http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/business/07trade.html?scp=1&sq=brazil%20intellectual%20property%20rights&st=Search

Well, I think that is because those who had great expectations were those who hoped to elect a Messiah, rather than a four-year term President in a democratic society. Electing a President in Brazil does not give carte blanche to override constitutional checks and balances. Lula faced a conservative Judiciary, and held a minority in Congress. Lula ostensibly chose a gradualist approach to governance and I believe this is what explains that after eight years in power, he enjoys 75% approval ratings and is particularly popular in the lower and middle classes. This gradualist approach pretty much disarmed both the extremely reactionary right-wing parties — which until then had kept the population in utter fear of the ‘red’, ‘baby-eating’ Lula — and the moderate right-wing social democrats. Lula’s opposition is still trying to understand how, despite corruption scandals and an openly opposition media, the man is so popular.

These political constraints are not to say that nothing could have been done better. They always can. But you do not correct centuries of social injustice by presidential decree. Poverty rates have consistently fallen — thanks to bolsa familia, reduced unemployment, and increased national minimum salary — even if it is true that taxation is still very regressive, and is levied mostly on employees, and consumer goods. Brazil still has a long way to go, but improving things without flirting with populism is a great challenge that the Lula administration has met remarkably well.

Comparisons to Argentina and Venezuela are not particularly helpful, I think. Argentina might be growing at a greater rate, but it has just managed to reach the GDP levels it had in 2000. According to WB data Argentina’s GDP in 2008 was 15% higher than it was in 2000 (current US$). Brazil’s GDP is , 150% higher than it was in 2000. Granted, GNI per capita (US$ PPP)is 58% higher in Argentina, compared to 47% in Brazil, but this has a lot more to do with demographics than it has to do with economic growth. Venezuela, on the other hand, doesn’t have an extremely diversified economy, and oil price hikes have certainly helped it grow. Don’t know if its a good parameter for comparisons.

As a Brazilian I agree that more should have been done, but I refuse to draw a negative balance, or to feel disappointed with what was — with no doubt — the most transformative government of the last fifty odd years in Brazil. It’s not all gloom.