As online publications have hailed the major protests overtaking the streets of Brazil at the outset of an apparent political revolution, few discuss the problems that have been brewing for decades in South America’s largest nation.
While Brazilians are angry and tired of their economic hardships, they are also incensed at the country’s history of corruption, which now includes a massive presidential scandal carried out by politicians and lobbyists during the current and previous administrations. This misconduct has given residents of all walks of life enough incentive to take their demands to the streets.
But are the politicians listening?
The History of Brazil is a History of Corruption
Local sociologists often tout Brazil’s corruption problem as a ‘genetic disposition’ to crookedness. But late economist Ludwig von Mises disagreed. In Human Action, the famed economist claimed that corruption is simply a consequence of government’s heavy intervention in all public matters. ‘Corruption is a regular effect of interventionism,’ he wrote – not the root of a country’s woes.
As Brazilian newspapers and talking heads tend to focus on corruption scandals as the root of the political and economic issues the country faces, they are, in fact, some of the consequences of heavy government intervention – not the foundation of the nation’s ongoing problems.
Between 1930 and 1945, the country was under the rule of the populist tyrant Getlio Vargas, whose rise as a dictator was also tied to a series of corruption scandals, political persecution, and oppression. Nicknamed ‘the Father of the Poor,’ Vargas and his administration used images of hope and harmony to sell the leader as the country’s grassroots hero.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 04/01/2016.
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