On Monday evening (7) in São Paulo, began the international conference Dilemmas of Humanity: Perspectives for Social Transformation, which brings together world-renowned progressive leaders and intellectuals to debate concrete solutions to the crisis of capitalism.
The opening panel was held at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), with Claudia de la Cruz, 2024 candidate for the US presidency and co-founder of The People’s Forum, an organization focused on the working class and marginalized communities, and Indian writer and historian Vijay Prashad. The panel also featured an impromptu speech by state deputy Eduardo Suplicy (Workers’ Party, São Paulo state).
Brazil’s Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad (Workers’ Party), was scheduled to take part at day one, but didn’t show up due to a tight schedule. He participated during a panel on the second day of the conference, along with Vijay Prashad and other guests.
In her speech, Claudia de la Cruz emphasized the need to build spaces like the Dilemmas of Humanity. “Historically, this event has helped us to talk to each other. Not just to talk for the sake of talking, but to create plans as a working class. Having a space that allows us to come back re-energized to do the work we need to do in our countries,” she said.
The activist and candidate for US presidency in 2024 pointed out that, despite the US’ position as a guarantor and executor of wars and aggressions against other nations, the majority of the population is against these acts. “People in the US have concluded that their enemies are not those who live in the Middle East, but those in the Pentagon, the White House and Congress. People have come to realize that the economic and political system in which we live and operate is the greatest theft not only of the material needs of our people but also the greatest theft of our dreams and aspirations as a working class.”
“Most people in the United States do not support the Trump administration. In fact, 58% of Americans believe that capitalism in general is not good for them as a people. 64% of young people under the age of 34 are against the genocide in Palestine,” she said, pointing to the importance of having points of communication between the working class around the world.
“It’s not the US people who maintain sanctions against Cuba. It’s not the people in the US who sanction Venezuela. In fact, if they knew, they would choose to end those sanctions.”
In his speech, Vijay Prashad pointed out that we are five years away from the moment when the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the SDGs, should all be achieved – which is not going to happen. “The SDGs are not on our agenda. We want to build socialism, and they won’t achieve their own goals,” he said. “The failure of the SDGs shows that there is no way to improve the lives of the majority of the population under capitalism.”
“A recent World Bank report called Pathways Out of the Polycrisis notes that 3.5 billion people or 44% of the global population are poor. Under current conditions, it would take more than a century to lift people above the poverty line, $6.85 per day. This marks a grotesque failure of the SDG approach, which is merely a quantification of the entire development agenda that has captured policymaking for the last quarter century,” Prashad pointed out.
He stressed that it is essential to overcome the ideology of sustainable development and the entire system of thought that underpins it. “The whole framework needs to be challenged. Financing development is not just about banks and money. It’s largely about planning the use of national resources, including land and labor. That plan must include a country’s sovereignty over its resources, not the surrender of those resources to multinational corporations that suck the value abroad through practices such as low royalty rates and transfer pricing agreements. These companies are sovereign, while most countries only have flags and national anthems. A development plan must articulate the best way to pool these resources for the benefit of the people,” he said.
“Socialism is necessary, capitalism has failed. Forgive me for being blunt. Liberalism has had its time. For 30 or 40 years it has been destroying the world. We’re not going to deal with liberalism anymore. For us, socialism is the only way forward. It’s time to speak clearly about what we believe in.”
Eduardo Suplicy was invited to speak at the end of the panel and defended the urgent adoption of the so-called minimum income. He said that he had spoken to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) seeking ways to implement the program. Suplicy added that he was also having talks with “Conselhão”, a group that brings together businesspeople, members of popular movements and activists from various sectors to advise the President of the Republic on various issues.
“The basic income, when it is constituted in this way, will be a guarantee of freedom for the Brazilian people, the American people…” he said, interrupted by applause.
Dilemmas of Humanity
The event, which is free, invited 70 leaders, intellectuals and representatives of people’s movements from around the world to debate proposals that confront inequalities, hunger, the environmental crisis caused by capitalism and the neoliberal advance. The conference runs from April 8 to 10 at Sesc Pompeia, in São Paulo’s Água Branca neighborhood, always starting at 10:30 am.
On Tuesday (8), the conference began with the panel “Humanity’s Dilemmas”, which outlined the current historical situation and its challenges, such as the drive towards war, the increase in poverty, hunger and inequality, as well as the global threat of climate catastrophe. The panel was made up of Vijay Prashad, Mandla Radebe from South Africa, a professor at the University of Johannesburg’s School of Communications, and Magdalena Leon from Ecuador, an economist specializing in feminist economics and solidarity economics. There was also the online participation of US economist Jeffrey Sachs, author of the book The End of Poverty.
The conference is organized by the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST, in Portuguese), the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA).
