlier than elsewhere, the government tried a domestic purchasing campaign, supported by all the major political parties. Leaders encouraged citizens to wear stickers and badges with the Union Jack and the message “I’m backing Britain.” (The press magnate Robert Maxwell distributed T-shirts with a similar slogan, but they turned out to be made in Portugal.) In the mid-1970s, after the first oil shock, the government briefly flirted with what the Labour Party’s left flank called a “siege economy,” including extensive import restrictions. In the United States, there was acute anxiety about Japanese competition, and in 1981, Washington pressured Tokyo to sign an agreement that limited Japanese car exports. The move backfired, however. Because of the new restrictions, Japanese producers merely shifted their focus away from cheap, fuel-efficient cars and toward luxury vehicles.

Despite these gestures at economic nationalism, the oil shock—paradoxically at first—created more globalization. In conjunction with price increases, a financial revolution driven by the emergence of large international banks transferred huge surpluses accumulated by oil producers into lendable funds. The new availability of money made resources easily accessible for governments all over the world that wanted to push development and growth. International demand thus surged. In contrast, in the United Kingdom, Labour’s siege economy looked like it would cut off access to markets and prosperity.

Familiar historical forces will drive post-pandemic reglobalization.

Thus, crises in the 1970s led to the same realization as in the 1840s: openness produced resilience, and financing needed to be available for trade to expand. The eventual impact was obvious: trade in goods and services, which in 1970 had amounted to 12.1 percent of global GDP, increased to 18.2 percent by 1980. The cycle swung back to globalization once again.

Protectionism in the 1970s also triggered a discussion of whether governments were handling the crisis competently. At first, the debate was personalized and highly caricatured: in the United States, it centered on Richard Nixon’s crookery, Gerald Ford’s supposed inability to chew gum and walk, or Jimmy Carter’s micromanagement.In the United Kingdom, commentators focused on the detached bachelor existence of Prime Minister Edward Heath and then on allegations of cronyism against his successor, Harold Wilson. France went into the oil shock under the very sick President Georges Pompidou, who died of cancer in 1974. In West Germany, the revelation that Chancellor Willy Brandt’s closest assistant was an East German spy undermined the country’s reputation for competence. His successor, Helmut Schmidt, believed that Germany was returning to the chaos of the interwar Weimar Republic.

The many examples of personal incompetence in rich industrial democracies generated the thesis that such countries had become ungovernable. The political theorist Jean-François Revel concluded that democracies were perishing and that the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War. Autocracies such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet and Iran under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi appeared better suited to handle modern global challenges. The autocrats lectured others about their superiority. In reality, however, they were bloody, corrupt, and, in many cases, spectacularly unsuccessful.

The real insight of the debate over administrative effectiveness was that governments could overstretch themselves by taking on too many tasks. That realization inspired a key tenet of what was later widely derided as “neoliberalism”: the belief that if governments took on microdecisions, such as determining wage and price levels (a central part of both Nixon’s and the British government’s bids to contain inflation), they risked their legitimacy and reputation for competence. Official decisions would appear both arbitrary and unenforceable because powerful groups would quickly make sure that new settlements favored their interests.


INFLATION NATION

The shortages of the 1840s and the 1970s both seemed to have an apparent cure: inflation. Inflation can help accommodate shocks, often painlessly. Because people have more cash or bank credit, monetary abundance generates the impression that they can have everything they want. Only gradually do consumers realize that prices are rising and that their money buys less.

In the 1850s, inflation may have been partially unintended. It was largely the result of the 1849 California Gold Rush, which vastly increased the world’s gold stock. Price increases were also driven by financial innovation, primarily Europe’s adoption of new types of banking that drove money creation, such as the so-called crédits mobiliers, which developed industrial lending in France and central Europe. By giving people apparently greater wealth, this increase in the supply of money (and the resulting mild inflation) helped governments appear more competent and made businesses and consumers more confident. It prompted a genuine global surge in production, which generated greater prosperity and security.

After 1971, when Nixon finally severed the link between the dollar and gold, monetary policy was no longer constrained by a metallic standard. In times of crisis, governments could now print more money to drive growth. In many countries, the immediate response to oil price increases was therefore to accommodate the shock through expansive fiscal and monetary stimulus: people could still go on buying. That reaction spurred inflation, which by 1974 had risen to 11 percent in the United States and beyond that in some other countries: in 1975, the United Kingdom’s inflation rate reached 24 percent.


Although inflation initially seemed to be the solution to the scarcity problem, it soon appeared in diagnoses of government incompetence. The economist Arthur Okun developed a popular “misery index” by simply adding inflation and unemployment. The metric became an important political weapon. The Democratic presidential challenger George McGovern used it against Nixon in 1972, Carter used it against Ford in 1976, and Ronald Reagan used it against Carter in 1980.

High inflation at first superficially stabilizes societies, but over time, it becomes a threat. Inflation often pushes interest groups—internationally, producer cartels such as OPEC, and domestically, labor unions—to mobilize, organize, and lobby in the hope of acquiring a greater share of monetary and fiscal resources. Depending on the extent of that mobilization, it can pull societies apart, as unions leapfrog each other with aggressive wage demands and inflation erodes the pay and pensions of the nonunionized and the retired. By demonstrating that governments are vulnerable to organized pressure, inflation is thus a destabilizing force in the long term. Indeed, analysts have argued that it was at least in part generalized international inflation in the 1960s that pushed oil producers to organize—leading to the price hikes of the 1970s.


Monetary experiments of this sort created demands for new ordering frameworks. After the surge in economic growth of the mid-nineteenth century, the world internationalized the gold standard to create a common framework for international payments. Although policymakers went a different route after the inflation and liberalization of the 1970s, they were also looking for a return to stability. To end the monetary disorder, central banks targeted a low inflation rate, and governments engaged in new patterns of cooperation abroad—creating the G-5 and then the G-7 and the G-20 as forums for discussing collective responses to global economic challenges. The quest for stability was also aided by the steady march of globalization. Greater global integration lowered production costs and thus helped correct the inflationary surge that initially accompanied the shortage economy. Inflation, which first fueled globalization in the 1850s, was, by the end of the twentieth century, eventually tamed by it.

PAST AS PROLOGUE

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has produced a deep economic crisis, but it is different from many past ones. The shock is not a demand-driven downturn, like the Great Depression or the 2008 recession. Although lockdowns have interrupted supply and caused unemployment to soar, there is no overall shortage of demand. Large rescue and stimulus packages in rich countries have generated a financial buffer, and savings have shot up as people spend less. The best estimate is that in 2020, the United States piled up $1.6 trillion in excess savings, equivalent to seven percent of GDP. People are waiting to unleash their pent-up purchasing power. On top of that, finance ministers and international institutions are listening to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s demand that “the time to go big is now” when it comes to fiscal relief.

Yet the current crisis does share key characteristics with the crises of the 1840s and the 1970s. The world of scarcity, for one thing, is already here. The pandemic has led to shortages of medical supplies such as face masks and glass vials for vaccine storage. Food prices have soared to their highest level since 2014—the result of a combination of dry weather in South America that has hurt wheat and soybean crops and pandemic-induced shipping disruptions. In the initial stages of the pandemic, laptops became scarce as employees scrambled to update their work-from-home setups. There is also a worldwide chip shortage, as the demand for microprocessors in medical, managerial, and leisure use has increased. Freight rates between China and Europe quadrupled at points in 2020. Steel, too, is in short supply.

Much as the crises in the 1840s and the 1970s did, the pandemic has also raised questions of government competence. At first, China seemed able to deal with the crisis better than its Western competitors—its cover-up of the severity of the pandemic notwithstanding—which prompted many observers to question whether democracies were capable of swift, effective action. Donald Trump’s presidency collapsed because of his chaotic handling of the crisis. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a revolt among conservative members of Parliament because of his complex, contradictory, and constantly shifting lockdown rules. The European Commission lost credibility because of its poor management of vaccine purchases. As in the past, citizens personalized the incompetence. Americans debated, for example, how much blame to put on Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who led part of the response. In the United Kingdom, much of the outrage focused on Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s policy adviser, who had violated the country’s lockdown rules.

The challenge of the new upswing in the cycle of globalization will be to find ways to learn and adapt.

For other observers, the unifying theme behind the mismanagement was populism, with Trump, Johnson, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte all botching the response. But even in countries where the crisis has been handled relatively well, there have been surges of protests against the way governments have reacted to the pandemic. In Germany, “alternative thinkers” protesting new lockdown measures attacked the parliament building in August 2020. Even in Japan, where there is a long tradition of the use of face masks as a hygiene measure, a movement calling itself the Popular Sovereignty Party organized “cluster protests” again mask wearing.

Given these challenges, it’s easy to assume that governments and citizens alike would prioritize nationalization—cultivating supposedly resilient domestic supply chains to hedge against the next crisis. But that’s unlikely to happen. Instead, people are desperately looking for new leadership and new visions. As was true during previous supply shocks, leaders can make a good case for the importance of foreign models: some countries have done much better than others in dealing with the health and economic consequences of COVID-19. Although some of these countries are small or relatively isolated, by most metrics, the country with the most competent response was the biggest: China. That is not without irony, to put it mildly: the country responsible for unleashing the virus has also been a major beneficiary—with some states now looking to Beijing for leadership. But instead of condemning China’s response or demanding reparations for the pandemic’s costs, other countries should consider how to use Beijing’s example, just as the United Kingdom in the 1850s realized that it could learn from foreign producers.

NO SURPRISES

Familiar historical forces will drive post-pandemic reglobalization. In a world facing enormous challenges, not just the pandemic but also climate change, solutions are global public goods. In 1945, the architects of the postwar order believed that peace and prosperity were indivisible and could not be the property of one nation. Now, health and happiness are the same. Both are impossible for individual states or regions to enjoy alone.

Technology is also transforming a globalizing planet, as it did in the 1840s and the 1970s. In the mid-nineteenth century, the drivers were the steamship, the undersea cable, and the railroad. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, it was computing power: the first widely available personal computers appeared in the early 1980s. Today, data occupies the same position—linking the world and offering solutions to major problems, including government incompetence. New types of information might help leaders attack some of the inequalities and injustices highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. More automation might mean that machines can take on some of the repetitive and dangerous tasks performed by low-paid essential workers. Telemedicine and data-driven public health can trigger faster and more precisely targeted pharmaceutical or medical interventions.


As in past crises, there is also an immediate and powerful global demand for cheap and reliable products. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was foodstuffs, and in the 1970s, it was oil and commodities. In the 2020s, it is medical supplies, data chips, and rare-earth metals. To be resilient to new shocks, these commodities need to be produced and traded internationally, by a multiplicity of suppliers.

Governments and businesses also need to continuously innovate. As it did in the 1840s, isolationism today would mean cutting off opportunities to learn from different experiments. No single country, or its particular culture of science and innovation, was responsible for the development of an effective COVID-19 vaccine—one of the miracles of 2020. Success was the product of intense international collaboration. This story of innovation also applies to government competence. No state can succeed alone. Even if one particular decision is by chance spectacularly successful—say, Germany’s impressive testing record or the United Kingdom’s fast vaccine rollout—it is usually difficult to repeat that success in other policy areas. Policymakers may stride confidently past their first victory, only to slip on a banana peel.

The United States, in particular, may find this a hard pill to swallow. Americans have long been attached to the idea of their country’s superiority, akin to the belief held by the British in the mid-nineteenth century. COVID-19, like the 1840s famines and the 1970s oil shocks, presents both a crisis and a learning opportunity. The United States has coasted on the idea that the world needs the English language and the U.S. dollar. Neither of those assumptions can hold forever. Just as automatic translation technology is increasing linguistic accessibility, a different currency could become a new international standard. The dollar is not an adequate insurance policy or a viable basis for Washington to reject the need for change.

The challenge of the new upswing in the cycle of globalization will be to find ways to learn and adapt—increasing the effectiveness of government and business—without compromising fundamental values. As in the 1840s and the 1970s, financial and monetary innovation, or the tonic of inflation, will drive transformational change. Memories of crisis will push countries and governments to adapt in 2021 and beyond, just as they have before.

============ 

HAROLD JAMES is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University and the author of the forthcoming book The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization.

 

Para acessar a íntegra:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-04-20/globalizations-coming-golden-age

 

quarta-feira, 5 de maio de 2021

Marcelo de Paiva Abreu: professor emérito da PUC-Rio - História econômica do Brasil


 Por 37 anos de carreira acadêmica exemplar, foi concedido a MARCELO DE PAIVA ABREU o título de Professor Emérito da PUC-Rio.

Marcelo de Paiva Abreu é doutor em Economia pela Universidade de Cambridge e, desde o início da década de 1990, detentor de bolsa de produtividade em pesquisa nível 1A do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). 

Além de professor titular da PUC-Rio, foi professor ou pesquisador visitante nas universidades de Cambridge, Columbia (Rio Branco Chair, 1998), Illinois, em Urbana-Champaign, Modena, Oxford e Veneza. Em 2003-2004 foi Senior Expert in Trade and Integration no Banco Inter-americano de Desenvolvimento em Washington, D.C. Entre 1966 e 1981 trabalhou no IPEA e na Finep, instituição da qual foi diretor para a área científica. Foi membro do Grupo de Pessoas Eminentes da UNCTAD, Genebra, para tratar de assuntos relacionados a barreiras ao comércio. É membro do Conselho Curador do Centro Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais e do Conselho Consultivo do Centro de Estudos de Integração e Desenvolvimento, ambos no Rio de Janeiro, e do Editorial Advisory Panel da Financial History Review. Foi representante do Brasil no Comitê Assessor da Comissão de Comércio, Organização de Estados Americanos, 1994-1996. É Comendador da Ordem de Rio Branco.  

Na PUC-Rio, o professor teve papel fundamental no processo de construção institucional do Departamento de Economia e da Universidade como um todo. Entre as muitas funções de administração acadêmica por ele desempenhadas, merecem destaque a de Diretor do Departamento de Economia, por sete anos, de 1990 a 1997, e a de membro da Comissão Central de Carreira Docente, em dois períodos relativamente longos: de 1987 a 1994 e de 2005 a 2011. Nos últimos anos, suas atividades letivas regulares concentraram-se em disciplinas de História Econômica, na pós-graduação, e de Economia Brasileira, na graduação. 

O professor tem extensa lista de publicações, envolvendo livros, capítulos de livros e artigos, no Brasil e no exterior, relativos a políticas comerciais e finanças brasileiras, latino-americanas e britânicas, tanto contemporâneas como em perspectiva histórica. 

Entre suas publicações, merecem especial destaque “Britain as a debtor: Indian Sterling Balances”, The Economic History Review, 70 (2), maio de 2017; “A ´blank cheque´? Portuguese Second World War sterling balances”, 1940-73, The Economic History Review, 67 (2), maio 2014; “O processo econômico” in A. de C. Gomes (org.), Olhando para dentro 1930-1964, volume 4 de L. M. Schwarcz (dir.), História do Brasil Nação: 1808-2010, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva/Mapfre, 2013; “Brazil: The resilience of the Brazilian insurance market”, com Felipe Tâmega Fernandes, in P. Borscheid e N.V. Haueter (orgs.), World Insurance: the evolution of a global risk network, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012;“The Brazilian economy, 1930-1980”, “The Brazilian economy, 1980-1994” e, com R.L.F. Werneck, “The Brazilian economy form Cardoso to Lula: an interim view” in L. Bethell (org.), The Cambridge History of Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Comércio Exterior: Interesses do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier, 2007; “Brazil as a debtor, 1824-1931”, The Economic History Review, novembro 2006; “The external context” in V. Bulmer-Thomas, J. H. Coatsworth e R. Cortés-Conde (orgs.), The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, Volume II. The Long 20th Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; “The political economy of economic integration in the Americas: Latin American interests” in A. Estevadeordal, D. Rodrik, A. Taylor e A. Velasco (orgs.), The FTAA and beyond: prospects for integration in the Americas, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 2004.

Outras publicações selecionadas incluem: O Brasil e a economia mundial, 1930-1945, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1999; “Trade in manufactures: the outcome of the Uruguay Round and developing country interests” in W. Martin e A. Winters (orgs.), The Uruguay Round and the developing countries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Brazilian Long-term Economic Growth 1930-1994, com Dorte Verner, Paris: OCDE, 1997; ‘Brazil as a Creditor: Sterling Balances, 1940-1952’, The Economic History Review, agosto 1990; ‘Developing countries and the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations’, Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics, 1989; A Ordem do Progresso. Cem anos de política econômica republicana, 1889-1989, Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1990 (org.). Esta última obra, que continua tendo enorme impacto entre estudantes de economia no País, foi objeto de edição revista e aumentada com o título, A Ordem do Progresso. Dois séculos de política econômica no Brasil, Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier/Campus, 2014, incluindo novo capítulo de autoria do organizador em colaboração com Luiz Corrêa do Lago: “A economia brasileira no Império: 1822-1889”.

Há ainda publicações mais recentes, que não podem deixar de ser mencionadas: o livro eletrônico Da Gávea - Ensaios sobre o Brasil e a economia mundial, 1995-2016, Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Economia, PUC-Rio, 2017, em que foram reunidos quase 500 artigos publicados pelo professor, desde 1995, no jornal O Estado de São Paulo; os capítulos de livro “Obsessão autárquica: visão a longo prazo do Brasil na economia mundial”, em José Carlos Carvalho, Luiz Chrysostomo de Oliveira Filho, Pedro S. Malan e Regis Bonelli (orgs.), De Belíndia ao Real: Ensaios em homenagem a Edmar Bacha, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2018; “Autarquia e novo papel do Estado”, em Edmar Bacha, José Murilo de Carvalho, Joaquim Falcão, Marcelo Trindade, Pedro Malan e Simon Schwartzman (orgs), 130 anos: Em busca da República, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Intrínseca, 2019; “De Vargas a Vargas” (em coautoria com Pedro Malan). em Edmar Bacha, José Murilo de Carvalho, Joaquim Falcão, Marcelo Trindade, Pedro Malan e Simon Schwartzman (orgs), 130 anos: Em busca da República, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Intrínseca, 2019.

A fertilidade do programa de pesquisa do professor continua evidenciada por vários Textos para Discussão mais recentes circulados pelo Departamento de Economia como “A dívida externa dos estados brasileiros, 1881-1943” TD n. 663, 27/12/2017 e “O Brasil Império e a economia mundial” TD n. 662, 12/12/2017. 

Especialmente importante é “Whose ‘pound of flesh’? Egyptian sterling balances, 1939-1958”, TD n. 661, 11/12/2017, que dá seguimento a uma linha de pesquisa na qual o professor vem persistindo há muitos anos. E que, ao complementar a tríade de seus artigos sobre sterling balances acumulados no Reino Unido por distintos países durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, propicia rica contraposição dos diferentes formatos que a liquidação desses passivos externos britânicos assumiu em cada caso. Como mencionado acima, três desses artigos – “Brazil as a Creditor: Sterling balances, 1940-1952”, “A ´blank cheque´? Portuguese Second World War sterling balances, 1940-73” e “Britain as a debtor: Indian Sterling Balances, 1940-1953” – já mereceram publicação na conceituada The Economic History Review, em 1990, 2014 e 2017.

Por fim, é importante mencionar Brasil: patrimonialismo e autarquia. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Águas Férreas, 2020, em dois volumes, livro recente de ensaios, diversos deles inéditos em português, que reúne publicações diversas do professor em revistas nacionais e internacionais, bem como em capítulos de livros. No primeiro volume estão incluídos artigos gerais sobre a economia brasileira e suas relações com a economia mundial. No segundo, ensaios com foco em temas financeiros e comerciais.

domingo, 27 de dezembro de 2020

Une perspective historique sur les processus de modernisation sociale et d’urbanisation au Brésil: 1940-1992 - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 Um trabalho antigo, que tinha permanecido inédito até aqui, feito para aulas, palestras e informação sobre a história social e econômica do Brasil durante minha estada na embaixada do Brasil em Paris.

387. “Une perspective historique sur les processus de modernisation sociale et d’urbanisation au Brésil: 1940-1992”, Paris, 12 janeiro 1994, 40 p. Revisão e atualização de trabalhos anteriores, para servir de base a textos de divulgação sobre o Brasil. Inédito. Divulgado na plataforma Academia.edu (27/12/2020; link: https://www.academia.edu/44779801/387_Une_perspective_historique_sur_les_processus_de_modernisation_sociale_et_durbanisation_au_Bresil_1940_1992_1994_).

Une perspective historique sur les processus de modernisation sociale et d’urbanisation au Brésil: 1940-1992

 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Docteur ès Sciences Sociales

Paris, 12 de janeiro de 1994 

 

Sommaire:


1. La Question Urbaine en Amérique Latine 

1.1. Le processus d’urbanisation

1.2. L’urbanisation-métropolisation en Amérique Latine

1.3. Hyper-urbanisation et marginalité

 

2. Modernisation et Urbanisation au Brésil

2.1. L’évolution démographique

2.2. L’urbanisation en marche

2.3. Un pays urbain ?

2.4. Tendances récentes

 

3. Les Rapports Ville-Campagne dans la Modernisation 

3.1. Le développement industriel 

3.2. Crise conjoncturelle et croissance économique

3.3. La modernisation autoritaire

3.4. Concentration du développement dans le Centre-Sud

 

4. Problèmes Actuels de l’Urbanisation au Brésil

4.1. Une transition incomplète

4.2. Une urbanisation malade

4.3. Les inégalités régionales et sociales

 

Références Bibliographiques

 

Ler a íntegra neste link: 

https://www.academia.edu/44779801/387_Une_perspective_historique_sur_les_processus_de_modernisation_sociale_et_durbanisation_au_Bresil_1940_1992_1994_