Marcelo Thompson

Roman emperor Vespasian once said that “pecunia non olet” (money does not stink). This has since become a popular saying to mean that money is money, irrespectively of its sources. In some tax systems it has come to mean that tax law does not distinguish good money from bad money.

Well, some Brazilian Internet users yesterday decided to say that money does stink — or at least that the handing in of money to the Brazilian government for “improper” usage does stink. Or, perhaps, simply, that the Brazilian government stinks [*] — who knows.

Yesterday the Brazilian Senate decided not to renew for some more years the incidence of a tax whose name could be roughly translated as the “Provisional Contribution on Financial Moves”… or the CPMF. The CPMF was a tax instituted in 1996 — when today’s opposition was in power, and today’s powerful (or kind of) were the opposition — and which was scheduled to be levied on financial transferences happened during the 13 months that followed the 90 days after a 1996 law was promulgated. It was originally destined to support health programs in Brazil. However, it ended up by being neither provisional nor merely to support health — as its incidence was prolonged many times, and a constitutional amendment destined it to also combat poverty and support social security.

Two points are interesting to note, here. The first is that many of today’s social programs in Brazil are anchored in the CPMF, which corresponds to 10% of the overall taxes collected by the Federal government. Some people see this as the strongest motivation behind the opposition’s efforts for the tax not being renewed. According to this view, the opposition’s lack of support for the tax was grounded in its goal of counteracting President Lula’s popularity, which otherwise tends to keep stable as poor people continue to benefit from his social programs.

The second point — which brings this post to my Blog — is that amidst their lengthy speeches against the tax, one of the Senators decided to show the results of an Internet poll conducted by the newspaper “O Globo”, one of the biggest newspapers in the country. In that poll, 78.53% of the 6794 votes were against the tax, and 21.47% were in favour of it. “Look now at the site of O Globo, still fresh. This is the voice of the elector!”, said the Senator.

The first point reminds me of Lessig’s current quest against corruption (not in the bribery sense, as he says). If those people are right, the Senate had a very different motivation from that which could be said to represent the real public interest — the interest of the poor, massive population of Brazil. Actually, it may have used its political power against that which was very likely its own vision of the good. It may have voted against its own beliefs on what is right for the sake of sheer, empty political pestering. Let us not forget that it was today’s opposition who created the tax in 1996, and who renewed it first while in power.

The second point is a corollary of the first. Can a Senator lucidly argue that the 6794 persons that have access to the Internet and can read an on-line middle-class tabloid are representative of the 66.7% of almost 190 Million Brazilians that have NEVER used the Internet? Can this capture the public will? Can ANY Internet poll in Brazil be taken seriously as an expression of what the population wants?

This brings, however, an interesting question, about the very boundaries of direct democracy — which would perhaps be able to happen if every Brazilian citizen could take part in a (properly conducted) Internet poll. Are taxes something that people would normally contract into? BBC news today calls the CPMF an “unpopular tax”. Well, show me a popular one…

With regard to the defeat of the CPMF, Lula said that these “are things of democracy”. Lula is right. How to reconcile the power of those who assault the reason, with the lack of power of those who cannot take part in its formation is indeed a thing of democracy. It is its greatest contemporary thing.

[*] Please do not avoid me in the corridors. I am on leave.