Cardoso & The Death of Dependency

This evening, I attended a lecture by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was in Israel in an unofficial capacity and was invited to speak by the the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies. Before his career as a successful foreign minister, finance minister, and then two-term president, Cardoso was an eminent scholar, affiliated with the dependency school.

Few, if any, vestiges of Raul Prebisch remain, at least judging by his comments tonight. In polite criticism of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Cardoso noted that Brazil couldn't afford to simply be anti-globalization, anti-U.S., anti-everything. He also noted, correctly, that much of Chavez's success is due to the dramatic increase in oil prices, a development with which Chavez had nothing to do. (Indeed, the Bush administration's failed energy policies have benefited no two states more than Venezuela and Iran.)

Cardoso devoted most of his talk to defending his administration's middle-of-the-road economic policy, which rejected both the doctrinaire privatization of Argentina and the state-centered approach of Chavez. He left little doubt, however, that he saw Brazil's future in embracing and taking advantage of globalization.

Cardoso used statistics with the zeal of a convert: Brazil's exports in 1995 totaled $60 billion; today, they're $160 billion, with 60 percent of those agricultural goods. Brazil has become a major player in a diverse array of foreign markets--including, remarkably, the orange juice market. In 1997, Brazil had 800,000 cellphones; now, it has 120 million. 99 percent of the most recent income tax forms were distributed via the internet.

His most interesting comments involved the Brazilian relationship with the PRC. China's rapid industrialization and need for raw materials, he noted, has provided a critical new market for Brazil, helping the nation erase its trade deficit and actually run a surplus. But, he also cautioned, China has emerged as a potential long-term competitor to Brazilian manufacturing experts. That's certainly not the relationship anyone could have expected when João Goulart attempted to improve ties with the PRC during his 1960s presidency.

There was only a limited time at the end for questions. One point that was not raised: the degree to which Brazil's agrarian reform, which Cardoso celebrated as among the regime's most successful initiatives over the past 15 years, has had unintended, harmful environmental side effects. (I'm also not sure that I share his belief that the Brazilian health care system is superior to that of the United States.)

All in all, Cardoso was a most impressive figure--a case study of someone who cast aside rigid intellectual orthodoxies to help Brazil make the transition to the 21st century.