Fear, insecurity and neoliberalism in Brazil

‘Each family must protect their elderly rather than place this responsibility on the state’, the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro said in an interview with a popular TV show on 8 April 2020. In the interview, he conveys the idea that each family is responsible for their own healthcare, despite the fact that healthcare is a constitutionally assured right, secured by pre- Bolsonaro state infrastructure. This and other remarks by the president express a vision of the state as bearing no responsibility towards its population during the pandemic, particularly the sick, elderly, children and other vulnerable demographics. According to this perspective, the state would not be responsible for any individual's care, placing citizens’ protection solely on themselves.

The perspective adopted in this discourse is that the economy's failure would be more lethal than the pandemic. Concerning Bolsonaro's seemingly coherent idea of defending the poor and maintaining jobs, it needs to be remarked that he and his base initially blocked emergency aid to those under or slightly above the poverty line. Aid to these groups was only accepted several months into the pandemic and for a limited period – providing additional evidence of his perception of the poor not as citizens worth protecting but as essential engines in the national market.

Brazil stands today as a relevant case in the discussion surrounding the relationship between health and state during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its Unified Health System (Sistema Unico de Saude, SUS in Portuguese) is the largest public and universal (that is, free of any cost for any person, including foreigners) healthcare system in the world – and that clashes with the current neoliberal project of federal public services privatisation in Brazil. The SUS was created in 1988 in the promulgation process of the new democratic federal constitution after 21 years of dictatorship (Paim, 2018). Even before the rise of Bolsonaro, a series of cuts in healthcare public investments were implemented, following different pressures by neoliberal segments.