Representada por «Austera» (1911), escultura de grande beleza do grande escultor Júlio Vaz Junior.
Conjugar a necessária atitude austera, solene e simples e ao mesmo tempo a complementar atitude que realize o potencial criativo das Nações Europeias na União Europeia é um desafio urgente. Propomos-vos esta viagem ao mundo da austeridade ... com as suas dimensões criativas e destrutivas ... e pela necessidade de as suas virtualidades criarem sinergias com o Desenvolvimento dito «Sustentado» e não com o mero «crescimento».
MATERIALISMUS DIALECTICUS:A MATERIA ASSERITUR / MATERIA NEGAVIT = PROUENIENTE MATERIA / MATERIA NEGAVIT = PROUENIENTE MATERIA ...
A satisfação das necessidades das Pessoas e das Sociedades a partir do século XVIII, envolveu cada vez mais:
- Matéria (MATERIA),
- Energia (ENERGIA),
- Trabalho presente (LABOR),
- Meios de trabalho (OPERANTIS MEDIA), trabalhado passado;
- Ciência (SCIENCIA),
- Arte e Técnica (ARS),
- Transformação da matéria prima (MATERIA PRIMA) numa Obra em Matéria (OPUS IN MATERIA), produto,
- Transformação do produto em mercadoria (MERCIMONIA), com a sua apresentação no mercado (MERCATUS) para ser aceite pelas outras Pessoas, pela Sociedade (SOCIETAS), por troca (ESCAMBIO) pelo equivalente geral (mercadoria com aceitação universal), moeda, dinheiro (NUMMUS).
- Divisão social do trabalho, com crescente dependência das Famílias livres (abolição da escravatura e da servidão) da transformação da sua capacidade de trabalho em mercadoria para trocá-la pelo equivalente geral do empresário, que por sua vez, lhes permita trocá-lo pelas matérias que necessitam; o empresário por sua vez, cria as condições reunidas numa empresa, num negócio (NEGOTIUM), para que os produtos do trabalho se transformem em mercadorias aceites pela Sociedade (os outros trabalhadores dependentes e empresários), que as trocam por equivalente geral. O empresário necessita de equivalente geral inicial ou dos meios necessários para a produção de mercadorias, designado por capital (CAPITALE)
O novo sistema dito capitalista, assente neste tipo de relações sociais em liberdade (LIBERTAS), mas condicionada, enfrenta inúmeras crises de desfasamento entre a capacidade de produção de mercadorias para o mercado e a existências de condições para a troca, que tem por base a capacidade e a vontade de as adquirir, para ser possível «o salto mortal da mercadoria», como Karl Marx referia, nosso inspirador nesta viagem sobre a Austeridade.
O que era inicialmente um grande esforço para os Seres Humanos ganharem graus de liberdade em relação à Natureza (NATURA) transformou-se numa capacidade quase infinita de criar matéria a partir de matéria ... e da satisfação das necessidades passou-se à criação amplificada de necessidades, que num sistema aberto e livre pressupõe uma ampla manipulação das decisões livres, mas condicionadas.
Cada vez mais matérias transformada, cada vez mais mercadorias produzidas, cada vez mais mercados criados, cada vez mais Pessoas e Famílias dependentes desses mercados num difícil ajustamento, que a tentação estatista planificadora sem liberdade, controlada por uma nomenclatura, de forma alguma se tornou alternativa, mas que o Estado em liberdade, com os intermediários financeiros, permitiram amplificar por quase todo o Planeta Terra.
E a Europa que viu nascer este sistema profundamente materialista, mas que permitiu aos Seres Humanos desenvolverem as suas potencialidades de Liberdade, Realização Pessoal-Familiar e Espiritualidade, pela sua capacidade de descondicionamento em relação à Natureza, numa dialéctica virtuosa, essa Europa vê-se mergulhada após grande empolamento materialista e consumista, sustentado num forte endividamento induzido e especulação financeira, num processo de contenção, de austeridade, para diminuir as necessidades de financiamento e o endividamento, liderado pelo Estado que mais beneficiou com esse empolamento, o Alemão. É um contínuo «stop and go» simplista, que urge colocar em causa! A alternativa à recessão («stop») e a esse crescimento («go»), é o Desenvolvimento regulado e sustentável.
Mas se a Austeridade tivesse um cariz selectivo, de eliminação do desperdício e de sustentação do que é saudável para as Nações, libertando meios para a sua criatividade, avaliando correctamente os custos de oportunidade, nomeadamente através da minimização dos desperdícios que se realizam nos Estados e em outras entidades públicas, essa Austeridade era muito bem vinda e deveria ser indelével. Mas o que está em causa para Países como Portugal é aumentar as receitas públicas e diminuir as despesas públicas de uma forma que fragiliza fortemente a Nação Portuguesa, porque foram, estão e serão destruídas capacidades de sustentação social das Famílias, das Empresas, do Estado e outros entes públicos num absurdo círculo vicioso, que obriga a exportar, a internacionalizar, a emigrar cada vez mais, para onde seja possível e viável.
É possível realizar outro caminho com Austeridade virtuosa e Desenvolvimento Estratégico da Nação! É este o grande desafio para a Europa e para Portugal ... Aguardamos com curiosidade o Relatório encomendado pelo Presidente Françês Françoise Holande a Louis Gallois, que liderou a European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V, (EADS), com publicação prevista para o próximo dia 5 de Novembro.
Nem retornar à austeridade do Estado Novo, onde tudo foi nivelado por baixo, nem pactuar com o Estado acumulador de desperdícios, prejuízos, défices e dívidas.
Dawn Holland and Jonathan Portes do National Institute of Economic and Social Research, propõe-nos este interessante alerta sobre os efeitos preversos de uma má e sincronizada Austeridade na Europa, com efeitos multiplicadores amplificados, no artigo publicado no site VOX do Centre for Economic Policy Research (http://www.voxeu.org/article/self-defeating-austerity):
«Self-defeating austerity?»
Dawn Holland, Jonathan Portes, 1 November 2012
Is austerity – particularly the fiscal consolidation programmes
currently under way in most EU countries – self-defeating? DeLong and
Summers (2012) have argued that, in current economic circumstances, the
negative impact of fiscal consolidation on growth may be so great that
the impact on debt-GDP ratios will be perverse, causing them to rise
rather than fall. This question has been thrown into sharp focus by the
IMF’s belated reassessment of the magnitude of the “fiscal multiplier”
in major industrialised countries during the Great Recession (IMF 2012),
although their methodology, which is clearly not definitive, has been
questioned by Giles (2012).
In recent research, we make the first attempt – to our knowledge – to model the quantitative impact of coordinated fiscal consolidation across the EU, using the National Institute Global Econometric Model, and taking account of the current economic conjuncture (Holland and Portes 2012).
The main conclusion is:
We begin by estimating fiscal multipliers in “normal” times. As in much of the previous literature, multipliers are generally less than one, and smaller for more open economies. However, with most economies currently depressed, and with interest rates at or near the zero lower bound, there are several reasons why one might expect the negative impact of fiscal consolidation on growth to be greater now than in “normal” times.
First, under normal circumstances a tightening in fiscal policy can be expected to be accommodated by a relaxation in monetary policy. As monetary policy loosens, long-term interest rates fall, stimulating investment and offsetting part of the fiscal contraction. However, with interest rates already at exceptionally low levels, further tightening of fiscal policy is unlikely to result in such an offsetting monetary policy reaction. While quantitative easing/credit easing measures have been introduced, the effects of these measures are also limited by low interest rates on ‘risk-free’ assets, and it is unclear that they have a significant impact on the risk premia attached to assets that bear a greater risk of default.
Second, during a downturn, when unemployment is high and job security low, a greater percentage of households and firms are likely to find themselves liquidity constrained. In the presence of perfect capital markets and forward-looking consumers with perfect foresight, households will smooth their consumption path over time, and consumer spending will be largely invariant to the state of the economy or temporary fiscal innovations. However, in a prolonged period of depressed activity, this is unlikely to be the case.
Finally, with all countries consolidating simultaneously, output in each country is reduced not just by fiscal consolidation domestically, but by that in other countries (through trade linkages). In the European Union, such spillover effects are likely to be large.
In order to assess the impact of these planned consolidation packages on GDP, the deficit and the stock of government debt, we consider two alternative scenarios. In the first scenario, we implement the policy plans detailed in Table 1, under the assumption that the economy is behaving as in ‘normal’ times, eg. with flexible interest rates that do not bind, and liquidity constraints in line with the long-run average. In the second scenario, we allow for an impaired interest rate channel and heightened liquidity constraints; assumptions we consider more realistic under current conditions.
Table 1 reports the estimated impact of the planned consolidation programmes in Europe on GDP under the two scenarios, while Table 2 reports the impact on debt-GDP ratios. These scenarios were run with all countries consolidating simultaneously, and so capture the spillover effects of policies between countries.
Table 1. Impact of consolidation programmes on GDP
Note: Scenario 1 reflects expected impact were the economies operating near equilibrium. Scenario 2 allows for heightened liquidity constraints and impaired interest rate adjustment.
Figure 1. Impact of consolidation on government debt ratio, 2013
The negative impacts of consolidation on growth in the second scenario are much larger than in “normal” times. Moreover, the result of this in turn is that fiscal consolidation increases rather than reduces the debt-GDP ratio in every country except Ireland. This seemingly perverse outcome reflects the relatively modest adjustment to the stock of debt in the numerator of this ratio compared to the sharp contractions expected in the level of GDP in the denominator of the ratio. While the level of debt is expected to decline in most countries, the rate of decline cannot keep pace with the drop in output, leading to a rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio.
It is particularly striking that this is not just true in extreme cases like Greece; fiscal consolidation across the EU has the effect of increasing rather than reducing debt-GDP ratios in Germany and the UK as well. In both the UK and the Eurozone as a whole, the result of coordinated fiscal consolidation is a rise in the debt-GDP ratio of approximately five percentage points.
Of course, one argument frequently advanced in support of fiscal consolidation programmes is that they will reduce government borrowing premia in countries with high debt and deficits. But these simulations show that the opposite may in fact be the case: if we were to allow for endogenous feedback from the government debt ratio to government borrowing premia, this would in fact raise interest rates, exacerbate the negative effects on output, and in turn make debt-GDP ratios even worse; truly a “death spiral” .
The direct implication is that the policies pursued by EU countries over the recent past have had perverse and damaging effects. Our simulations suggest that coordinated fiscal consolidation has not only had substantially larger negative impacts on growth than expected, but has actually had the effect of raising rather than lowering debt-GDP ratios, precisely as some critics have argued. Not only would growth have been higher if such policies had not been pursued, but debt-GDP ratios would have been lower.
It is particularly ironic that, given that the EU was set up in part to avoid precisely such 'prisoner's dilemma' type problems in economic policy coordination, it should currently be delivering the exact opposite. Current policy looks less like optimal coordination – and more like a suicide pact.
Barrell, R, D Holland and A I Hurst (2012), "Fiscal consolidation Part 2: fiscal multipliers and fiscal consolidations", OECD Economics Department Working Paper No. 933
DeLong, J B and L H Summers (2012), ‘Fiscal policy in a depressed economy’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2012.
Fatas, A (2012), "Underestimating fiscal policy multipliers", blogpost, October.
Giles, C (October 2012), Financial Times.
Holland, D and J Portes (2012), "Self-defeating austerity?", National Institute Economic Review 222.
IMF (October 2012), World Economic Outlook.»
In recent research, we make the first attempt – to our knowledge – to model the quantitative impact of coordinated fiscal consolidation across the EU, using the National Institute Global Econometric Model, and taking account of the current economic conjuncture (Holland and Portes 2012).
The main conclusion is:
- While in 'normal times', fiscal consolidation would lead to a fall in debt-to-GDP ratios, in current circumstances fiscal consolidation is indeed likely to be 'self-defeating' for the EU collectively.
- The fiscal consolidation plans currently in train will lead to higher – not lower – debt ratios in 2013 in the EU as a whole.
- This will also be true in almost all individual EU nations, including the UK
- Ireland is an exception.
Right tactics, wrong strategy
The implication is that the current strategy being pursued by individual Member States, as well as the EU as a whole, is fundamentally flawed. Even on its own terms, it is making matters worse.We begin by estimating fiscal multipliers in “normal” times. As in much of the previous literature, multipliers are generally less than one, and smaller for more open economies. However, with most economies currently depressed, and with interest rates at or near the zero lower bound, there are several reasons why one might expect the negative impact of fiscal consolidation on growth to be greater now than in “normal” times.
First, under normal circumstances a tightening in fiscal policy can be expected to be accommodated by a relaxation in monetary policy. As monetary policy loosens, long-term interest rates fall, stimulating investment and offsetting part of the fiscal contraction. However, with interest rates already at exceptionally low levels, further tightening of fiscal policy is unlikely to result in such an offsetting monetary policy reaction. While quantitative easing/credit easing measures have been introduced, the effects of these measures are also limited by low interest rates on ‘risk-free’ assets, and it is unclear that they have a significant impact on the risk premia attached to assets that bear a greater risk of default.
Second, during a downturn, when unemployment is high and job security low, a greater percentage of households and firms are likely to find themselves liquidity constrained. In the presence of perfect capital markets and forward-looking consumers with perfect foresight, households will smooth their consumption path over time, and consumer spending will be largely invariant to the state of the economy or temporary fiscal innovations. However, in a prolonged period of depressed activity, this is unlikely to be the case.
Finally, with all countries consolidating simultaneously, output in each country is reduced not just by fiscal consolidation domestically, but by that in other countries (through trade linkages). In the European Union, such spillover effects are likely to be large.
The impact of fiscal consolidation 2011-2013
We now consider the impact of the actual fiscal programmes announced and enacted for 2011-13 in the EU. Fiscal policy became contractionary in all countries in our sample in 2011, with the deepest consolidation measures introduced in Portugal, Ireland and Greece – the three countries on bail-out programmes. Cumulative measures over the three-year period amount to close to 10 per cent of GDP in Greece and Portugal and 8% of GDP in Ireland. Consolidation measures amounting to 5%-6% of GDP are planned in France, Italy, Spain and the UK, while only a modest adjustment is planned in Germany and Austria.In order to assess the impact of these planned consolidation packages on GDP, the deficit and the stock of government debt, we consider two alternative scenarios. In the first scenario, we implement the policy plans detailed in Table 1, under the assumption that the economy is behaving as in ‘normal’ times, eg. with flexible interest rates that do not bind, and liquidity constraints in line with the long-run average. In the second scenario, we allow for an impaired interest rate channel and heightened liquidity constraints; assumptions we consider more realistic under current conditions.
Table 1 reports the estimated impact of the planned consolidation programmes in Europe on GDP under the two scenarios, while Table 2 reports the impact on debt-GDP ratios. These scenarios were run with all countries consolidating simultaneously, and so capture the spillover effects of policies between countries.
Table 1. Impact of consolidation programmes on GDP
Note: Scenario 1 reflects expected impact were the economies operating near equilibrium. Scenario 2 allows for heightened liquidity constraints and impaired interest rate adjustment.
Figure 1. Impact of consolidation on government debt ratio, 2013
The negative impacts of consolidation on growth in the second scenario are much larger than in “normal” times. Moreover, the result of this in turn is that fiscal consolidation increases rather than reduces the debt-GDP ratio in every country except Ireland. This seemingly perverse outcome reflects the relatively modest adjustment to the stock of debt in the numerator of this ratio compared to the sharp contractions expected in the level of GDP in the denominator of the ratio. While the level of debt is expected to decline in most countries, the rate of decline cannot keep pace with the drop in output, leading to a rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio.
It is particularly striking that this is not just true in extreme cases like Greece; fiscal consolidation across the EU has the effect of increasing rather than reducing debt-GDP ratios in Germany and the UK as well. In both the UK and the Eurozone as a whole, the result of coordinated fiscal consolidation is a rise in the debt-GDP ratio of approximately five percentage points.
Of course, one argument frequently advanced in support of fiscal consolidation programmes is that they will reduce government borrowing premia in countries with high debt and deficits. But these simulations show that the opposite may in fact be the case: if we were to allow for endogenous feedback from the government debt ratio to government borrowing premia, this would in fact raise interest rates, exacerbate the negative effects on output, and in turn make debt-GDP ratios even worse; truly a “death spiral” .
Conclusions
It has been argued that the poor growth performance of most EU countries (including the UK as well as Eurozone countries) in the last two years cannot be primarily attributed to fiscal consolidation, given the historical evidence on its impacts. This paper suggests the contrary: when account is taken of the magnified impact of consolidation in a depressed economy, and of the spillover effects of coordinated fiscal consolidation across almost EU countries, fiscal multipliers will indeed be considerably elevated, and the impact on growth correspondingly larger.The direct implication is that the policies pursued by EU countries over the recent past have had perverse and damaging effects. Our simulations suggest that coordinated fiscal consolidation has not only had substantially larger negative impacts on growth than expected, but has actually had the effect of raising rather than lowering debt-GDP ratios, precisely as some critics have argued. Not only would growth have been higher if such policies had not been pursued, but debt-GDP ratios would have been lower.
It is particularly ironic that, given that the EU was set up in part to avoid precisely such 'prisoner's dilemma' type problems in economic policy coordination, it should currently be delivering the exact opposite. Current policy looks less like optimal coordination – and more like a suicide pact.
References
Barrell, R, T Fic and I Liadze (2009), "Fiscal policy effectiveness in the banking crisis", National Institute Economic Review, 207.Barrell, R, D Holland and A I Hurst (2012), "Fiscal consolidation Part 2: fiscal multipliers and fiscal consolidations", OECD Economics Department Working Paper No. 933
DeLong, J B and L H Summers (2012), ‘Fiscal policy in a depressed economy’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2012.
Fatas, A (2012), "Underestimating fiscal policy multipliers", blogpost, October.
Giles, C (October 2012), Financial Times.
Holland, D and J Portes (2012), "Self-defeating austerity?", National Institute Economic Review 222.
IMF (October 2012), World Economic Outlook.»
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