Global Journal of Human Social Science, E: Economics, Volume 23 Issue 3

III. T ransfer of I ncome and N eoliberalism: R eflections under the C ovid-19 P andemic The transfer of income has been a central element of social policy under neoliberalism, especially in countries with dependent economy, where it gained centrality status as a strategy to combat poverty. Income transfer programs have been created since the 1980’s in Latin America and intensified from the early 2000’s, in line with the guidelines of multilateral agencies, to address the most urgent impacts of the economic and social crisis and the effects of the first waves of neoliberal counter reforms experienced in the region. This new set of programs is resuited to the new requirements of the reorganization processes in the field of production and financial globalization, being focused and aimed at extreme poverty, differing from the logic of complementarity that composed the experiences of minimum income in social protection schemes instituted by the Social State. Pastorini and Martinez (2014) identify a centrality of minimum networks in social protection reforms in Latin America, where the experiences of income transfer are fundamental pieces, failing to have an emergency and temporary character and gaining ground as the main access to resources for the impoverished segments. For the authors, the minimum social care networks, focused on poverty, are being constituted on a process of reducing other structuring social policies, such as social security, health, education. Starting from research on the experience of income transfer in both central and peripheral capitalism, Stein (2008) points out that it was from the 2000’s that the creation of income transfer programs and the reform of the existing ones in Latin America intensified, however, the unlike the central countries where such programs are complementary to insurances, here the transfer of income takes on a substitutive character. Data from Lavinas (2014, p.18) show that between the end of the 1990’as and the end of the 2000’s, social spending as a proportion of GDP in Latin America increased by 6.6%, however, income transfer programs (contributory and non-contributory) absorbed 60% of this increase. Whereas public services such as health and housing grew less than 1% in the same period. Based on these and other budget data in the region, the author corroborates with the trend of centrality of income transfers in the processes of reconfiguration of social protection of Latin American countries, asserting that such programs do not ensure the coverage of all potential target audiences, given the limits of their focus, having an immediate impact only on the intensity of poverty, but without being an effective way out, nor being able to prevent it. In Brazil, experience with income transfer programs at the national level began in the early 1990’s 8 . It should be pointed out that on that occasion the country was experiencing a great recession and was in the C ollor’s government, having already faced the failure of its first stabilization plan in 1990. This was the first attempt to introduce the neoliberal package of measures, by wage austerity, reduction of the public deficit through the state privatization, and its result caused a retraction of economic activity and stagnation, increasing unemployment and the impoverishment of the population, situation eventually led to the impeachment of Fernando Collor at the end of 1992 (MATTOSO, 2010). Considering that the internal accumulation of capital in Brazilian dependent capitalism is founded under the overexploitation of the labor force, which has a regulatory role that lowers the general average of wages and reduces the structural capacity of consumption of the masses (MARINI, [1979], 2012), structural limits are interposed to social conquests regarding social protection and public services, as social rights form part of the basket of provisions that conform the value of the workforce, conquered by historical struggles of workers. Such historical specificities of our social policy brought about, unlike other central social formations, to not have a structured social protection network to be dismantled when neoliberalism consolidated in Brazil to respond to the crisis, which initiates structural adjustments in the economy and counter reforms in social policies in the midst of a very initial and limited process of implementation of the legal achievements entered in the Charter of 1988 (BRETTAS, 2017). The context in which the debate on minimum income begins to gain prominence in Brazil is precisely from the implementation of the Real Plan, which continued the neoliberal structural adjustments, but with important changes in the stabilization package, making the plan success in fighting inflation could leverage FHC’s candidacy and victory for the presidency in 1994. In dialogue with the minimum income program of the then Senator Suplicy, the economist José Marcio Camargo collaborated to introduce the articulation of monetary transfer with education, starting to highlight the family and children. These changes influenced several municipal experiences that began to be implemented since 1995, when there was a major expansion of municipal programs and the creation of income transfer initiatives by Brazilian states. The first federal programs started in 1996, with the creation of the 8 With the approval of Bill number 80, of April 16 th , 1991, authored by Senator Eduardo Suplicy, proposing the creation of the Minimum Income Guarantee Program (PGRM). © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue III Version I 29 Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 ( )E Expropriation of Rights, Dependent Capitalism and Transfer of Income: Reflections on the Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic