Towards a (poor) middle class democracy? upward mobility and politics and Lula and Dilma

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TOWARDS A (POOR) MIDDLE CLASS DEMOCRACY? UPWARD MOBILITY AND POLITICS UNDER LULA AND DILMA

Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida, University of São Paulo Fernando Henrique Guarnieri, IESP-State University of Rio de Janeiro.

(Texto originalmente preparado para publicação em livro organizado por Timothy Power e Peter Kingston, Democratic Brazil III.) Julho de 2014

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TOWARDS A (POOR) MIDDLE CLASS DEMOCRACY? UPWARD MOBILITY AND POLITICS UNDER LULA AND DILMA 1 Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida, University of São Paulo, [email protected] Fernando Henrique Guarnieri, IESP-UERJ, [email protected]

“What is to be Class C? Computer, mobile phone, car, mortgage house, bank credit, in general, and productive credit, in particular, being free lancer or employer, having a private social security plan, and also university degree, private school, health insurance, life insurance. But above all these things, having a work document (carteira de trabalho) is perhaps what better represents the rise of a new Brazilian middle class”, Marcelo Neri, 2009 “ Once, travelling to New York was funny, but, if your building’s janitor can go there paying R$ 50 per month, what is the fun now? “Being special”, Danuza Leão, Brazilian columnist (Folha de S. Paulo, 25.11.2012)

In the last ten years, millions of Brazilians have risen from poverty and swollen the ranks of the group of mid-income earners. The press, the government and some specialists have praised the turning of Brazil into a middle class society and emphasized the changes on patterns of consumption as the newcomers accessed to more and better goods and services. The changes are real and visible even to the most inattentive observer as he waits in airports now crowded with new travelers who replaced slow journeys by bus for airplanes flights; or as she is stuck in terrible traffic jams due to the exponential increase in the number of cars, in each and every Brazilian city or

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Authors are grateful to Ricardo Paes de Barros at Secretary of Strategic Affairs (SAE) for the access to data from Vozes da Classe Média ( Middle Class Voices), to Judith Brito, from Folha de São Paulo, and above all to Mauro Paulino, Datafolha’s director, for generously opening the access to several public opinion surveys databases. We also benefited from the very insightful comments from Anthony Hall, Leslie Bethell and other participants of the workshop Democratic Brazil Ascendant , at the King’s College, on February 2013, when the first version of this chapter was presented.

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town. these changes are undisputable, and their causes quite consensual, their nature, depth and consequences – social as well as political – are controversial. In what follows, we first present the data on changes, the explanations for them and also summarize the discussion on their meaning. Then we explore their possible political effects, as they generate support for democracy and democratic values, as well as playing a huge role in electoral competition and social mobilization. The (third) great transformation of modern Brazil In the fifties of the past century, under the first and limited experiment in democracy (1946-1964) urbanization, industrialization and modernizing labor laws promoted an unheard of movement of social and political mass inclusion, when millions of Brazilians left rural areas in search of a better life in the cities. In the seventies, under a military authoritarian regime (1964-1984), powerful economic growth boosted a new wave of social inclusion as the population became predominantly urban and industrial employment thrived – shaping a society

as

mobile

and

modern

as

unequal.

On

the

authoritarianism’s demise …..Then, from 2002 to 2012,some

aftermath

of

thirty million

people came out of extreme poverty. This time the transformation combined upward mobility with inequality reduction, under a fully competitive democratic regime. In a decade, the mid-income stratum swelled to become the majority of Brazilian society, approaching 100 million people2. According to SAE estimates (2012), in these ten years, 21% of the poor exited the lower stratum and 2

There are slight differences in the definition of this stratum which has been alternatively been labeled middle classes, new middle classes, C class, C stratum, as much as in the criteria to define it. Neri (2008, 2012), a pioneer in the study of the issue, defines it as an income category of those whose “mean income equals the mean income of the Brazilian society”. Brazilian Office of Strategic Affairs (SAE) also uses the income to define the middle class (SAE:2012a), but its criteria differ from Neri´s. Souza & Lamounier (2010) although proposing to combine objective criteria -- income, education and occupation—to subjective ones –such class identity, self-classification and social mobility perception -- in the end of the day used income in their empirical analysis. Oliveira (2009) defines middle classes by patterns of consumption and life styles. For practical purposes, we will adopt SAE´s criteria and data whenever we have disaggregated data. SAE defines middle class as the group whose per capita income varies from R$ 291,00 to R$ 1.019,00 reais, USD 154,00 to USD 540,00 (dollar PPP - 2012, see Alan Heston, Robert Summers and Bettina Aten, Penn World Table Version 7.1, Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, July 2012). For all purposes, we will use middle classes and mid-income stratum as interchangeable terms, even acknowledging that there are more things involved in the notion of class than just income.

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acceded to the middle one, while 6% of the later climbed their way to the upper stratum. Graph 1 shows these important changes in the weight of different income strata in total population.

A set of conditions and policies seem to account for this progressive change. Contrary to conventional wisdom, huge cash transfer programs, dramatically enlarged under Lula´s government, although important 3, are not the sole explanation for this dramatic upward mobility process. More relevant have been the expansion of formal employment together with rise in wages and salaries. The market, rather than the state, was responsible for the rise of a significant portion of Brazilian poor. Demography also played its part, as the dependency rate decreased. Based on econometric models, SAE estimates that the changing rate between adults and children explains around 20% of the upper mobility; cash transfer programs 30%; while access to jobs and the increase in mean pay for employed workers account respectively for 10% and 40%. (SAE:2012). The expansion of personal loans by public and private credit

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There are three very huge cash transfer programs: Rural Social Security (Previdência Rural), Continued Rendered Benefit (Beneficio de Prestação Continuada) and Family Allowance (BolsaFamilia). The first two, have been granted by the 1988 Constitution and Bolsa Familia has been established under Lula´s government as consequence of the restructuring and expansion of previous cash transfer programs established by Cardoso´s administration.

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institutions has also been pointed out as having an important role in the process. If the issue is undisputed, its interpretation has bore huge controversy. Neri (2008, 2012), the specialists of SAE and Lamounier & Souza (2010) have greeted the expansion of the middle classes and the advent of a middle-class society, with specific patterns of consumption, work opportunities, education, entrepreneurship and aspirations. On the opposite side, Souza (2010) and Pochman (2012) argued that the process is one of enlarging the upper working class, whose living conditions have improved by force of an overextended working journey; this upgrading, they argue, needs more and better public services in order to become sustainable. In an intermediate position, Oliveira (2009:4) emphasizes the gap between the Brazilian so-called new middle classes and their counterparts in the developed world, not only in terms of mean income but also of education, cultural habits and patterns of consumption. There is no doubt that Oliveira is right. As a matter of fact, in 2011, while Brazil was the 77th country in the ranking of Gross National Income (GNI) per capita with US$11,500 ppp, the index was US$ 58,900ppp in Norway, US$ 48,890 ppp in United States, US$ 36,970 ppp in the United Kingdom, US$ 35,860 ppp in France, US$ 31,930ppp in Spain and US$ 30,290 ppp in South Korea (The World Bank, 2012). Since the mean income is not that high in Brazil, its mid-income earners stay closer to poverty than their counterparts in the developed world. We are not talking about the middle classes of the USA suburbia pictured, for instance, in the TV series Desperate Housewifes. We are not talking about the middle classes portrayed in BBC´s sitcoms, in the UK. We are not even talking about what Brazilian used to call the “traditional middle class”, whose members were typically public servants and highly educated professionals, or the more recent middle classes born out of the economic miracle of the seventies, both predominantly white and both mimicking the behavior of those in the upper tier. The mid-income stratum which is being called the Brazilian new middle class, differs from previous traditional ones, in terms of color and education: It is half made up of blacks and mulattoes (51%), predominantly urban (89%), inserted in the formal job market (56%) with only 7% of its family’s heads with university

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degrees – 30% have some secondary education while 51% have four or less years of schooling4. Its expansion, between 2002 and 2012, resulted fundamentally from the incorporation of blacks and mulattoes (75%), of families from urban areas (86%), from the Northeast (34%) and Southeast (36%) whose heads attended school during four years or less (64%)5.

How sustainable is the position of those who have recently exited poverty? While critics of the official euphoria warn that reversal of fortune is an actual menace since those who have left poverty did not go too far away and strongly rely upon the job market and public credit, other commentators think that the “new middle class” is investing in promising and future driven assets – the improvement of education of the present and future generation (Nery, 2010) as well as entrepreneurship6 (Lamounier& Souza: 2010; SAE: 2013). SAE’s specialists are also optimist. They believe that the value attributed to education and a more cautious behavior regarding savings and family indebtedness reflect an increasing capacity to plan for the future (SAE, 2012:32). Anyway, the extent of change should not be underplayed. The expansion of the mid-income group, name it middle class or whatever, is part and parcel of a

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Nevertheless, levels of education of the younger generation have improved significantly, specially among lower and mid-income earners. From 2001 to 2011, the percentage of people with more than 11 years of schooling grew from 9% to 26,9% among the first 20% poorer Brazilians,; 13% to 37,8% among the next 20% in the income distribution continuum; 25 % to 51,9% among the next 20 %; 42,7 % to 66,7% among the next 20% and 71,1% to 84,4% among the richest 20% of the Brazilians. In other words, those placed around the middle of the income distribution ladder experienced huge increases in education levels. They go mostly to private universities, that concentrate around 75% of all students in higher education. 5 SAE (2012) 6 “Between 2000 and 2010, micro and small businesses have created 6.1 million formal jobs, bringing up total employment in these sectors from 8.6 millions jobs, in 2000, to 14.7 million, in 2010. In the 2000s, the average growth in the number of jobs in MSBs was 5.5% per year. In the first half of the decade were generated 2.4 million jobs in MSBs, an average annual growth of 5.1% per year. Between 2005-2010, this movement intensified resulting in 3.7 million jobs, an average annual growth of 6.1% per year.Of the 12.6 million formal jobs created in the private non-agricultural establishments in the last 10 years, 6.1 million were generated by micro and small enterprises. The good performance of MSBs in the decade just confirmed its importance in the economy. In 2010, micro and small enterprises accounted for 99% of the establishments, 51.6% of the formal employment in the private non-agricultural sector and almost 40% of total wages and salaries . On average, during the 2000s, for each R$ 100,00 paid to workers in the private non agricultural sector approximately R $ 41,00 was generated by micro and small enterprises” (SEBRAE, 2011).

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deep and huge process of societal democratization through consumption that seems to be there to stay. In a sense, it is a tocquevillian process of democratization, wich begins to erode previous social barriers among groups and challenge established hierarchies. In no other place this social transformation has been better captured than in Brazilian TV soap operas whose plots, locations and characters increasingly depict dilemmas, places and personae of the new mid-income earners. The consequences for Brazilian political life are not clear; maybe it is too early to assess them. In the next sections, we present some evidence on how midincome earners seem to relate to democratic values, electoral competition and political life. In the middle of the road: attitudes towards democracy and diversity There is a long established intellectual tradition that relates the middle classes to democracy. Different strands of the modernization theory claimed a positive relation between democracy and middle classes, and developed three different arguments to support it. First, the rise of the middle classes, as a correlate of economic development, would provide a buffer between the upper and the lower classes, avoiding political polarization conductive either to oligarchic despotism or plebeian revolution. Therefore, the existence of huge middle classes would contribute to moderate the political conflict. Second, due to their autonomy regarding the dominant elites, the middle classes, as they strive for expanding political participation and political competition, would contribute to political pluralism. Finally, as they tend to be more educated and well informed, the middle classes would favor political moderation, a necessary condition to democracy’s stability (Lipset,1959; Almond &Verba, 196). In brief, there would be a strong relation between the existence of a vibrant middle class and a democratic political culture, based on values of pluralism, political competition and moderation. Compelling as they may be, these structural explanations underestimate, to a certain degree, the heterogeneity of the middle classes and of their attitudes and beliefs. The mid-income stratum is a diversified group; their political values and attitudes, as well as political identities, are contingent to their specific

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process of expansion, as much as to the political agents that mobilized them in first place. How do Brazilian mid-income earners relate to democratic values? Table1, bellow, shows the attitudes of different income strata towards democracy. Presented to the traditional survey question about their preferences regarding political regimes, members of different income strata differ significant regarding their support for democracy. Table 1- Preference for political regime

Democracy Whatever Dictatorship

Lower 0.58 0.28 0.14

Low-Middle 0.61 0.25 0.13

Middle 0.70 0.16 0.15

Upper-Middle 0.71 0.14 0.15

Upper 0.78 0.05 0.17

N = 3.386 Source: Datafol ha, 2008 - PO3474

Although a majority of Brazilians prefer democracy to dictatorship there is still a minority that would rather live under an authoritarian regime, while, relevantly, more than one quarter are indifferent. Results like these have been consistently observed in distinct surveys, conducted in the last 25 years, placing Brazil below average in the ranking of support for democracy in Latin America. In Brazil, endorsement to democracy increases steadily with income: the upper strata

are

more

convinced

of

the

advantages

of

democracy

over

authoritarianism than the lower one. Disaggregating the mid-income group in three brackets we can see that the lower middle class attitude to democracy is very close to that of the poor, while its upper segment’s standing is not too far from the upper class7.

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Because we are working with secondary data for accessing the impact of class on vote we are limited to their definition of social strata. When using data from SAE and Datafolha we are working with a definition of middle class based on income. In the case of SAE, as we had pointed out in the beginning, the middle class family income ranges from 1.8 minimum wages to 6.6 minimum wages with the lowermiddle class ranging from 1.8 to 2.8 minimum wages (2012), the middle-midlle ranging from 2.8 to 4.1 and the upper-middle from 4.1 to 6.6 minimum wages. In terms of USD-PPP the ranges go from $ 616.00 to $933, $933 to $1356.00 and $1356.00 to $2155.00 respectively. In the case of Datafolha the range goes from 2 minimum wages to 10. Data from Datafolha allow us to disaggregate the mid-income group in three segments: the “lower class” with people whose earnings are lower than two minimum wages; “lower middle class”, encompassing people with income between 2 and 5 minimum wages; and “upper middle lass” with people with earnings between 5 and 10 minimum wages. Thesecuts corresponds to $658.00 to $1,645.00 and $1,645,00 to $ 3,290.00 in USD(PPP).

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In brief, the mid-incomers are not a homogeneous group in terms of attitudes towards democracy. Around 40 % of the lower middle stratum – an important minority – do not prefer a democratic regime over other possibilities. It is not possible to positively state that those are the recently incorporated to the midincome group, but, most probably, the participation of the new comers is not insignificant. In a previous article and using Datafolha survey data we have found out that support for democracy came together with a positive attitude regarding legislative independence and civil and political rights, such as freedom of the press, political organization, union activity and industrial action (Almeida & Oliveira, 2011:112). Another way to relating the middle classes to democracy stems from studies on sociocultural transformation of mature capitalist societies. In this tradition, the middle classes are not seen as the ballast of stable democracies but as the agents of a new democratic agenda focused on post-materialist issues like environment, minority rights, respect for cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, tolerance to different life styles and individual behavior. Inglehart (1977) called it a silent revolution – rather noisy nowadays – propelled by the middle class youth of developed countries8. According to this explanations, the middle classes would be agents of a process of deepening and enlarging democracy beyond the nation-state towards global issues, such as environment and disarmament; beyond the materialist agenda of wealth distribution towards cultural issues, such as recognition of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity; beyond the public sphere towards private and intimate choices such as divorce, abortion, same sex marriage and drug consumption. Since long, this agenda has spread to western and Asian developing countries, becoming ingrained in the public debate. In Brazil, as elsewhere in Latin America, women’s rights, including abortion; same sex marriage and children adoption by same sex couples; affirmative action for blacks and native Brazilians; protection against police violence; and decriminalization of marijuana

“Today, the most heated issues tend to be noneconomic, and support for change on these issues comes from postmaterialists, largely of middle class origin ( Inglehart,1990:278) 8

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consumption became important and contending political issues brought up by advocacy movements. While some of them, such as affirmative action, have been absorbed by political parties and translated by governmental agents into public policies, other more sensitive issues have been manipulated as negative propaganda, during electoral campaigns . Would the theories on the support of middle classes for post-materialist demands hold up in Brazil? Table 3 shows the results of a survey, conducted by Datapopular, in 2012, on attitudes of different income strata to these issues.

The majority of Brazilians, irrespectively of their social position, seem tolerant to diversity of race, religion and individual behavior. Nevertheless, there is considerable variation depending of the issue at stake. Professing different religious beliefs is highly tolerated, but a significant minority discriminates against atheists. Diversity of sexual behavior and preferences seem generally accepted. Women can use provocative clothes, men can use cosmetics, the Gay Parade in São Paulo, perhaps one of the biggest of the world, is attended

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also by heterossexual families with children; and LGBTS tend to be accepted by the majority of all classes. But abortion and drugs consumption are widely opposed. Once more, the mid-income group stands in the middle of the road, between a more tolerant upper class and a more prejudiced lower class. As a matter of fact, only in regard to homossexual behavior the poor are significantly more tolerant than the middle and the upper strata9.

Political preferences and electoral behavior When asked to place themselves on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is “left” and 10 is “right’, lower and low-middle classes tend to positioning themselves more to the right (around 7.0), while upper-middle and upper classes are more centrists with positions near 5.4 and 5.8 respectively10. The majority of Brazilians do not identify themselves with any of the more than 20 registered parties. A post-electoral survey conducted in 2010 (ESEB, 2010) show that 40% of the respondents declared to have a political party that represents their way of thinking. There is little difference between classes except for the upper-middle class that is above the average, with 44% respondents that identifies themselves with some party. Nevertheless, results from surveys on party identification seem to vary a lot and there are some evidences that party preferences have gone down in the last few years. Among those that have party identification 63% prefer the PT, followed by the PSDB (14%), PV (9%) and PMDB (7%)11.The poorer the respondent, the more identified with the PT. The upper class identifies well above the mean with the PSDB (31%) and the PV has its strongest support among the middle class (lowmiddle 12%, upper-middle 14%).

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Nevertheless, violent homophobic groups exist in several huge cities in Brazil and have been responsible for frequent street strikes against real or supposed male gays. Some of these gangs seem to gather middle class and low-middle class youngsters. 10 Estudo Eleitoral Brasileiro- ESEB 2010. The question is: “Thinking about left and right on politics how you position yourself?”. 11 Arranged from the left to the right in the ideological continuum (see Power and Zucco, 2007): PT (Partidos dos Trabalhadores – Workers Party), PV (Partido Verde – Green Party), PMDB (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro – Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) and PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira - Brazilian Social Democracy Party).

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Half of the respondents would vote even if voting weren’t mandatory. The propensity to vote increases with income as the participation in unions and social movements. Institutional political participation in Brazil, measured by the affiliation to unions, political parties or the participation in social movements, is very low in general barely passing 10%. As we will suggest bellow, some new forms of political participation are emerging with the help of mid-income strata. The new and older middle classes participate in an institutionalized political arena, structured during the transition from authoritarianism to democracy and fully stabilized in the 1990s. The transformation of mid-income earners in the major group among the population and in the electoral body did not change, up to these days, the basic terms of political competition. At national level, in presidential disputes, a extremely fragmented multiparty system converge around two parties – the PT and the PSDB -- which head two broad electoral coalitions, one from the center to the left and the other from the center to the right. The competition is centripetal and both poles play variations around a moderate social reformist agenda, combining commitment to monetary stability with economic growth and poverty reduction. Both try to stick the corruption label on the other. In almost all elections, a third centrist candidate has been present in the first ballot, reaping minority’s discontent towards the two predominant parties. Table 4 shows the preferences of different income classes for electoral coalitions, measured by surveys conducted just before presidential election’s first ballot. Table 4

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Preference for electoral coalitions (pre presidential elections opinion polls) percentage Stratum

Party supported ideological position Right Lower Center Left Right Middle-Lower Center Left Right Middle-Upper Center Left Right Upper Center Left Source: Datafolha

Data show that, from

1990

1994

1998

2002

2006

(%) 2010

67 8 25 61 8 31 56 6 38 58 13 29

59 7 34 62 7 30 64 5 31 64 4 32

60 9 31 62 10 29 58 10 32 60 12 28

21 29 50 22 32 46 20 36 44 18 31 50

30 0 70 40 1 58 48 4 48 55 7 38

28 13 59 33 20 47 36 23 41 40 24 36

1989 to 1998, intention to vote for Lula (left coalition)

was stable and around 25% and did not vary too much along classes of income. In 2002, the center represented by candidates Ciro Gomes and Anthony Garotinho enlarged and preference for Lula rose up to 40% but continued to be independent from class positions. Only in 2006, income seems to become relevant for voters choice: Lula lose in the upper class (from previous 50,4 %, to 37,9%), increased a bit in the upper middle class (from 44% to 48%) and steepened among lower and lower middle class voters (from 50,2% to 70 % among the former and from 44,6% to 58,4% among the later). In 2010, 58,7% of the lower income class, 46,8% of the low middle class, 41% of the upper middle class and 35,8% of the upper class declared their intention to vote for Dilma Roussef. In brief, the mid-income group has always been divided in terms of political preferences. Although the low middle class preferences have been closer to those of the lower income class, and have follow, at some distance, its turn to the left, only in 2006 a majority of them declared they would vote for the PT and its left-to-the- center coalition and, in 2010, less than a half preferred Dilma, two days before elections. It is possible to approximately identify the support for the PT among voters who perceived an increase in their social status. In the ESEB 2010 the respondents

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were asked to report the class they believe to belong that year and eight years before. Using a regression model we found out that the best predictor of vote in 2010 was the vote in 2006, but the perceived improvement in social status had an impact of 16% in the probability of voting in Dilma 12. In any case, translating perceived improvement in individual and family life conditions into support for government is not an automatic movement. It depends on how those benefited explain their upward mobility and the how they weight the role of governmental policies and of their individual efforts for their successful upswing. Narratives about succeeding due to hard work, family commitment and individual abilities abound in qualitative research data 13. It is interesting to note that the lower income group showed the biggest increase in support for the candidates from the left. This is the group that did not climbed to the new middle class and even includes people that experienced decrease in income. On the other hand, perceived interest and instrumental reasoning may not be the only mechanisms leading to political support to the PT government, under both Lula and Dilma’s command. Descriptive representation (Pitkin, 1967) can also be important to explain the support from low mid-income earners to the PT candidates. After all, Lula’s personal trajectory is one of successful upward mobility. Qualitative interviews with mid-income families, conducted during 2010 presidential election, have shown that respondents admired Lula “as a fighter who have won over his very hard life circumstances” or someone who “had achieved his goals and being a worker, became the chief of state” (Almeida, Mignozzeti & Pereira, 2012). Besides, life stories of several PT leaders and activists parallel those of mid-income earners. They come from the same social

We called “mobi” if the class status of the interviewed individuals, in 2010 , was higher than that of 2002. We run a regression of the vote in Dilma on “mobi”, family income and previous vote on PT. The equation is Pr(Dilma = 1) = logit-1(-1.63 + 0.66*Mobi - 0.37*Low-Middle – 0.36* Upper-Middle– 0.55*Upper+ 2.31*Lula) 13 This narrative is central in the extraordinary documentary film by Dorrit Harrazim and Arthur Fontes, A Familia Braz, focused on a Brazilian poor family experiencing upward mobility. The job market and better education, not the government, are seen by the younger members of the family as the tools for social improvement, possible due to their personal efforts to get better professional and social skills and take advantage of new opportunities of learning. 12

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milieu and share with them levels of education, tastes and social mobility aspirations. On the other hand, very recently, the government and the opposition seem to become aware of the political importance of emerging middle classes and try to address them in different ways. The PT coalition has something to show. Under Lula’s administration, the Ministry of Education put in place an array of policies meant to expand the access to higher education for those coming from low-income families, actually benefiting mid and low middle classes families. The Pro-Uni, an ingenious scholarship program, allowed students to access private paid universities. The expansion of the federal universities system and the unification of access procedures have expanded the enrollment in the free public federal higher education institutions. More recently, president Dilma Roussef signed a law approved by the Congress imposing extensive affirmative action measures to all federal universities. From 2005 to 2012, 1.6 million students were granted with PROUNI scholarship, more than 200 thousand students each year or 25% of all students that have applied for the ENEM – the test that is used in the selection to some universities. The federal government created 14 new federal universities spread by 237 municipalities. Since 2012, all the federal public universities should set aside 50% of places for students who have completed high school in public schools, with distribution of seats among blacks, mulattos and native Brazilians proportional to their participation rate in the population of each state. Also, under president Dilma, the Secretary of Strategic Affairs created a research project aiming at proposing public policies specially meant to meet the needs and risks confronted by the mid-income strata, in terms of “professional qualification, funding for education, access to credit, financial education, real state financing.” (SAE, 2012). The SAE also proposes public policies aiming at supporting small and mid entrepreneurship. Although fighting poverty continues to be central to the policy agenda and the political rhetoric during the third PT’s term in office, awareness of the importance to address the emerging groups already exists.

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The same happens at the opposition side. In May, 2012, Fernando Henrique Cardoso published a controversial article arguing that it would be useless for the PSDB to compete with the PT for the support of the poor and, therefore, it should address and win the new middle classes. Cardoso thinks in terms of values and tries to build a middle class identity clustered around the ideas of honesty, decency, self-made social improvement14. If Cardoso believes his party can appeal and mobilize the emerging mid-income groups around the ideas of public morality and republican government, other PSDB leaders have tainted their discourses – and, sometimes, their policies – with more conservative colors. While the State of São Paulo’s governor presents himself as a politician tough on crime and tough on drugs, the former São Paulo’s governor and presidential candidate has presented himself as a pro-life and anti same-sex marriage politician15. Of course, those were not discourses meant only to the middle classes. Opposition to abortion and claims to curb criminal violence and drug consumption are across-classes issues. Nevertheless, they are also sensitive issues among the mid-income earners. In brief, if only recently the government and the opposition have acknowledged the political importance of mid-income earners, one can foresee that the dispute for they mind and souls will become an important dimension of political and electoral competition. It is too early to say what will be the issues around which it will evolve. Up to now, while the government seems to talk to their mind (and pockets) the opposition fumbles the ways towards their souls. Like a thunderbolt from a clear sky As government and opposition began to recognize the political importance of the new middle classes and grope for ways of gaining their support as party 14

“ It is time ... to reinforce, not to despise, the basic “middle class” values — study, work, honesty.(...) My bet is to believe (...) that the good and old middle class, that already has contributed to nation building, can still play a relevant role as it is able to contaminate with its values the emerging groups, since they already are predisposed to them: their income improvement came from their effort and work” ( Cardoso, 2011) 15

During the 2010 presidential campaign, PSDB candidate, José Serra, supported by some evangelical denominations, used these issues in negative propaganda against DilmaRoussef, suggesting she favored abortion and same sex marriage.

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followers and voters, all of the sudden, they burst as clangorous participants in the massive street demonstrations that involved Brazil in political turmoil. What began, in June 6thd., 2013, in the city of São Paulo, as a tiny march of some 2000 youngsters against bus fares, called by an unknown students´ group – the Free Bus Fare Movement (Movimento Passe Livre)— unleashed a mounting wave

of political

protest.

Peaceful rallies and street battles among

demonstrators and police forces paralyzed first the city of São Paulo, than Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and several other state capitals and huge Brazilian cities, amounting to the hugest mass movement ever seen in Brazil16. Intensively using social medias, such as Facebook and Twitter, to call the meetings and instantly convey information17, the demonstrators had no recognized leaders, no formal organization and broadcasted hotchpotch --and sometimes contradictory – demands. But beyond the cacophony of disparate watchwords there were repeated demands for better urban and social services – better transportation, education, health care and security – as much as protests against political corruption and politicians. Important was also the rejection of what has been considered excessive and ill explained expenditures with the next World Coup. Criticism of those expenditures came hand in hand with demands for “FIFA’s quality education”, “FIFA ‘s quality health care services”, as the standards for building the new sports venues for the 2104 Coup were compared to the poor quality of social services. The demonstrators came from diverse social strata and political affiliation: middle class students and professionals18 mingled with the urban mob;

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According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, at the peak of the movement, on June 20th, around 1 million people went to the streets in several Brazilian cities (Folha de S. Paulo : 2013, C4) 17 Social medias’ role are sometimes exaggerated. If it is true they have been instrumental to rapidly inform thousands of people, traditional medias – specially TV news reels showing the street rallies in real time – have been crucial to gave birth to friendly public opinion, especially after extremely violent police repression to demonstrators, in São Paulo. In a matter of fact, there has been strong and reinforcing interaction between social and traditional media. 18 According to Datafolha surveys, run , in São Paulo, on June 17 th 39% of the participants were wage earners working in the formal labor market and 22% were students and in the second and on June 20 th, those two groups represented 51% and 11 % of those interviewed, respectively. 77% and 78% were people with higher education.

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progressive, left and extreme left leaning people were side by side with right wing punks; GLTB sympathizers with homophobic tugs19. Inspired by Huntington, Fukuyama (2013), among others20, described the Brazilian demonstrations, which he compared to other recent uprisings in the world, as “the middle class revolution” expressing feelings of alienation regarding the ruling political elite and frustration regarding society´s failure to “meet their rapidly rising expectations for economic and social advancement”. We do

no

have

enough encompassing

information

to

make

broad

generalizations like Fukuyama’s. Nevertheless, the results of two opinion polls conducted by Datafolha during June 17 th and 20th

huge rallies, in São Paulo,

seem to confirm the predominance of middle classes participants (around 57% in the June 20th rally) with different occupations21. They were presented with a huge list of possible motives for crowding São Paulo streets. We have grouped them in broader categories, shown bellow, in table 5. Note: sample size: 511 individuals, margin of error 4%, confidence interval 95% Source: Datafolha, PO813692, 2013

Fragmentation and dispersion of motives for protesting are significant. Nevertheless, demands

for better public services, condemnation of corruption and, in a lesser degree, rejection of

institutional politics are shared motives mobilizing the protesters in the Brazilian streets. Demands for improving public services seems more important for lower middle classes than for the middle and upper mid-income group. At first glance, the wave of demonstrations engulfed the political system. Positive evaluation of

all governmental officials from the President to the mayors of state capitals plummeted; the

confidence in government at all levels, that looked solid until recently, melted in the air. Singer (2013:A2) sumarizes with precision this diversity: “Headed by left wing yougsters, the movement ended up attracting diverse and opposed groups. First came a wave of participants typical of Marina Silva voters. Modern in their life style, liberal in their behavior, located at political center and mad with corruption. Than, arrived the conservatives: enfuriated with corruption and the PT, to which they atribute all Brazil’s problems. To complete the political caleidoscope , even the extreme right landed in the streets, translating the conservatives’ rage into violence against the socialists parties. Consequently, divided on every issue, the middle class paraded united in its yearning for protesting”. 20 Brazilian analysts seem to agree with Fukuyama’s, although while the movement is still evolving opinions have been expressed basically in newspapers op-eds. Among the most interesting are Singer (2013), Coelho (2013), Rodrigues (2013), Sola (2013). 21 The June 20th survey has been conducted Avenida Paulista, in a middle class neighborghood. There, only 7% of the respodents earned up to 2 minimum wages and 32% earned more than 10 minimum wages.. Nevertheless, as the demonstrators walked towards downtown is possible that it gather more people from lower income groups. 19

19

Nevertheless, while small groups of demonstrators are still in the streets, it is impossible to assess the consequences of June’s movements upon the political system and how and to what

extent it will positively respond to the aspirations for change. Divided and diverse in their opinions and demands, the middle classes groups have shown they became a political presence that from now on no party can dare to neglect. July, 2013

References

20

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