Thread by @BrianMteleSUR

Most journalists understanding of economics is limited to a handful of 19th Century clichés. The Brazilian economy has gone through commodities boom/bust cycles for 500 years. Attributing the Workers Party's success to a commodities boom ignores the 2008 Great Recession. Thread

Bahia demonstrates the limitations of commodities booms. For centuries its production of export commodities like Cocoa and Tobacco generated huge wealth for a handful of European/ Brazilian businessmen while the vast majority of the population suffered in abject poverty.

In other words, as the last 500 years of economic history of the developing world shows, commodities booms without any kind of redistribution measures are absolutely useless in reducing poverty. Example: mining boom in the Congo.

Trickle down economics during a commodities boom didn't lift 25 million people out of poverty during the Lula years. According to IPEA the greatest causes, ranked, were: 1) Minimum wage hikes; 2) Linking minimum retirement benefits to minimum wage; and 3) Bolsa Familia.

In 2009 the EU and US GDPs dropped by 4.4% and 2.5% while Brazil's only fell by 0.3%. Lula had preemptively rolled out a $300 billion Keynesian Stimulus Package (PAC) subsidizing internal manufacturing and consumption to buffer the economy from international market instability.

Journalists "think in cliches [...] banal, conventional, common ideas that are received generally. By the time they reach you, these ideas have already been received by everybody else, so reception is never a problem.”
― Pierre Bourdieu, On Television

For a decade, journalists and analysts across the political spectrum have piggy-backed on a neoliberal PSDB smear that a cyclical commodities boom, not redistributive polices, lifted 25 million people from poverty during the PT years. It's embarrassing to see leftists do this.

PT built foreign reserves up from US$49 bi to $360 bi to buffer against commodities cycle fluctuations. After Lava Jato sabotaged the economy and Temer took over in 2016, he pretended the country had run out of money to justify US-friendly austerity cuts. brasilwire.com/how-manufactur…

I'll add here that, although I am a journalist by trade I am a sociologist and geographer by training and my theoretical basis for economic analysis is the field of economic geography, which I studied at King's.