>>Lula's Brazil is mostly another example of neo-liberal
>>disappointments.
>
>I keep asking people who say things like that - what else could he
>have done? He'd face a capital strike if he'd gotten too radical.
>Brazil is not like Venezuela; it has high debts and no oil exports.
>Low debt and high oil income give Chavez enormous freedom to maneuver.
Agreed, you do face a capital strike if you take on all of capital (especially if you are unprepared and the only party in obviously vulnerable circumstances).
But in this case, people are calling for taking on a particularly dysfunctional and parasitic form of Brazilian neo-liberalism that has been strangling Brazil's industrialization for 2 decades. I am sure you have heard many serious and even mainstream economists argue that "Lula" went vastly too far in accommodating the financial community (I heard Stiglitz (!) say almost as much the other night on TV). Real interest rates that have topped 40% seems to prove their point. http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/Tables4.htm
Those interest rates have surely put a lot more industrial capital on strike than a tax on financial speculation or international capital account controls ever would have!
I am not trying to minimize the obstacles. Yes, Chavez's oil wealth gives him the ability to *talk* in a way others can't. But Brazil, with its large industrial base, already has what others can only hope to build.
Paul