Understanding Brazil’s New Right and Its Impact on Social Policy

Understanding the New Right

According to Pereira (2016) and Afonso (2007), the new right is characterized by the fusion of neoliberal and neoconservative concepts. It uses neoliberalism, based on the free market and individualism, with regard to the economy and neoconservatism, giving priority to state authority, discipline, order, and the recovery of traditional values, in its social, political, and cultural aspects (Pereira, 2016). This ideology is even more evident today following Trump’s 2016 election in the United States and that of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018.

The most obvious issue is that the economic minister at the time, Paulo Guedes, comes from a neoliberal school of thought, focused on reducing the size of government on social issues and supporting the free market. Meanwhile, the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights at the time, Damares Alves, comes from an ultraconservative background, interweaving religious discourse into the public and social realms. Here, it is worth mentioning that the new right acts in an institutionalized manner within the state (Casimiro, 2016). It is characterized by the amalgamation of two ideologies (neoconservatism and neoliberalism) that, despite being contradictory in many respects, converge in their effects in dismantling democracy (Brown, 2006), forming a new element that unites the worst of each. According to Brown, the new right stands, on the one hand, for the devaluation of political freedom, equality, substantive citizenship, and the rule of law in favor of the market and, on the other hand, the valorization of power for moral ends, thus weakening culture and government institutions themselves.

It is important to emphasize that this is not such a recent phenomenon. The term “new” must be interpreted similarly to the “neo” in “neoconservatism” and “neoliberalism.” The “new right” reflects a change that has occurred in the grassroots of the American right wing that dates back to the 1960s, when, according to Brown (2006), neoconservative and neoliberal thinkers including Irving Cristol, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, and Friedrich Hayek expressed their dissatisfaction with the liberal politics of the era and what they called the “moral crisis” constituted by the origin of egalitarian policies including the rights of women, contraception, abortion, racial equality, and the new elements that came out of liberalism, especially the social and cultural movements that arose during that decade.

According to Finguerut (2014: 108), the emergence of the new right in the 1960s was a response to Keynesian and welfare policies seeking “a new ethic for a capitalism undergoing an ethical crisis and for a morally fragile society.” This new development, expressed by the association of neoconservatives in their defense of the free market, was also observed in Europe, particularly in England, greatly influenced by the work of Hayek. It came to join the forces that sought to lend moral support to free-market capitalism, rescuing and revising traditional values that were considered conservative such as freedom, with its liberal foundation, the family, with its well-defined roles and genders, property, civil society separated from public administration, etc. Nevertheless, from a neo-rightist perspective on power, attacks on hard-won rights began to be seen as part of an effort to legitimate this morally based power. In the words of Finguerut and Souza (2018), such legitimation comes from reforms and the destruction of norms with the objective of creating wealth, taking the individual as its moral basis.

Finguerut (2014) argues that what essentially distinguishes this new right from the “old” one is that concerns are based on something he calls a “counterrevolution.” While the old right valued the family and tradition, its focus was on the individual. In the case of the new right, despite also emphasizing the family, the focus is more on “less secular, more religious institutions that repeal a series of laws and of rights that, in the understanding of these actors, threaten the modern family” (2014: 117). Consequently, neo-rightism dictates moral and market rules for the whole of society, going beyond the private sector and becoming embedded in public life, institutions, and laws.

To this effect, a dangerous movement is becoming evident in the country, one in which people seem to live in a parallel world, believing that the election of Jair Bolsonaro put an end to corruption, the problem of urban violence, and what they call the mamata, understood to mean the social programs implemented by the Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff administrations (2004 to 2016), which guaranteed minimal subsistence for the poor. This has led to a depoliticization of social issues and the internalization by many of the neo-rightist principles of meritocracy and moralism, partly because the main actors of the new right have a discourse that is based on their own nonscientific worldviews.

Casimiro (2016) describes the manifestations of the new right in Brazil from the redemocratization of the country in the 1980s through political mechanisms that include parties and social movements on these bases. He sees the new right as a modernization of the mechanisms of bourgeois domination, which is now maintained only through government repression. The current mechanisms act both in the diffusion of neoliberal thinking and in the creation of guidelines and implementation of public policy.

Furthermore, the capitalist system produces and reproduces phenomena including fascism, racism, coups d’état, and military dictatorships (Löwy, 2015), and the new Brazilian right, in its extremism, also has these characteristics. While Löwy did not consider racism in Brazil as being explicit, in the 2018 elections it became so not only in politics but also in society in general. The media and a general sense of alienation in education and work played fundamental roles in the diffusion of this ideological trend, together with the Brazilian colonial heritage, which still has effects on culture, morals, and politics. The new right exhibits explicit racism, prejudice, and xenophobia, something that is quite evident in Ex President Jair Bolsonaro’s speeches. Thus, using Gramsci’s perspective of the extended state, Casimiro (2016) emphasizes the power of the state as a mechanism of class domination, based on a domination also grounded in civil society. Consequently, it becomes easier to legitimize propositions from the top, leading the population as a whole to embrace the new right’s ideas.

The neoconservative blocs were strengthened, and society demonstrated its alignment with this perspective, reinforced by Jair Bolsonaro, at the polls. Miguel (2018) highlights the diversity on which the new right is based. It is not a single right but the confluence of a wide range of groups that have a common enemy. Among the more extremist groups he sees three main strands that complement each other: libertarianism, which preaches the smallest possible state when it comes to social support and exalts the free market, seeing equality as a threat to freedom; religious fundamentalism, defined by dogmas and undeniable truths that must be imposed on the whole of society; and a recycled anticommunism incarnated in hatred of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT) and Venezuela, as if these were mirrors of the communist left. The distinctiveness of Latin America is apparent in the frequency of military dictatorships in its historical process, a phenomenon that has led to a series of reactionary, repressive, and oppressive totalitarian regimes. A political culture centered on these parameters aggravates the dynamics of the new right, which has a tendency toward totalitarianism. All this leads to a unique culture that normalizes the social nature of capital, thereby legitimizing and updating the forms of domination and its expanded reproduction (Casimiro, 2016).

These elements have been clear in the blocs of Congress not only in reference to the 2018 elections but long before. The well-known BBB (ox, bullet, and Bible) ² political bloc is the result of this movement that has been working to diminish people’s rights. This idea has been easily and widely spread because Brazil is an extremely conservative country that tends to be maintained by the elites, with their racism, their class prejudice, and their horror of communism (Barroco, 2015), and that, in practice, still carries historical marks of neoconservatism allied with neoliberal perspectives of countries that live a dependent capitalism as Brazil does. In addition, thousands of votes were won by an anticorruption discourse marked by selectivity and understood not as a product of political and economic power relations but as “a detour taken by people lacking character” (Miguel, 2018: 24).

Thus, we cannot say that the counterreforms now being implemented come only out of neoliberal ideology. What actually occurs is a mixture, resulting in a “socially limited state, one that does not guarantee social rights but rather provides residual, contingent, and stigmatizing social protection policies, on the one hand, but strong centralizing and controlling policies, on the other” (Pereira, 2016: 101–102). In view of the above, it is understood that neoliberalism and neoconservatism, viewed in isolation, express different policies. While neoliberalism focuses on a global order from a universalized market perspective, neoconservatism proposes a nationalist order with a set of moral and political impositions (Brown, 2006). Combined, they form a different policy, the new right.

The Fundamentals of Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism emerged mainly from the ideas of Friedrich Hayek (1944) after World War II in a context of strengthening capitalism and hatred of communism and its ideals. However, it gained strength only in the 1970s, during the great recession. According to Anderson (1995), it was a theoretical and political reaction to the interventionist and welfare state. The way out of the crisis was seen as a state strong enough to break from the unions but limited in social spending and economic interventions, with monetary stability as its supreme goal (Anderson, 1995). The “neo” in its name seeks to realign classical liberalism, which, in the view of its theorists, had been putting liberties at risk by its association with social-democratic governments. Thus it attacked any limitation that the state might place on market mechanisms, which was characterized as a threat not only to economic but to political freedom (Anderson, 1995). Furthermore, unlike classic economic liberalism, neoliberalism was not limited to the economic sphere and did not consider the market as natural and self-regulating (Brown, 2006). Thus for Anderson another essential characteristic that brought the “neo” to its name was that it represented the free market as something that was at once achieved and normative—in other words, regulated by law and through social and economic policy. Therefore, with its neoliberal foundations, the state is essential when it comes to generating superprofits and implementing a market society; it is through the state itself that norms are established. In this regard, Brown (2006: 694) emphasizes that

the state must construct and construe itself in market terms, as well as develop policies and promulgate a political culture that figures citizens exhaustively as rational economic actors in every sphere of life. Familiar here are the many privatization and outsourcing schemes for welfare, education, prisons, the police, and the military, but this aspect of neoliberalism also entails a host of policies that figure and produce citizens as individual entrepreneurs and consumers whose moral autonomy is measured by their capacity for self-care.

Thus neoliberalism emphasizes that human well-being can best be promoted through individual freedoms and capabilities by encouraging the right to private property, free markets, and free trade (Harvey, 2008). More than a set of free-market economic policies that dismantle social welfare and increase income disparities, according to Brown (2006) neoliberalism involves a specific organization of social matters, the subject, and the state: “While neoliberal political rationality is based on a certain conception of the market, its organization of governance and the social is not merely the result of leakage from the economic to other spheres but rather of the explicit imposition of a particular form of market rationality on these spheres” (Brown, 2006: 694).

For some time now Brazilian social and economic policy has been based on this idea. The principles of individualism, the free market, and a minimalist state on social matters are gaining ground. This fact is legitimized by the naturalization of social inequality and by the alienation of the life of the worker and the average citizen, who, despite not having the right to leisure or culture, find that their source of information is the media, which end up corroborating the internalization of a market logic that usurps more democratic perspectives.

During the Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff administrations, there was more state intervention in social matters through social policies and programs that guaranteed a minimum for survival, but the neoliberal offensive did not cease to be part of these governments. Examples of this include the pension reform, which harmed the working class, the scrapping of essential public services such as health care in favor of private plans, more emphasis on private higher education, and the forgiving of billions in bank liabilities during these administrations. However, after Rousseff’s impeachment, with the inauguration of Michel Temer, even worse were the implementation of the new tax regime and the labor reform.

In this connection, it is clear that neoliberal states typically favor the integrity of the financial system and the solvency of financial institutions over the well-being of the population (Harvey, 2008). Consequently, one of the most curious foundations of neoliberalism is the creation of what Harvey calls a paradox: at the same time that it preaches a minimal state and noninterference, the state is the greatest protector of the market.

Meritocracy is an essential mark of neoliberal ideology, based on social Darwinism. This is grounded in individualism and blaming individuals for their social conditions. In this context, the social and economic conditions of the lives of individuals are ignored in the belief that they can achieve social ascent merely through their own efforts and the state should not intervene. As Anderson (1995) argues, with inequality as a positive value, neoliberalism uses this inequality as an economic potentiator, thus creating something known as an industrial reserve army—a body of unemployed and poor people who will accept any working conditions merely to subsist. In short, neoliberalism rejects fundamental democratic principles such as equality, universality, political autonomy, citizenship, substantive freedom, and the rule of law, even though these have never been fully achieved (Brown, 2006).

Neoliberal ideology has strong institutions for its worldwide propagation through alienation and repression and through physical violence. Harvey (2008) points out that neoliberal positions are widespread in the field of education, in the media, on the boards of directors of corporations and financial institutions, and in international institutions that dictate orders to dependent countries: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Foundations of Neoconservatism

Neoconservatism emerged as an idea in 1930, but it was consolidated only in 1980. According to Pereira (2016), the idea is based on the conceptions of liberals sympathizing with socialism, its main precursors being Irving Kristol (considered the father of neoconservatism) and his colleagues Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, and Daniel Bell (Pereira, 2016: 108). In his analysis of Kristol’s writing, Finguerut (2014: 107) highlights that he overvalued authority and argued that society’s greatest risk lay in what he called a “moral crisis,” which in his understanding took place in the United States in the 1970s. Thus, for Kristol, “if the crisis were moral, there could only be a moral solution,” with religion as an instrument for educating individuals.

Neoconservatism is not socially unified, since it was founded by and continues to be supported by intellectuals, anti-intellectuals, politicians, angry white men, and righteous blacks, arising from what comes to be an essentially religious alliance (Brown, 2006). Brown emphasizes that neoconservatives are not always or necessarily religious; rather, they are allied with their foundations in relation to Christian morality. He sees neoconservatives with different perspectives as united by the desire for a strong state that uses its power to advance its moralist interests, legalizing and legitimizing its actions and practices while criminalizing anything that eludes that logic. What makes neoconservatism “neo-” is precisely the construction/management of a strongly moralized state, directly influencing the domestic and international spheres, in addition to the fact that it was part of the social and cultural movements of the 1960s, which were innovative at the time. In this sense, the neoconservatives reaffirm the above-mentioned principles, which did justice to conservatism, and leverage such rationality, dictating rules for the private sphere. However, they also reject certain values that are key to classic conservatism such as fiscal frugality.

Brazil is based on neoconservatism in an even more evident way. Its creation was consolidated by conservative bases. Its flag proclaims “order and progress.” The traditional values of the Catholic Church were widely disseminated through a morality that is still very much present (consider the evangelical bloc of Congress). The materialization of paternalistic and philanthropic policies was also part of our creation, influencing, even today, our policies and programs. Racism and patriarchy are our very foundations, essential to the analysis of our social issues.

The moral question is central to neoconservatism, as opposed to neoliberalism. There is belief in the existence of orders and classes. However, at the same time, it is believed that the only true equality is moral equality, and respect for authority is seen as indispensable to social life (Vieira, 1998: 36). Under this logic, the entire society must follow the imposed traditional values, centered mainly on cultural nationalism, moral rectitude, Christianity, and the repudiation of social movements, especially feminists, LGBTQIA, blacks, and environmentalists (Harvey, 2008), that seek to definitively modify traditional structures. As a result, neoconservatism no longer rejects state action but does so in aspects unrelated to the market. On the contrary, it supports state intervention, identifying it mainly through laws with the goal of establishing religious morals for society and, indeed, for the world (Brown, 2006).

With regard to social protection, it focuses on the neediest, and, as Pereira (2016) points out, this protection is expected to be temporary and minimal. In this regard, it goes hand in hand with neoliberal premises, meaning that individuals are blamed for their own conditions and must rebuild themselves through their own efforts, thereby creating the social imaginary of meritocracy, in which everyone has the same capabilities. Work is central to this and considered the ideal way of consolidating one’s quality of life.

Furthermore, Harvey (2008) helps us to distinguish between the two ideas, claiming that neoconservatism reshapes neoliberal practices in two ways: in its concern with order as a response to chaos and in its concern with an inflexible morality as the social cement necessary for maintaining the security of the body politic from external and internal dangers. Whereas the basis of neoliberalism is individualism, which fosters permissiveness, neoconservatism is more rigid when it comes to customs. In line with this assertion, Brown (2006) also supports the idea that this attribution of moral authority to the state is inconsistent with liberal principles in every way.

Additionally, neoconservatism is very much focused on militarization as a way of maintaining order. Neoconservatives use militarization to remedy the chaos of individual interests (Harvey, 2008). I would also add that militarization, something that Brazil has already experienced and has seemed to have a desire to relapse into for some time now, is used as an instrument to maintain the interests of the elite, with the result that it is a remedy that ends up killing the poor, especially black people, in the process of sanitizing and maintaining privileges. Neoconservatism is a dominant form of conservative defense of the capitalist order (Barroco, 2015). The state, represented by this standard, aims to combat any form of contention of the established order and morality in a coercive and violent way.

With “Bolsonaro Wave” neoconservatism has gained even more strength on the Brazilian stage. This fact was made clear after the 2018 elections not only by the election of candidates “for morals and good customs” but thanks to the support of society, which was drummed up by the media. Barroco (2015) emphasizes that, since the 1990s, through the intensification of expressions relating to social issues and crime, a climate of generalized insecurity has been created that facilitates the propagation of appeals for order and repression. However, the changes that have been occurring find their bases in old sources, traditional values that mark the loss of rights, violence, paternalism, and the intensification of expressions relating to social issues.

The Perfect Marriage on the Brazilian Stage

After differentiating the two aspects, it is possible to emphasize their “marriage” in Brazilian and international politics, despite their peculiarities. Neoliberalism makes the overaccumulation of capital possible through the exploitation of workers and the financial market, as well as through an economic policy of fiscal adjustment for social investments, while investing in banks and fictitious market shares. Neoconservatism contributes to this accumulation by alienating the population through widespread traditional values such as patriarchy and racism that, historically, have also contributed to the capitalist mode of accumulation. In this sense, it is necessary to emphasize that the two aspects are fused together, forming a new ideology that we know as the new right. Reading Brown (2006) helps us to understand that because of this fusion we have, on the one hand, a market ideology and business model of the state and, on the other, a theological model of the state. The two models have several points in common. Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism reject values such as equity, civil liberties, fair elections, and the rule of law, in Brown’s (2006) words “desacralizing” them. In other words, despite the fact that neoconservative principles do not agree with neoliberal principles separately, “the moralism, statism, and authoritarianism of neoconservatism are profoundly enabled by neoliberal rationality” (Brown, 2006: 701–702).

Another point to consider is that, specifically in Brazil, there is no clear separation, in ideological terms, when it comes to social, economic, and cultural matters. The country’s neo-rightist leaders are ambivalent, just as they were about the emergence of the new right, with its neoliberal tendencies on economic matters and neoconservative leanings on matters of tradition in the 1960s. As a result, a series of laws and norms is being shaped with intense state intervention under the dictates of capital and the Church. Thus, according to Almeida (2018), classic neoliberalism in its pure form is incapable of supporting the ideology of a brutal political practice of extermination and downgrading of living conditions, and therefore “freedom” ends up becoming its flagship aspect. Only neoconservatism is capable of articulating hate speech against historically oppressed groups (women, blacks, LGBTs), combining intolerance and hyperindividualism, and invoking norms, all with the support of the state (Almeida, 2018).

It can be said, therefore, that the new right is characterized by potentiating exploitation and oppression of class, race, and gender in a way that brings together the worst of both neoliberalism and neoconservatism, which, despite being in direct opposition to each other, when taken together become an ideal marriage under the current capitalist system, with its end goal of overaccumulation. Under the command of the new right in Brazil, neoconservative morality, which permeates private life, is confused with the morality of the market and vice versa. Hence “the upright, patriotic, moral, and self-sacrificing neoconservative subject is partially undone by a neoliberal subject inured to altruism and wholly in thrall to its own interest” (Brown, 2006: 699).

This marriage leads us to expect policies that are extremely negative for the population, with the result that the privatization of social protection and making individuals accountable for their own conditions are basic premises of the new right (Pereira, 2016). Brown (2006) discusses four aspects of society arising from what she calls de-democratization: (1) the devaluation of political autonomy, (2) the transformation of political problems into individual problems with market solutions, (3) the production of the consumer-citizen as available to a heavy degree of governance and authority, and (4) the legitimation of statism (Brown, 2006: 703). However, in Brazilian society there are demonstrations calling for the return of the military dictatorship. This is an important element in understanding the new right. According to Carapanã (2018), what makes this right different is precisely the rejection of liberal democracy or any other form of democracy. This factor has serious impacts on the population and on the rights obtained after many struggles, many of which were implemented through the universal declaration of human rights, labor rights, the entire set of women’s rights, the right to vote, and full citizenship.

Today’s advance of the new right is being ramped up by the social networks. In recent years, and specifically in the 2018 Brazilian elections, we were able to follow hate speech openly displayed on the Internet. Finguerut and Souza (2018: 242) emphasize that the “non-place” that is the Internet “creates the sensation of a reaction or a large political movement around non-consensual ideas. These are conspiracy theories, fake news, or minority movements that take advantage of the non-place, where there is no right or wrong, and where people have no contact with the real world, making them able to recruit and manipulate through hate speech and with figures often presented as authoritarian leaders or positions.” Here it is necessary to point to the dissemination of fake news, mainly by neoconservative sectors that attribute a moral and economic crisis exclusively to the left. Thus the Internet facilitates society’s forming opinions through persons who are acclaimed by it. Statements made by Ex Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are excellent examples (for example, when he claimed that there is no hunger in Brazil).

The fact that Jair Bolsonaro is flanked by figures including Luciano Hang, owner of the Havan store chain, and Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (evangelical) and owner of the Record television network, adds power to this analysis. Furthermore, the Record network, alongside the social media, is the main source of communication for the ex Brazilian president, who considers extremely conservative voters his great asset. He has created a network for disseminating fake news and propagating delusional fear, leading the audience to see him as the only viable alternative.

We can observe, then, that the new right is also characterized by a postmodern rejection of historical, political, and social facts. As a result, “values and behaviors such as the conservatism of customs, reactionary ideas, and anti-intellectual sentiment are strengthened” (Finguerut, 2018: 243). This makes it possible to see that both neoconservatism and neoliberalism value power and statism (not in the sense of guaranteeing rights), and when this logic is combined with moralism and the market ethos and the public is shaped by this combination, a fiercely antidemocratic political culture results (Brown, 2006).

Social Policy under the Advance of the New Right in Brazil

Social policy, like state policy, is contradictory. Its characteristics vary depending on the particularities of each country and region and the political, economic, and social context. The contradiction has been resolved within the field of study, which serves the interests of both workers and capital, and therefore social policy is a matter of dispute.

The class struggle is also present in the field of social policy. As Piana (2009: 24) puts it, “No social policy is disconnected from social struggles.” This makes the correlation of forces fundamental in establishing the orientation of social policy. From the moment of its creation, the struggle of the working class is indispensable, given that the state, because of the nature of the interests primarily served by it, does not grant rights “for free.”

It is understood here that, as Vieira (2007) has shown, social policy is intimately related to economic policy. From this it follows that, in times of economic expansion and depending on the correlation of forces, the margin for negotiation tends to expand, while in moments of crisis, it is restricted (Behring, 2009). Economic cycles, as explained by Behring (2009), are not natural movements of the economy but the product of the interaction of a set of ethical-political and economic decisions. Thus social policy is limited by the predominance of economic policy.

The metamorphoses that we have been seeing in Brazil over the years are evidence of the differentiation of social policies; these changes also depend on the government’s strategy and the ideology rooted in the state. This is due to their organizational role, emphasized by Poulantzas (1975), in which the government builds the daily order, ensuring and legalizing domination and establishing the orientation of economic and social policy (Vieira, 2007). Since social policy is also built amidst advances and setbacks, it constitutes a dialectical movement in constant transformation. Currently, the entire struggle of the working class to consolidate its rights, social security, labor, health, education, welfare, etc., has been seriously threatened by the ruling class, made up of those who, theoretically, should be representing the population. What is most striking is that the bases of the new Brazilian right make this dismantling movement different. The attacks seen, on the one hand, are due to an intense fiscal tightening on social issues with the goal of favoring the market. The most emblematic case in this connection was the 20-year spending freeze, while, on the other hand, we have bizarre moralist conceptions disseminated throughout the population.

Behring’s (2009) analysis of the resurgence of the Durkheimian idea of anomie for contemporary transformations—that they are a pathology of society—is quite timely. The pathology that society believes to exist has been dangerously attributed to the left and to a communism that has never really existed. This has led to formerly consolidated social policies and programs’ being vehemently attacked with a moralistic and poverty-criminalizing bias. This, perhaps, is the most curious characteristic of the rise of the new right: the legitimation of part of the population with regard to the dismantling, making it not only part of the elite but also part of the working class. On this matter, Behring stressed that attacks on social policy could generate a crisis of legitimacy, since it became the support for millions of families. Nine years later, we see these very families supporting the destruction of their own rights. Undoubtedly this is not completely conscious on their part.

The advance of technology, Internet access, and the political strategy of disseminating fake news with the support of the mainstream media have contributed to the introjection of meritocracy, insecurity, the moralization of social issues, and the concept that the solution to problems will come from more violence and austerity. As a result, the correlation of forces ends up being unfavorable to the population, directly influencing social policy. This has led to part of the population’s taking to the streets while another large part promotes resistance and legitimizes the destruction of rights, something already characteristic of moments of financial and political crisis.

In addition, Pereira (2018) gives us important theoretical foundations for understanding and reflecting. “Post-democracy,” the trivialization of democratic processes, is a result of the loss of contact between politics and citizens and their demands and interests, creating what she calls an “antipolitics” that opens the way for the return of authoritarianism, coups d’état, and fascist dictatorships. The form that the Brazilian state has been taking is consistent with this reality, established and legitimized by a society that, little by little, was rising up under a selective indignation about corruption, violence, and whom to blame for problems presented in an apolitical, alienated, and ahistorical way.

However, in this scenario, the working class is the one that suffers the real consequences, both now and in the future. With the advance of the new right and on the basis of the regulations that have been approved by the powers-that-be with the involvement of the judiciary, there is a fierce dismantling of hard-won rights. Examples of this include counterreforms such as those related to social security, labor, high school, drug policy, and the proposal to reduce the age at which a minor can be charged as an adult. These counterreforms are guided by moral, antidemocratic foundations based on private values and interests and amount to the transfer of the social functions of the state and the management of social policy to the private sector (Pereira, 2018). In the field of drug policy, for example, the state, supported by conservative and market precepts, has been transferring its responsibility to the field of solidarity while guaranteeing repression, with political isolation and violent coercion for the most radicalized expressions (Behring, 2008).

All this reversal is part of what Mota (2018) calls the “organic crisis.” In other words, the current crisis is not only part of the economic field but also part of political, ideological, and cultural relations and affects the correlation of forces, weakening the reality of the poorest. All these steps backward, based on the counterreforms that have already been instituted or are under way, are determined by the needs of capitalist accumulation, with the counterreform offensive as its mainstay in relation to the diminishing of rights and social guarantees.

What is most curious, after these arguments, is that in this catastrophic scenario, the paradox suggested by Pereira (2018) occurs: the more capitalism destroys democracy and social policies, the more both of them are required. We know that, in moments of crisis, opinions on social matters intensify, demanding effective government responses. However, what has been seen in the meantime is the opposite, leading to a social catastrophe in a system that generates more and more poverty and inequality despite producing more and more wealth (concentrated in the hands of the few). According to Behring (2008), this intensification of social issues is made up of three combined elements: unemployment, exile in decaying neighborhoods, and stigmatization in everyday life, generally associated with color and gender. These factors are gaining strength with the rise of the new right in Brazil, with its politically and scientifically meaningless discourse, full of neoconservatism, racism, and prejudice, creating what Behring (2008) has called a prison-welfare complex, which ends up concealing those who are excluded from the market to avoid urban unrest under a clear policy of sanitization, sending the unwanted away to prisons, cemeteries, therapeutic communities, and asylums.

Conclusions

The issue of the new right has generated discomfort among scholars for using the word “new” in its name. This article has emphasized that the term should be understood not as labeling something recent but as identifying an old ideology that is gained strength in Brazil. That said, it is important to take into consideration that the current form of social policy and political reality cannot be seen as an isolated neoliberal phenomenon. Increasingly, it is evident that neoliberal ideology, with its already well-known consequences, merges with a neoconservative ideology in a right that can be categorized as extreme. It is no coincidence that, more than ever, designations made in the political sphere are so evident in this regard. The people appointed to political posts, while well suited when it comes to their strengths and loyalty to their leader, often include military personnel, guaranteeing steps backward on social issues, gender, drugs, culture, etc., in a movement that hides the reality. At the same time, care has been taken to ensure that economic issues fall under a neoliberal leadership that provides continuity and speeds up a process of fiscal austerity that benefits the market. The result is even more catastrophic, especially considering its fascist traits, which are ingrained in society from posttruth constructions that distort reality and create a morality based on racist, prejudiced, and sexist perspectives that naturalize the social inequality inherent to the capitalist system.

As a result, these elements of analysis are fundamental for understanding reality in its entirety, which is not dissociated from an ideology, as many suppose, or from the social structure that is capitalism in the guise of a dialectical movement. When part of society starts to share the idea that is imposed on it in an alienated way, it becomes acceptable for rights to be gradually removed in favor of the accumulation of capital in the hands of a few, placing societal concern more on maintaining “order and good manners.” Understanding these metamorphoses as they relate to national policy is fundamental to understanding reality and, consequently, designing strategies for building new possibilities.