The Workers Party turned 45 years old last week. I’ve written a book saying what I think of your story so far: in short, you may not find the proposals of the good, but you have to accept that. To disagree with this is to give up talking to the facts.
But what is the future of the PT? The party survived a crisis that seemed fatal between 2015 and 2018 and helped save Brazilian democracy by electing in 2022. But its survival as a relevant caption is not guaranteed.
The main challenges before the Workers Party are a consequence of changes in Brazilian society in recent decades. Brazil has become a classic case of what economist Dani Rodrik called premature deindustrialization: we are no longer industrialized before we become rich. Desindustrialization makes it difficult to form classic workers parties, such as the PT seemed to be in its origin.
The petistas adapted to this new framework thanks to income transfer policies, racial quotas and minimum wage increases. It worked very well, and the PT became a big presidential winner.
But the quotas and income transfers were part of the normal repertoire of Brazilian politics: neither Bolsonaro dared to end the quotas, and his only really popular public policy – emergency aid – was an involuntary tribute to petistas, in particular.
Over time, these policies are no longer a petista differential. And the increases of the minimum, with their fiscal impact resulting from social benefits bindings, can become more difficult.
The PT also needs to deal with the right turn in the ideological environment of the coming years. You will have to discuss with the new working class of popular entrepreneurship, you will have to mediate difficult cultural conflicts.
These are complex tasks, but the PT has something important in its favor: the Jair-Malafaia faction never delivered any concrete public policy that solved the problems of this new working class in dispute. The right is much more enthusiastic than the left, but it is not because it has discovered solutions to whatever it is.
Finally, the PT will have to deal with the great reformulation of Brazilian politics in recent decades: since the 2017 political reform, the right has been building increasingly powerful political machines.
The PT proposed similar reforms in its previous governments. If it had stuck it, it would not be about to disappear. Unfortunately, the renovation happened just as the centron reigned absolute after winning the battle of the Lava Jato.
If the PT cannot consolidate between these great subtitles, Brazilian politics can be reduced to the dispute between the theft party (the centrão) and the armed robbery party (pockets). It seems increasingly clear that this picture will only be avoided by a wider left federation. Perhaps even, as in 1994, a strong left resurrects the decent right.
Finally, 45 years later, the challenges faced by the Workers Party remains similar to those faced by Brazilian democracy.
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