façade socialism – Observer
In 1975, a Swedish journalist asked Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho what was the purpose of the ongoing revolution in Portugal. Captain April replied, “Finish off the rich.” The Swedish journalist retorted: “Oh. In Sweden our goal is to end the poor.”
Indeed, Portugal is one of the European countries more anti-capitalist🇧🇷 It should be no wonder, therefore, that we are today very undercapitalized🇧🇷 Our anti-capitalism is due, among several other things that do not fit in these lines, that it was communists who defined our “political center” (much envied by the left) 48/49 years ago. Following the famous “anti-monopoly strategy”, textually taken from the PCP program, which in practice meant the destruction of our economic sector, in 1974-5, also slew the country. Finally, we were wrong not to have banned the PCP and the extreme left (parties undemocratic) after November 25, 1975.
The Federal Supreme Court of West Germany banned the German Communist Party (KPD) in 1956. In 1968 some of its elements decided to create a new communist party, the DKP. But the motto was set. Hence the DKP failed to obtain more than 15,000 votes (out of around 47 million votes) in the last election for the German parliament, in 2021, insufficient to elect a deputy. In Latvia, the communist party, LKP, was banned in 1991 by the transitional parliament. The same happened, in the same year, with the communist party of Lithuania. These Baltic Tigers have grown by GDPpc 61% and 71% respectively over the last 21 years, while we have grown by 21%. Countries where communists are inconsequential are freer and more productive, and therefore more tolerant.
It seems that what feeds us is an ideology, because material wealth refuses to materialize. For example, when António Costa announced “Free” public transport for children up to 12 years old and reduced price for the rest, everything became delusional. Carlos Moedas went even further, campaigning to make them “free” for everyone up to the age of 23 and for those over 65🇧🇷 However, it is easier to make this type of populist advertisement than to actually facilitate the mobility of the Portuguese by effectively using public transport in Lisbon (reducing waiting times, for example), where it is not possible to depend on the metro, the train, or the bus. bus to get to work on time and on time consistently. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t have so many cars🇧🇷 Even with the high fuel prices in Portugal🇧🇷
What is more important? Pay the tariffs for accessing lousy public transport entirely with the OGE/taxation/funds elaborated/PRR/[inserir outro truque de mágica aqui] and thus make them accessible to a larger portion of (poor) Portuguese people, or create the conditions for more Portuguese to become rich and therefore be able to pay the real price of said tariffs (more expensive)?
In what really matters – the access of the poorest to education, be it primary, secondary or university – we are not “socialist” in the sense of a social state that tries to give everyone the same opportunities. Most Portuguese nor can you choose which public school to enroll your children in🇧🇷 Our public universities continue to be attended almost exclusively by the urban middle class, people coming from more unfavorable socioeconomic backgrounds opting instead for polytechnic institutes and in many cases not even finishing the courses🇧🇷
Another example is social housing. While housing represents social 2% of our housing stock, in the Netherlands they represent around 35%, in Austria around 25%, and in Denmark around 20%. Social housing was “outsourced” by our so-called socialist regime to private owners, who, instead of being able to save to profit from what they own, are forced to bear the costs of low rents (the social action itself) to tenants who do not can dump. Here is another path of the normal process of social ascension in democratic societies that is forbidden to us.
It was sad to note yet another compromise with the petty-bourgeois anti-capitalist urban radicalism from which the hosts that make up our parties of the radical extreme left, the Marxist-Leninists of the PCP and the Trotskyists-Maoists of the BE, come from, in the form of the new Law of Bases of Health, which came make it difficult to carry out PPP in this area even when the economic advantages for the state are clear. It should come as no surprise, then, that PPPs were not renewed in Loures, Vila Franca de Xira, and Braga🇧🇷
Continue to solve the problem very long-term unemployment🇧🇷 The tax-free median wage continues under a thousand eurosbut how Fiscal fiscal conditions are only for foreigners or Portuguese foreigners (who lived at least five consecutive years abroad before returning). We continue to have an individual savings rate for retirement below 43%, when the difference between the last salary and the retirement pension is less than 40% in 2060🇧🇷 In a comparison with 44 countries, the sustainability ranking of our pension system was the sixth worstprecisely because of the lack individual capitalization pillar🇧🇷
Socialism in Portugal is like the facades of the filling of the historic center of Lisbon. While the original interior of almost all palaces since 2012 has been trampled on by explosives, the exterior remains, a kind of powder mask for the English to see. As Zé Maria Seabra Duque reported, in Portugal today, the greatest chance for a person to live comfortably is to inherit. We are also from OECD countries where the chances of a person becoming a millionaire during his lifetime are lower.
The common Portuguese is barred from the normal paths, in meritocratic societies, to the inheritance of wealth. While in parliament there are deputies talking about “lose the shame of going to get money from those who are accumulating it” (it is not surprising that the Mrs. in question is the daughter of someone who was another robbed a bank🇧🇷 Look at who is “succeeding” financially and see a former prime minister on the loose who defrauded the state while happily leading the country into bankruptcy, Marias Begonhas and others 21-year-olds making 3,700 gross for having the right party cardand it is natural that you think that the only alternative left to you is emigrant🇧🇷
Our stagnation has reached such a point that, as our neighbors today in terms of gross domestic product per capita are the Balkan countries, the Executive migration to Ceaucescu Palace It makes perfect sense. The question is that soon the very Romania will overtake us🇧🇷