Brazilian coup

In a sudden shift of fate, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) noted, that Brazil has now officially overtaken the UK as the worlds sixth largest economy. With the way things are going, especially taking toll of the European debt crisis, by 2020 Britain’s economy will officially be overtaken by Russia and India. They have also predicted that by 2028 Brazil will officially enjoy a per capita income that will almost be equivalent to that of Britain. In other and more simpler words, by 2028 the standard of living of the average Brazilian will be better than that of the average Britisher. This historic paradigm shift has been a result of a clear dichotomy in policy making, where on the one hand, credit and debt creation was fueled and encouraged while on the other prudent economic policies were pursued, essentially aimed at self sustenance.
More interestingly, with the ailing economies of Europe and the US, China is yet to show their strength and flex their muscles. What Brazil has successfully done and the other western powers have failed at is the creation of just human centric policies that are aimed at poverty alleviation. The fifth most populous country of the world launched an anti poverty campaign under the slogan “opportunity not favours”, that supports millions of families and covers health and education programmes. The programme that was first initiated under Luiz Inacio, and now is operating under Dilma Rousseff pledges to take 16 million Brazilians “out of destitution”.
While countries were focusing on wealth creation even if it wasn’t backed by real money, Brazil focused more on wealth diversification and redistribution. The wall street rioting reinforce the fact that without focusing on human centric policies, the entire spectrum of what is being ‘dubbed’ development will instead of lending credibility to the governments, snatch it away from them. Expansion of the middle class has also been phenomenal which has risen owing to Brazil’s diversification in the manufacturing and sevices sector. Even though growth is expected to sharply decline this year, to 3.5 per cent, it is now anticipated that it will rise sharply by 7 to 8 per cent in 2012. With growth comes responsibilities and while the west was wasting its energies on scorning at South America and the Middle East, Brazil used that opportunity to make some valuable and unlikely friends – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among them.
These changing paradigms imply that even if the West wants to, they can no longer treat Brazil and other Latin American states as subservient nations, built and constructed to serve their interests. The Monroe Doctrine no longer exists and such mentality would have to change sooner rather than later. The rise in power of states like China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and South Africa means that the underdogs are now winning the race. The eurozone will eventually have to learn lessons from the likes of countries like Brazil and China. Despite the recent recession it seems as if policy makers have not learnt the lesson and militarily UK remains to be one of the biggest spender as a proportion of its GDP despite the latest tranche of cuts. With this paradigm shift the western countries must now prepare not only for the skilled not being able to find jobs, but also for the highly skilled to look for greener pastures elsewhere around the globe. With these glaring realities, Britains demotion to a middle ranking power is now discretely accepted across the globe.

The writer is a freelance contributor