There is an old joke, with whiff of skepticism, which runs regularly in certain Brazilian media elite, is ensuring that "Brazil is the country's future ... and always will be." But the truth is that the objective facts increasingly tend to belie this assertion.
With 198 million inhabitants and is the tenth largest economy, over countries such as Spain, Italy and Canada. Its per capita GDP is still low: $ 10,100, according to 2008 statistics, less than the 14,900 of Chile, 14,200 in Argentina and 12,200 in Uruguay, but has been growing at a rapid pace. And it is not unlikely that soon narrow the gap with those who excel in this field for now.
Indeed, it has been, along with China, one of the emerging powers that have best weathered the recent economic crisis born of the speculative fever on Wall Street. And Finance Minister Guido Mantega, said he expects that by 2010 Brazil will grow at least at a rate of 2.5 percent annually, while the U.S. and the EU are still skating, downhill on the ferries, by the effects of huge budget deficits that generate, among other things, high unemployment and general economic instability.
A symbolic figure (and, sometimes, not so symbolically) important is that the year 2009 for the first time since 1880-to put a milestone that references the start of the expansion of modern capitalism planetary-scale, core countries of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)-ie, the exclusive club composed of the world's richest countries, account for less than 50 percent of Gross World Product .
Throughout the 80's and 90-as recalled by the analyst Brazilian Luiz Antonio Costa said, "this set of nations, which may include the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe ( block to the early 90's he joined the former GDR), representing about 60% of the global economy. In 2008 its share fell to 51% and an estimated This year should be around, hopefully, 49%, with a tendency to follow a downward path.
Since its founding in 1960, the OECD included Turkey and from 1994 to date joined the ranks of countries like Mexico, South Korea, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia. If you consider all of them within the " dream team" of the countries most favored by fortune, the OECD would be representing 56% of the global economy in 2009, but it is estimated that inevitably fall to 51% in 2014.
Who are those who have come to dispute dominance in global markets? For starters, the BRIC -That is, Brazil, China and India, to which are added to Indonesia and South Africa are also in sharp ascent. Problems, of course. In the case of Indonesia, the threat of religious fundamentalism as a sword hanging over his head the most populous Islamic country in the world (240 million). And in South Africa, the social apartheid that remains despite the end of the extreme racial segregation, which is expressed in alarming rates of HIV prevalence (over 18% of the adult population is HIV positive) and crime.
The truth is that as countries like Chile, with good reason, of course, given our size and our role as articulators rather than as a power with a weight and a specific volume on the world stage, they boast to seek an early accession to the OECD, others, such as until yesterday peripheral Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa, the luxury of ignoring the hints that they are to occupy a VIP membership into the Mighty Football Club. Looking
overseas partners
In short, the South also exists, but has no trouble, apparently, in submitting to the structures of what might be called the "industrialized West." In fact, the trouble now I have them, as explained by a representative of that organization to a journalist with the Economic Value: "We saw that the OECD will continue to be relevant without the participation of these countries", which has been called E-5 (an acronym that refers to the enhanced engagement better-than-commitment is evident in their economies).
Now, for example, Brazil lends money to the International Monetary Fund, and President Lula is allowed to joke asking: "Is not it chic?", Without ignoring the irony that a few years ago, his party, the PT , proclaimed to the four winds "Out with the IMF."
same thing happens to the OECD it happens to old-looking and decrepit G-7. Until 1996, the forum represented the largest share of world GDP. A year later, the sum of the seven major for the first time fell below 50% of that index, and coincidentally joined Russia (about 3% of world GDP) to maintain a slightly higher rate of 50% five years.
In 2005, the Company's shareholders realized world that 48% of GDP was not to exercise hegemony to which they were accustomed, and that is where Labour's Tony Blair begins to propose extended to new members. In particular, Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Mexico. Why? For the Alliance pop known as G-20, began to dispute with leadership from the WTO meeting in Cancun in 2003.
And then from 2007 onwards, the numbers are rising. Comes the G-8 plus five, and a year later with the arrival of Egypt, creating the G-14. Despite initial resistance from the Republicans (anti-Russian, for historical reflection) and the Japanese, the game is opened to new entrants. Former Non-Aligned come banging on the table, knowing they have depth and projection of countries, continents, in most cases.
Everyone knows that China can only overcome as the U.S. economy by 2020, according to many projections well-founded. To say nothing of the BRICs as a whole (or Bricis, if they added Indonesia and South Africa).
Bricis Of course not, not a homogeneous bloc. And they have more of a contradiction, which is expressed, to cite one case in the current dispute between China and Brazil for control of areas of the Argentine import market. The failure of recent negotiations of the Doha round was also Brazil, China and India rather dissimilar positions. But that's what you might call, in terms of the old Hegelian dialectic "unity and struggle of opposites." Locomotive
recovery
Meanwhile, Brazil is strengthened. His voice is heard strongly in all forums and debates on issues ranging from global warming to nuclear disarmament and new rules that should redefine the global financial market.
Leonardo Martínez Díaz, Brookings Institute, goes further and states in Folha de Sao Paulo that Brazil should be "one of the engines of the global recovery," based, among other things, in a domestic market that has expanded shielded from the consequences of the crisis (an estimated 25 million Brazilians have moved in recent years of social stratum E to C and D, ie, have joined the consumer).
Such is the force that is taking this new global positioning Brazil have already started to emerge some concerns among neighbors, such as those noted Martínez Díaz believes in countries like Ecuador and Bolivia, who feel threatened by the shadow the giant that stretches from their sleep of centuries.
Argentina, meanwhile, was the other country that at one time seemed to be able to dispute the subregional hegemony, has retreated on all fronts with its northern neighbor. And only managed to put trade barriers that undermine the original spirit of the customs union, proclaimed by the Mercosur, but to protect what little remains de la industria argentina (y con ella, a los Marco Polo a la inversa que vinieron desde China a vender zapatos y comprar soja).
Lejanos están los tiempos en que en Buenos Aires se medía con una regla casi milimétrica la altura que deberían tener proyectos hidroeléctricos emblemáticos como el de Itaipú, por temor a que si la cota era muy alta, se corría el riesgo de ser inundados algún día por decisión del Planalto.
Hoy lo que reina es el pragmatismo más absoluto, pues se ha llegado a aceptar, casi con resignación, que no hay ningún país en el Cono Sur que le pueda disputar la hegemonía a Brasil por territorio, demografía y potencialidad económica. Factors
against the conspiracy could only lags exaggerated social inequality (the one that gave rise to the myth of Belindia, the country itself combines Belgium and India's most backward) and the comparative disadvantages deriving from it, in terms of "favelization", delayed education and crime unleashed. That is, after all, the most extreme form of redistribution of wealth in a country that produces no more civilized forms of distribution.
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