Macrismo and the "Peronist Pope" | Opinion

On March 13, 2013, Jorge Bergoglio was named pope. This led to the macrismo, always in opposition, to a moment of ecstasy which however it took little time to wake up. The wet dream of having the Pope as an ally was intense, but brief.

Since then, to explain his frustration, the Macro has invariably resorted to one of his hyper-simplified smoke curtains: "Francisco opposes neoliberal politics because he is Peronist". Condition, in your eyes, totally disqualifying.

Why remember that now? Because the case seems capable of providing clues to better understand the reasons for the outcome of the PASS as well as the reasons why it was so difficult to predict the extent of the party's defeat at the power.

The "Peronist Pope"?

The hoax of attributing Francisco's opposition solely to his alleged Peronist affiliation ends up being believed even by those who created it.

A first and serious error preventing them from seeing that the papal opposition has a much deeper and more serious origin: between the Christian creed expressed in the Social Doctrine of the Church (DSI) and the neoliberal creed there is an irreducible antagonism that sooner or later they should face. An antagonism as old as the Catholic condemnation of liberalism was expressed more than a century ago in the encyclical founding of the DSI, the Rerum Novarum (Leo XIII, 1891, n ° 9).

And an antagonism as obvious as letting a Polish anti-Communist little suspicious of a Peronist arguing that "capitalist neo-liberalism subordinates the human person and conditions the development of peoples to the blind forces of the market (and produces) the exaggerated enrichment of some a growing impoverishment of many people … "(Juan Pablo II, Homily in Havana, 25, 98) And not only that, he also denounced it as a" sin "and, in particular, as One of the "social sins that cry out to heaven, because they generate violence, break the peace and harmony between communities of one nation (and) among nations." .. "(John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, No. 56, 22, 99).

What were the reasons to suppose that Francisco was going to support a neoliberal project? Perhaps, to say the least, a lukewarm little opposition from the local ecclesiastical hierarchy to neoliberalism could lead to a lighter papal opposition, but never to a supportive attitude. This first mistake – or ignorance – has contributed to another macrocrism error that is much more decisive.

The feasibility of a cultural change

From its beginnings, macrismo understood that its possibilities to reach the power and, even more, those to remain within it when the natural and harmful results of its policy were already obvious, depended largely on being able to generate a profound and permanent cultural change.

Hence his relentless preaching of egoism, individualism and ruleless competition as positive values ​​- Ayn Rand dixit – and his definition of entrepreneurship and individual merit as the only one in the world. the only way of social progress, of meritocracy as an infallible barometer of justice. and uncertainty as a source of pleasure – A. Rozitchner dixit -.

Thus, by integrating these "values" in a good way, macrismo thought that "the people" would attribute their difficulties to their lack of merit or their lack of effort, dissociate it from the economic project and would vote again.

Mistakes

The project, however, was based on a miscalculation that PASO's results seem to show: fifteen years of cultural and media campaigning, as vast and complex as it is, are not enough to suppress the values ​​and change the behaviors that a city has been incorporated into its subjectivity and treasures centuries ago, perhaps especially when the proposed changes only bring about poverty and, badly, despite a ministerial election, uncertainty.

There are certainly many reasons for the success of resistance to cultural change. Popular intelligence often denied, or at least misjudged, is one of those reasons. Maybe the main thing.

But another is surely the one we have supported and which macrocrism has ignored: the religious condemnation of neoliberalism is based on defending the values ​​that neoliberal preaching must not only weaken but also replace its opposites. Solidarity, self-help as the engine of personal and social progress, and the radical equality of human beings are values ​​which, with no doubt, have been preached for centuries by most religions and have penetrated so deeply. deeply in society. the subjectivity of people who are no longer easily detachable.

There is another mistake that the result of STEP seems to highlight and needs to be mentioned here even if it is a short detour. The overvaluation of the power of the media to change culture or, if one prefers, the undervaluation of intelligence and the ability of people to resist manipulation of the media does not seem to be the exclusive heritage of macroism. It is perhaps by admitting a similar overvaluation of the power of the media and a similar undervaluation of popular power that it is explained that neither the opponents of macrism have been able to predict the volume of the defeat of the macrista .

Finally, STEP highlights another mistake, namely the absence of the Catholic hierarchy in the public debate on the inequality of neoliberalism. We can celebrate the fact that the church has asked for the declaration of food emergency, but it is still a late and insufficient gesture.

Because, having the theoretical foundation and the example of the Pope they have, it is very difficult to understand that neither the hierarchy nor the lay organizations of the Church participate organically and actively in the denunciation of the condition intrinsically. perverse neoliberalism. Nor is it easy to understand that many faithful who are familiar with the ISD insist on supporting neoliberalism with their vote.

* Sociologist. National University of Quilmes.