TECHNICAL DEMAGOGIES (philosophizing about sanitation)

For three thousand years, almost always the defense of an interest has been made viable, in political terms, by inducing society to believe that it is an interest of the collectivity, for economic reasons, reasons of sovereignty, social reasons, reasons of well-being, of the less favored, of minorities, etc., this idea being materialized in a "solution", "program", "guideline", "package", "norm", “incentives”, “subsidies”, or whatever else it may be.

For this, use is made of arguments, framed by the skillful handling of words and with recourse to techno-social semantics, which translates any pseudo-benefit inherent to any undertaking into fair aspirations.

Thus, for example, real estate speculation justifies changes in building height limits or land occupancy rates in the name of the "right" that the entire population has to want to live in the same pleasant place. Conveniently, it forgets to say that this aspiration, stimulated by the very advertising of those who hold the land, does not always exist, or, if it exists, may cease to exist as the plan materializes and the place ceases to be pleasant (see Copacabana, Guarujá or Balneário Camboriú).

It should be noted that many people like Copacabana, Guarujá and Balneário Camboriú as they are, and they must be respected. No one is obliged to go there; whoever wants to, goes.

And what about the "social" argument that justifies official loans to companies in poor condition, or even bankrupt ones, to "guarantee jobs"? Would the production or service of this company not be supplied by another, which would have to employ people to serve that share of the market? Possibly other people, but from society’s point of view the number would be the same. But this is how the generous subsidies are guaranteed, for which no accounts are ever rendered and of which the people are not the beneficiaries, only the pretext.

Also worrying is the increasingly greater tendency to propose and justify solutions and undertakings that are highly questionable from an ethical point of view, and even from a technical point of view, in the name of the less favored classes, alleging that the available resources are insufficient to meet the real needs of a given sector.

The greatest example of the issue was the adoption of the third shift in elementary schools in the public education system of Rio de Janeiro city and state, some years ago: faced with the finding that the number of school buildings was insufficient to meet the demand for places in these courses, and "in the name of making education possible for all", the brilliant solution was adopted of reducing teaching periods, placing three shifts where there had been two.

The solution, in principle, seems fair, because it prevents some from being left without school while others have a good school. It happens that, as in almost all sophisms, the issue was not this. What was needed, indeed, was greater funding for education. The consequence, premeditated or not, was a blatant drop in the quality of public elementary education, with the flight of the middle class to the private education network (the first direct beneficiary of the measure) and the de facto creation of the second-class citizen: the one who is educated in the way that was possible, within the "available resources". Now, nothing is more unfair than offering children different educations, because from this arises an entire institutionalization of inequalities, and in a cruel way, generating latent resentments that do nothing to help organize a Nation.

But the situation already existed before, they will say. Yes, but the proposed solution, besides dampening a struggle for greater interests (good education for all), served to level the 2/3 previously served by the state school network down to the 1/3 that then came to be served, lowering the general level, merely creating a greater supply of labor for lesser functions of the technological era, with the inclusion of the group that, if illiterate, would remain on the margins of the process and, thus, came to constitute a reserve of low-skilled labor, regulating wages since, at any demand from employees, one is dismissed and another is hired from the available market.

Meanwhile, relieved of the pressure for more funding for education, the managers of our economy can amuse themselves by playing in the financial markets in operations negotiated under the cloak of secrecy and of truly doubtful interest to Brazilian society.

In recent times, equally sophistic discourses have emerged, even in relation to the sanitation area: 

• the combined sewage systems in less favored areas and

• the demagogic tariffs camouflaged in tariff structures based on false arguments but with the appeal of “distributivism”.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # written on 11 Sep 1983 R2026 Jan Rb, 4,544 characters