Critique On 1980 Government’s Neoliberal Policies In Brazil

In the 1980s, modernization and neoliberal policies were implemented in Brazil. The logic of these policies was that they would increase governmental attention to public health to benefit everyone. However, the state, now obligated to take on health as a social responsibility, became overwhelmed, access to care became limited, and patients were deinstitutionalized from overcrowded hospitals. This shifted the burden of care from state institutions to the family and communities, which the families couldn’t sustain. Increasing numbers of mentally ill and excluded people began to live in the streets. The market economy emphasized commodity and labor. Many ended up in places like Vita. Social processes, such as the health policies of the state, the marketization of medicine, the use of psychotropic drugs, and a new rationality of the family that comes to devalue unproductive members to the point of abandoning them, produce the kind of life stories that we find in Vita.

Tensions and power dynamics of formal economy – they’re all dependent on each other and the fact that families, hospitals, etc are willing to do this. The ability of the market to succeed – where it stops is where you find places like Vita (society of bodies – people have created this place to form a community, people who are the same), but without consistent funding, their conditions are terrible. Limits to the success of a market society, what comes after is Vita – maximizing utility.

The logic behind the government’s neoliberal policies did not work how they were intended, and they created a greater social inequality gap and created a value for people based on productivity. Although Vita is influenced by this “regular” economy, it supports society…. . Although the state portrayed their policies as equitable and inclusive, in reality, this worked for some members of society, but not others. The upper strata of society not only live longer; their right to do so is ensured through bureaucratic and market mechanisms. However, the people at the bottom are ignored, and the inequality gap widens. Reflects that as a society we are trying to compartmentalize – further compartmentalization like decentralization of the state, family roles of what they can do - create an “other” box (doesn’t mean the efforts to compartmentalize isn’t there, desire to create distinct domains of action and responsibility. You have to be a part of the status quo to not end up there – familial and gender. You may actually be okay, but the system doesn’t take into account gender relations where men can declare a woman as mentally ill.

A more formal institutionalized way of ideas society of if you don’t conform to the group, then you’re ostracized. Relationships that have to fail (family, state institutions, places of work) to be able to end up in this area. Families decide who they should priorities and the rest are sent to these places - Social triage – these people are too far gone – medical institutions have been saying this – they can’t take care of anyone – who can be abandoned, people who don’t produce value. Vita is not part of the regular economy because not really enforced – outskirts of society can’t, in reality, isolate something from society because it takes society to create and maintain places like Vita. Participants in the economy - practitioners, fundraisers, are all a part of the regular/formal economy and bring expectations / assumptions to Vita based on their roles in society – opportunity.

Power structures mapped out in Vita from wider society. They have to play to these structures to fundraise and get people to know about the place. Letting people die brings in more money and donations, as Oscar implied: "The infirmarys the heart of Vita. Why do you think that donations come in? But citizenship and care remain, of course, a moneymaking matter. " There is still money laundering, donations, not required to produce output because they’re outside the system. Voicing moral indignation over the fate of the abandoned, Luchesi attracted donations of food and clothing while also carrying out his political campaigns, Zé das Drogas and his immediate assistants were embezzling donations. The system doesn’t work for them, but they also are dependent on this system.