The Machiavelli’s topicality in a look at Brazil: Do the ends justify

corruption?

Robson Vasconcelos Carvalho¹

Abstract: This article‟s purpose is to present, based on Machiavelli's political theory, a

discussion about how the politic‟s practice relates to themes of State‟s reason and
corruption in Brazil and if, under Machiavelli's perspective, the ends would justify
corruption. According to these concepts, we will analyze two examples: The coalition
government‟s construction in favor of governability, which culminates in the slicing of
sectors of the government itself, interfering in the management‟s control and quality;
and the Reason of State‟s use as justification to the corruption, also in the relation
between the federal executive power and the National Congress, in a case comparison
from governments of former presidents: Fernando Collor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer. The article is justified by
the current relevance of the concepts from the intellectual production of someone who
has thought and analyzed realistically the politic‟s operation more than 500 years ago. It
is divided into three parts: I - Machiavelli and politics; II – Reason of State, human
nature and corruption; III - Conclusion: Do the ends justify corruption?

KEYWORKDS: POLITICS; MACHIAVELLI; REASON OF STATE;

CORRUPTION; BRAZIL.

¹ Robson Vasconcelos Carvalho, Bachelor of Political Science, degree in sociology, public

management's specialist, Master's degree in Political Science (UFRN). Author of book “Citizen's
Manual”, presenter of television and radio programs in RN.
I – MACHIAVELLI AND THE POLITICS

If the “Lava-Jato” (car wash) operation, in Brazil, has caused strong impacts
on citizens and shocks in the institutions for revealing the "modus operandi" which
reigns behind the scenes in politics and electoral processes, imagine the turmoil that
Niccolo Machiavelli‟s revelations represented over 500 years ago.
Perhaps, for knowing well the ingredients that compose this human relation‟s
spectrum, imagine if Machiavelli himself watched the atual brazilian political news with
naturality. Would it be possible?
Notably realistic, Machiavelli served as counselor of many political leaders
from his time. Based on his researches and experiences, promoted a real revolution in
the way of thinking about the politic‟s phenomenon as it is, and of subtly realizing how
its relations prosecute, not always filled with purity.
According to Almeida Filho and Barros (1), Machiavelli was "the first modern
political scientist. Because, with his realistic way of observing the political
phenomenon, unveils the cruel face of power”. Concentrating his studies on the politics
operators‟ daily life and it's own dynamics, he came to a conclusion that became a
watershed: Politics is a human work, therefore, not divine. This discovery made him a
heretic, including his studies in Catholic's Church Prohibitorum Index (index of
prohibited books).
Politics, exercised by man - and not by God - is dynamic and its practice is a
game that has its own rules and follows a rational logic, not belonging to the ethic‟s
sphere, which is based on individual consciences and substantiated on moral precepts or
idealisms valid at each specific time.
Machiavelli decoded the formula of the "Nuclear Energy of Power". For
comparative purposes, we could say that just as nuclear energy can be used for noble
purposes, producing energy to light whole nations at low costs, can be destructive,
generating an atomic bomb, the "Nuclear Energy of Power" way of use can build,
conquer, form and sustain prosperous nation-states, republics and kingdoms or lead
them to ruin.
The politics‟ ethic obeys the responsibility's ethic; the state‟s ethic. For
Machiavelli, knowing how to use the power of strength, obtained through the politics
exercise, is the key to Prince's success - or public manager, these days - also conditioned
to what he calls “Virtù” (ruler's own qualities) and to Fortune (or luck, in their actions
implementation).
Even so, according to what we find in Jesus Junior's (2) article:

The adjective “Machiavellian” took pejorative proportions in interpersonal

relations. Pointing someone with that nickname can be considered offensive.
But these concepts acquire distinct representations within different political,
cultural and economics contexts. Being Machiavellian, now a days, doesn‟t
mean the same as applying Machiavelli's doctrine in the 16 th century, period
in which the Italian historian seeked to apply his advices to the princes
newcomers in power (JESUS JUNIOR, 2014, p 102).

Machiavelli, who wasn‟t machiavellian (in popular meaning) at all, has his
thinking misrepresented until this day, more than five hundred years later. According to
Barros (1) (2008: 68): "... There are two meanings for the term Machiavellianism, one
based on common sense and the distortions that Machiavelli's thought has suffered
through the centuries, and another which refers to his real doctrine, the Reason of
State".
Following the same train of thought, Barros apud Megale (1, 3), about this
distinction:

Called political or scientific machiavellianism and vulgar machiavellianism.

In both versions it is always a strategy. The difference is the desired result‟s
quality. If the desired scope is the satisfaction of a private interest or if it is
really intended to defend the State. (BARROS APUD MEGALE, 2008, p.
68-69)

II – REASON OF STATE, HUMAN NATURE AND CORRUPTION

CORRUPTION
If we stop to think etymologically, the word „corruption‟ comes from the Latin
"rumpere", from the agglutination between an adhesion particle "co" (at the same time)
and "ruptus" (break); the participle of the verb "to corrupt" is the corrupt, the rotten, the
one who let himself be damaged. "Corrumpere" indicates the idea of breaking
completely.
 Directing the understanding to the public sector, the word‟s interpretation can
be analogous to the breaking of existing morality, taking as an example the illegal sale
of favors by public power‟s representatives. The act of corrupting itself can also be
interpreted as the result of the act of bribing, when money or gifts are offered to
someone in return for special self-interest benefits.
In ancient Greece, the term arose linked to the idea of putrefaction, which
related to the politics, refers to the idea of political body‟s putrefaction, physical
decomposition of its structures, rotting its tentacles or bureaucratic arms, if we consider
the State.
Corruption is considered a serious crime in some countries, in Brazil has been
framed under the Brazilian Penal Code. After the modification of art. 1st from Law Nº.
8,072 / 90, in 2013, the types of active and passive corruption were included on the list
of heinous crimes.
Recently, due to “Lava-Jato” (car wash) operation‟s investigations and the
way national and local media coverage has been made, the corruption‟s visibility has
considerably increased in Brazil. This fact has produced in the most of brazilian‟s minds
the impression that all this would only be happening now (due to the proportion of
billionaire numbers published) and that it would be an exclusive brazilian evil, leading
many unsuspecting to want to leave the country, because it "wouldn't get better" or even
to support extreme measures, among them, the advent of a new military dictatorship,
interrupting democracy.
Therefore, it worth mentioning as contrary testimony to Bruno Brandão‟s (4)
deposition, brazilian consulting of International Transparency: “In fact, corruption isn‟t
a brazilian 'privilege' and let alone is in their „DNA‟. Actually, it appears every time
there are conditions to occur, even in the most developed countries”.
Another point to be emphasized about the spread of corruption‟s theme is the
hiding of worst evils, which compose the ruler‟s agenda, and when weakened after
being denounced, ends up using the state machine and making concessions to ensure
their power permanence.
In addition, another consequence of the disclosure of corruption‟s acts – even
it should be disclosed - is the shaking of State's credibility, making it fragile and
vulnerable to pressure of interests unrelated to its existence‟s primary purpose, which is
the society collective, as reminded by Marcos Otávio Bezerra (5):
 […] Bourdieu takes corruption‟s theme and associates it with the trust‟s
corrosion on the public service. The loss of conviction on the State as
promoter of the just and the common good facilitates appropriations and
inadequate use of its powers. As Bourdieu points along his analysis, the
State‟s construction as a public space, as universal‟s place, is an unfinished
and permanent work, interest's product of different agents and different
fights. (MARCOSS OTAVIO BEZERRA, 2015, p. 295)

This theme will be developed during discussion about corruption and

“Honestismo”, a little later.

REASON OF STATE AND CORRUPTION

Corruption

Despite being attributed to Machiavelli the phrase: “The ends justify the
means”, he never pronounced in his works. It is, therefore, one more interpretation that
is sometimes misrepresented. What he actually defended, based on the result‟s ethic,
was that in some cases, the rational and realistic view of politics overlaps the moralistic
stance, when the interests of the State, the institution under control, or, finally, the
interests of the collectivity, also understood as Reason of State, are at stake. The term,
admittedly by several authors, originates in Machiavelli‟s principles in The Prince. As
an example, Norberto Bobbio (6) points out:

Before that, it‟s possible to discover in political thought‟s history numerous

partial anticipations, sometimes quite acute, of such theory, but it‟s beyond
doubt that only with Machiavelli that is recorded a qualitative leap capable of
being the beginning of a new tradition of thought. (NORBERTO BOBBIO,
1986, p. 1067)

Likewise, Jesus Junior (2) argues that:

The Reason of State concept is not explicitly present in Machiavelli's work.

Neither the political relations model was appropriate to claim that, in fact,
represented a Reason of State in its fullness. Only with the territorial nation-
state that such affirmation would make sense. However, it is possible to
locate the intellectual origins of the concept in Machiavelli's political
 prescriptions to princes who have recently come to power. First of all,
Reason of State is understood as a politic's autonomy in relation to others
spheres of human activity, such as ethics and religion. The prince, conducting
state business, is the state itself, is transfigured. Thus, the prince's ethic is the
Reason of State. (JESUS JUNIOR, 2014, p. 108)

In this sense, Barros (1), evoking the thinking of Gautier-Vignal, affirms that
"Reason of State is that need which is belonging to the one who governs, to take the
proper measures to ensure the power‟s continuity, in time of crisis, the state‟s
salvation". Januário Megale (3) on the same concept, affirms that:

Reason of State is the principle by which the State's sovereignty can not be
harmed and by which the ruler can not prevaricate between cruel measures or
not, to guarantee the nation's sovereignty and the population's well-being.
(JANUARIO MEGALE, 1993, p. 59)

Would such interpretation mean that the ends would justify any means? And,
if so, would there be no limits to Reason of State? Corruption (circumscribed to the
illegal and immoral appropriation of financial resources) or even the promiscuity
relation between the legislative and executive powers, practiced in the name of
"governability" and the coalition government‟s construction, would justify itselfs as
Reason of State?
The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, in his lecture about "Power differentiation
and structural corruption", links the corruption‟s emergence in the public machine to the
own state‟s evolution, when, in order to manage, not being omnipresent, the King or
ruler needed intermediaries, to whom powers were delegated to represent them in the
state structure. In his point of view:

The State's building process is accompanied by a leaders body's

differentiation. By the delegation's logic, the king is led to confer part of the
held power to others, who may be their lineage's members or competent
people (lawyers, employees, etc.). Dependency chains are then created and,
to each link of the chain, the possibility of a deviation is instituted. In other
words, what the king does for himself, each designee may also do it for
himself. (PIERRE BOURDIEU, 1992, p. 492-493)
 Bourdieu's conceptualization, therefore, seems attuned to Machiavelli's
realistic look at corruption, as something inherent to the Modern State's formation and,
therefore, its very existence. The State, when evolving, delegates powers. That
delegation opens precedent to deviation. And the credit of this deviation is accounted,
by Machiavelli, in human nature, the state machine's operator. It worth checking the
Bourdieu's words:

[...] It's necessary to imagine the State's development process as a dissipation

process: There is an individual, and then [the power] cut, divide itself; There
are more and more agent holders of power plots, which are interconnected,
which use to be hierarchized by delegation processes. This delegation process
is, therefore, accompanied by a kind of power multiplication and gives rise to
the potentiality of the power deviation to each power articulation. Thus,
corruption is in a certain way [inscribed] in the structure itself. (PIERRE
BOURDIEU, 1992, p. 493)

Developing this discussion, Bezerra relates the corruption's conceptualization

developed by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu with the category of Reason of State:

For Bourdieu, corruption is a problematic of the Modern State's formation,

which consists on cheat of the Reason of State: The analysis of transition
from the dynastic state to a more "depersonalized" state introduces the
corruption's phenomenon as an issue related to modern state's formation. The
deviations in the power's use, driven not rarely by the domestic logic's
introduction, where the reason of the State should prevail, possibility
inscribed in the power's distribution's structure, is what makes the author
interpret corruption as structural. (BEZERRA, 2015, p. 294)

On the other hand, whereas corruption is inherent in human nature, and that
man is the politics operator with other men, would corruption be one of the pieces - or
rules - of the political game?
Taking into account the Machiavelli's realistic view of politics and human
nature, this can be understood as his "methodological rule: see and examine reality as it
is and not as wished" (SADEK, 2000, p. 17).
Perhaps, in tune with the issues we raise in the previous topic, is Barros's (1)
statement:
 For Machiavelli what matters is the real world... Perhaps that is why his
thinking undergoes so many distortions. That is, the political cosmos
demonstration, in its intrinsic reality, scare the unsuspecting who think the
ruler should be a pure person, a Christian above all else. In fact, things are
quite different, because the good ruler is not necessarily the one who has the
most candid soul, but who will put the public interest in the foreground and
will safeguard it, by all means, even if he condemns his spirit to hell.
(BARROS, 2008, p. 60)

Still about this, the german theorist Friedrich Meinecker points out that:

Reason of State is the fundamental principle of national conduction, the first

Law of State Movement. It tells the statesman what he must do to preserve
the health and strength of the state. The State is an organic structure whose
total power can only be maintained by allowing it, in some way, to continue
to grow; The Reason of State indicates both, the path and the goal for such
growth. (FRIEDRICH MEINECKER, 1957, p. 10)

Even so, it doesn't seem that the ends would justify any means. If we reflect
about corruption's theme related to the public resources diversion, we can ask the
following question: This type of corruption would be an exclusive problem in the
politics game, operated by politicians or would be a problem inherent to human nature,
as a kind of character's and personality's deviation, regardless of being politicians,
lawyers, businessmen, doctors, judges or engineers?
About this, according to Barros's (1) argument, it is observed that "motivated
by desire, meanness and sordidness, the human being forgets all the feelings that the
ruler, by his generosity, should inspire him, because big is the ease with which men
allow themselves to be corrupted”.
In the same section, lets also recall the thinking on these questions formulated
by some contractualists, members of the writers list allocated in what are called classic
political theories: For Thomas Hobbes, human nature is evil and individualistic and
causes man to think first of himself and in his own interests. For John Locke, this nature
is neither good nor bad, and the contract must be signed for certain specific purposes,
including to secure property. For Jean Jacques Rousseau, human nature is good, but
society corrupts it. In this sense, there are recent studies that suggest how an honest
person can become corrupt, influenced by the environment and by certain
circumstances. One of them, carried out in the Netherlands, was published in the
"Psychological Science" journal in 2017 and as follows, was commented in Folha de
São Paulo (7):

Led by Nils Köbis, experts from the Experimental and Applied Psychology's
Department at the Free University of Amsterdam, wanted to know if, to
commit a serious corruptions act, the person first had to undergo a phase of
"psychological preparation", acting in a unethical way, apparently softer,
before giving his big blow.

This is where it was possible to test this idea, called "slippery slope": One of
the participants groups could offer a very seductive tip to the employee -
vacations in Paris with everything paid. The other had to offer only one
dinner first and only then had the chance to give the ticket to France. On the
first case, the bidding victory was guaranteed, in the second the chance to
win the auction was 50% smaller.

The results indicated that the metamorphosis may be sudden: Given the
opportunity, anyone is liable to commit gross corruption.

In this regard, on the "The Prince" (8), in chapter 17, Machiavelli himself also
details his impression of human nature:

[...] In general, it's possible to say that men are ungrateful, voluble, simulators
and dissimulators, flee from danger and are always greedy for gain. And
while favored, they offer the prince their own blood, goods, life, children,
just if, as I said earlier, the need is far from them. But when it approaches,
they revolt themselves... Because men forget more quickly the father's death
than his patrimonial loss. (MACHIAVELLI, 1991)

In addition to corruption being present in governing act, also find it as a

electoral process‟s cheat in democratic regimes: The votes purchase appears as another
form of corruption: It's part of the game and is where much of this problem resides. But
if someone buys it, it's because there are (in all social classes) those who sell, trade,
negotiate the vote and make the system works and worth with generous returns in the
form of public resources diversions, jobs, parliamentary amendments. Here, The results
ethic seems to be useful to the candidate and voter.
On this same point, the philosopher Leandro Karnal argues that there is no
corrupt government with an ethical nation: Corruption is a social evil and not just from
government and "it would be good believe that political system is rotten and nation is
ethical (...) Brazilian politics is the nation's face".
To illustrate this problem, we raise a question to be answered: After all, in
general, the politicians we have in Brazil, especially in the National Congress, do
represent the population or not? We take as an example an interview with a professor
from UFRJ, the political scientist Jairo Nicolau, granted to journalist Hudson Corrêa of
Época magazine in April 2016, which transits for what he considers "Our politic's real
world". Referring to the Federal Chamber's vote about the impeachment process of
former President Dilma Rousseff, Jairo Nicolau says that:

None World Congress is a mirror, a perfect sample of the country's

population. It's a more elitist House, in all the questions. On the other hand,
since the re-democratization, the political elite has changed its profile. It is no
longer that traditional political class that had only bachelors, teachers and
judiciary people. We have a democratization, just like what happened at
universities [...]. But I think we thought had a better political elite than the
one who appeared on Sunday. Television has always shown only the handful
of deputies who circulate most in the power's sphere. On Sunday, we met our
representatives. It was really a shock. (JAIRO NICOLAU, 2016)

It seems that the politicians in question may even present a profile somewhat
similar to the citizens who chose them, but it isn't easy answer the question about who
or what interests they actually represent. It's worthwhile, in this case, analyze how they
vote and who or what they defend in their function's exercise.
Another approach invites us to view representation's crisis as a electoral
corruption's consequence, which we would call a kind of cheating to the electoral
game's official rules, in a democratic regime. Present in the current days, the theme is
approached in the book "The Future of Democracy", by Norberto Bobbio. For him, one
of the democracy's unfulfilled promises is the cheating which occurs in the electoral
process, promoted by those who have more money, who are more likely to be elected.
 Finally, if we hypothetically consider that these are the current rules of the
game - Even if it isn't justifiable - who wants to enter in the politics world, aiming to use
the conquered power for good or evil, for public or private interests, will have to play
this game? It seems us that not necessarily.
Would be like acting considering the need in first place? At least, according to
Gonçalves and Romano da Silva citing Machiavelli:

Based on what would later develop in the State Reason, Machiavelli guides
his writings primarily considering needs; it's this which must delimit the
prince's actions: "Where it's necessary, to a prince who wishes to remain [in
government], learn to be able to not be good and to use goodness according
to necessity”. (GONÇALVES AND ROMANO, 2011, p. 8)

There are politicians who, even "well-intentioned and vocationed", judge these
eventual cheats and their payment through the skinning of public coffers as "normal":
The money diverted to paying campaign costs aiming a bigger interest, like serving the
community, would be justifiable; Better, it would be that politicians ethics; because,
according to many people's argue, if this political player doesn't play this game, others
evil-minded politicians may enter and play it, aiming to plunder the public coffers in
favor of their private interests.
It's fair point out that in this relation, any act of corruption will always involve
an alliance - even if occasional and fleeting - between corrupt and corrupters.
Corrupters, who can "motivate" eventual corrupted, public agents or even candidates,
offering undue advantages of any kind, making the "motivated" acts in favor of those
who sponsored them, with cordial gratitude and devotion.

CORRUPTION AND HONESTY

If the realistic reasoning's development of Machiavelli's view may end up
shocking some unsuspecting and moralists of good-faith, when it comes to politics and
corruption, the alert which brings the honesty view, if misunderstood, may even seems
like an defensive act of the bad-done's operators, who use the public machine and its
resources in favor of their private interests or of who they actually represent.

Defenders of this view argues that permanent vigilance in the face of corruption
is important and must go on, but focus must be extended in view of small hegemonic
group‟s existence in the mainstream media and in the national and international
financial market, which, according to VITULLO (9), seek:

Install the fight against corruption as the great national crusade. Fighting
against corruption, against public money misappropriation, would constitute
the noblest cause to embrace, once that, in the argumentative line of those
who produce and reproduce such a sentence, the combat against corruption
would allow us to achieve significant improvements in the services provided
to population, especially the poorest part. (VITULLO, 2012, p 201)

The main warning given in relation to this targeting is propagation of the ilusion
that if honest politicians are chosen in an election, the country's great evils will be
solved. It's a vision which limits democracy and citizenship's exercise to merely
votation, manifested only on election's day.

Consequently, this micropolitics focus produces a poor debate that doesn't

happen around ideas and macroproblems to be solved (for example, fight for the best
national wealth's distribution), but it happens only to discuss who is honest or not, who
stole or who didn't, when in fact, this should be the obvious requirement made to any
public office's postulant.

In this context, comes up the invention of the term "honesty", developed by

Martín Caparrós apud Vitullo (9):

I have called this idea "honestimo", so widespread, that almost all the
Contemporary Argentina's ills are the result of corruption, in general, and
politicians corruption, in particular. The honesty is a nineties product, facing
Menem's governement's corruption explosion whose denunciation was
encouraged by a newspaper - the bravest - that showed it. It was a success:
Society was scandalized by these errors and excesses, but didn't perceive the
[terrible] structural changes, decisive, that Menemism was producing in
Argentina. (MARTIN CAPARRÓS, 2012, p. 202)
 For Martin Caparrós, the honesty speech works as a smokescreen, which
covers topics that are sometimes as important or more serious than corruption. Occupy
too much space in media's and institution's agenda with this theme would obfuscate
some politician's real positions, who can be honest about never having diverted any cent
from public resources, but that in their decisions as a manager or in their votes as
parliamentarians, can cause much greater losses to collectivity, in detriment of the
benefit to small hegemonic groups of society.
As Vitullo (9) points out, this discourse's main consequence is:

The general depoliticization, the political parties rejection, the leveling for
down of varied political associations, all being thrown, without distinction,
into the common mound of rot [...] generating a silence which is only
replaced by the "sport" of speaking ill of politics and politicians, denying any
participation or engagement in actions, projects, initiatives that could open
the door to a change of the real. (VITULLO, 2012, p. 207)

This discussion is concluded with a call for the citizens and/or scholars of the
subject, that take a step further, expanding the perspective and focus of analysis to
problems that are very close to the subject, but which ends up unnoticed for a moment
or even completely forgotten most of the time.

ELECTORAL CORRUPTION

As previously developed, if corruption at the state level can mean the natural
course's deviation that would follow the public resources, from its collection to its use in
collectivity's favor, electoral corruption, according to this reasoning, can means the
diversion of free and democratic choice; a cheat of the legal electoral game's rules -
whereas there is also a real electoral game. If the vote is a choice's materialization, this
one can be corrupted through its realization in exchange for any personal benefit, by the
voter's part, regardless of which social class it belongs.
The relation between corrupters and corrupted, at the state and electoral levels
and in the human life's various sectors, is ancient and goes back to the humanity's
history. It's a present reality in all the countries, on a greater or lesser scale.
About the vote's market sense, Lucas says that "the politician considers himself as a
voting dealer, just as an oil well's owner trades with oil, and voters faces elections with
a political consumption's spirit".
In this reasoning's line, it's, therefore, important to show the prejudice that this
voting distortion may cause to the society and to the mandate's exercise, because if the
election is already compromised, by the way they were elected, this mandate's exercise
will be just a consequence.
Thus, the political dynamic that involves and characterizes electoral processes
in Brazil needs to be understood, so that we can analyze the functional aspects of this
element which is one of the pillars that sustains democracy and allows some elected
access, through various tricks, to the power's instances and State's control.
The discussion on this subject is found in several authors, in the most different
approaches which it has. According to Bobbio (10):

The only way to reach an agreement when it's talking about democracy is
consider it characterized by a set of rules that establish who is authorized to
make collective decisions and with which procedures. (BOBBIO, 1997, p.
18)

This perception invites us to a reflection: Does democracy really exist when

there is corruption of one of its most important pillars - The vote? Which consequences
might exist for the State if its agents are financed by outside organisms, which has other
interests that are not those of the collectivity?
This seems to point us to the theoretical path to the confirmation of interest's
connection, or favors exchange between candidates and voters or even future
commitments made with the funders and with those who support the elected's
campaigns.
It's possible, thus, to consider that there are politicians who, from the
"honestismo" perspective, don't divert any penny from the public coffers for their own
benefit, but sells their mandate's exercise to their financier's interests in detriment of the
collective interests. There are those who defends that it would be legitimate, in this case,
because we would be faced with a group's situation, who needing to be strategically and
democratically represented, finances their representatives. But, it's worth remembering
that actually (2017) campaign's financing by companies is prohibited by brazilian law.
 At this point, if for Faoro, there is a centrality of the State's roles in the
Brazilian political formation, corruption in the process of getting votes gives the elites
access to the spaces of society's government, imparing the decision's balance that should
happen in favor of collectivity and not to the perpetuation of the political and economic
power's owners domain in Brazil. This is what Faoro calls "bureaucratic statements"
control, and which Fernando Henrique Cardoso called "bureaucratic rings" by political
elites, aided, sponsored and supported by economic elites.
Contrary to classic theses of the Brazilian Patrimonialist State, defended by
Faoro, in a november 2016 publication, in Revista Super Interessante, the American
historian Stuart Schwartz, Yale's professor and author of "Bureaucracy and Society in
Colonial Brazil" states that:

Blame the colonial bureaucracy's inheritance of the atual cases corruption in

Brazil is only a way of throwing the sins of the present into the past; Faoro's
idea that government was always something separate from brazilian society
cover the fact that the state represented society's interests, although not of all
the groups. (FAORO, 2016)

With this impasse, it's worth questioning: if the voting market is real, if there
are those who buy and who sell votes and if the vote has a price, which social class
would have more money and patrimony to reverse the dispute of fill the decision's
space, and power inside state in your favor?
Even so, we can not forget to remember that if there are those who buy votes
it's because there are those who sell it. In the "coitadismo" logic, the elector's image
(especially the economically poorest) being the victim usually prevail, because of their
needing have to sell the vote.
But if we imagine the existence of corrupters, as those who propose illegal
action for their own benefit, of friends or family, and corrupts, as those who accept the
illegal action's execution in exchange for money, gifts or other services that benefit
them, considering the real situation of intensier running by votes, which occurs during
electoral process, we may have a difficulty: The identification, between the corrupt and
corrupters of who would be the assets and liabilities in the illicit relation of vote's barter.
Leo Torresan, Amarribo Brasil's founder, recalls that there is also a citizen's
responsibility in the public money's supervision and in propagating of the honesty's
culture in the country, with increased care in the electoral process; and cites as example
a research conducted by Ibope, in 2006, entitled "Corruption in Politics: Voter - Victim
or Accomplice?", which pointed out that 75% of interviewed would commit at least one
of the corruption acts evaluated, if they had the opportunity.
We know, therefore, that both are breaking the law, but it's impossible to
affirm, in a general way, if the initiator is the voter or the candidate, on micropolitic's
scope; if we expand the spectrum, we can also consider the candidate's financier's
figure, on macropolitic's scope. And this occurs in all social layers: in and between
them, through their representatives or intermediaries.

III – DO THE ENDS JUSTIFY CORRUPTION?

Considering Machiavelli's theory in a look at Brazil: Do the ends justify

corruption? To begin the approach of this question, we quote an stretch from Marilena
Chaui's speech:

The politic's logic has nothing to do with the ethical virtues in your private
life. What could be immoral from the private ethic's point of view can be
virtù in politics. Political ethos and moral ethos are different and there is no
greater weakness than moralism that masks the real logic of power. (
MARILENA CHAUI, 2000, p 397)

But, this Machiavelli's maxim must be revised when it goes beyond the
political game, the very State's stability and its sovereignty. The game for maintaining
power, through politic's exercise, shouldn't compete to collapse the state itself, which
grounds its existence. It would be contradictory to Reason of State: Irrational of putting
in risk the state itself.
About the Reason of State limits versus Corruption, we can cite some
examples that occur within the scope of the relations between the Executive and
Legislative Powers in Brazil and illustrate the subject approached:

TWO VIEWS OF BRAZIL

 The first one is the attempt to build governability in the Federal Executive
Power inducing the Republic's President on duty to form what is known as the
"Coalition Government", based on the argument that no one governs alone and that the
Government needs a broad supoport's base in National Congress.
Considering governability as a Reason of State, it's commonly perceived the
promiscuous relationship between the Executive and Legislative Powers, starring scenes
from a true Persian market. And despite this relationship's dynamism, is mainly
observed in the management's and mandate's beginning, when there is the running for
the governments spaces allotment, independent of the moment when the alliance is
formed.
That initiative, in practice, mades ministries and other positions being
distributed after extensive negotiation with Legislative Power's members, who, in turn,
undertake to approve the Executive's projects and neglect their fiscalization. At this
point, it should be noted, the Reason of State have already been forgotten and begins an
event's series which culminate in corruption: Public management's responsibilities are
outsourced to the supporting political parties, that use these structures in order to move
it on their respective political group's favor, benefiting it with position's apportionment,
maneuvers on budgets controlled by them and fraud in bids.
The result is the public resource's diversion to pay the political campaign's
bills of those who promoted the parliamentarian's arrival to the National Congress or of
the own ones, as appointment's godfathers.
In the actual brazilian political scene, we can find the concrete reality's face of
what we theoretically narrate, framed in the discovered schemes like the "mensalão"
(allowance), "petrolão" and "lava-jato" (car was), where the ends would justify
corruption in governability's name. This, without forgetting that it's common to observe
that this problems also occur in relations between governors and state's deputies,
between mayors and aldermen throughout Brazil. To illustrate, we will recall three
public and notorious facts, connected to this first example, all of them in the "Lava-jato"
(car was) operation context.
In the first case, the Transpetro's former president, Sérgio Machado, affirmed
that the campaign financing's illicit scheme and illicit enrichment, unveiled by "Lava-
jato", occurred since 1946 and there was a pattern whereby businessmen used to shape
their budgets, with "political costs" concept's incorporation, which was the percentage
of any contractual relationship between private enterprise and public power, earmarked
for bribes, that would be 3% at the federal level, 5 to 10% at the state level and 10 to
30% at the municipal level.
The second fact starred by, the lobbyist Fernando Baiano's lawyer, called
Mário Oliveira Filho, affirming that the enterprise which makes an illicit composition
with some politician to pay something and doesn't fulfill the commitment, won't have
any work, and this occurs even in the relationship between a small town hall and a small
builder: "If he doesn't make the combinated, he doesn't put any parallelepiped on the
ground", said the lawyer.
The third fact is extracted from the former Petrobras director's testimony,
Paulo Roberto Costa, to the Federal Police: "There isn't any campaign donation. There
are loans to be charged later, with high interest, from the contribution's beneficiaries,
when in their position's exercise".
The second example which can illustrate the Reason of State use as
justification to the corruptions practice, also in relation to National Congress
specifically, is a brief narrative of similar episodes with different outcomes, involving
four former presidents and the current one, which can show in practice what happens to
those who doesn't play, doesn't know how to play or play badly the politics hard game.
Former President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, went very well with the
National Congress; the amendment's tap's opening and closing worked whenever
necessary. The economy was well and stably navigating, without causing great
inconvenience to brazilian people. Facts remember that his government even arrived, in
the "mensalão" (allowance) mold, to "buy" the parliamentarians who approved the
reelection; himself competed and was reelected. Both, this and other corruption's
allegations (privatization scandals, Proer, Sivam) were shelved, together with the
Republic's Attorney-General, Geraldo Brindeiro, appointed and chosen by him,
despising the order of the prosecutors vote's list, and, in this way, ruled until the end.
Former president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, elected and re-elected, also
navigated well with the population, minimized the criticisms about his government's
economy, calling it "marolinha" (little sea wave) and, nevertheless, remained without
finantial market's difficulties; with National Congress, well performed the articulation's
tasks: implemented a "Coalition Government", at the "mensalão" (allowance) expense,
which ensured "governability". Former federal deputy, José Dirceu, had, in detail, the
Congress vote's map. He knew who voted, how voted, why voted or not, and what
needed to be done to ensure the parliamentarians's support, and, like this, also escaped
from some corruption's denunciations in his government, even burying some CPI‟s.
Former President, Dilma Rousseff, elected and re-elected with the charismatic
and popular blessings of former President Lula, went through economy's turbulence
experienced by the country, corruption allegations involving his party and his political
mentor, and faced a population's portion that went to the streets in favor of her fall. But
her output from power, however, was mainly on National Congress's hands. She,
politically awkward, had a hard and dry relationship with the parliamentarians and
barely received them. At her government's last hours, she tried - unsuccessfully - put
former President Lula in her ministry, hoping to reverse the game, in what would be her
inquisition's court, composed by the Congress and the Federal Supreme Court. She fell
under the charge of a responsability's crime, popularly, "pedaladas fiscais” (fiscal
pedals)".
This former president's posture reminds us of one more case, involving, this
time, the former president Fernando Collor de Melo: "The maharajah's hunter", who had
also undergone Impeachment, being removed from power by Congress, with people's
support on the streets and under corruption's denunciations. The Uruguay's Operation
involved him, his brother, Pedro Collor de Melo, and "PC Farias" - Paulo Cesar Farias,
his former campaign treasurer.
In his speech, now as Senator (2016), minutes before voting for the fall of
actual President Dilma, the "scalded cat" made a statement which could be considered
an understanding element of his - and now - her outcome, which was the President
Michel Temer's salvation: "The biggest resposability's crime committed by a ruler is the
crime of political negligence... I warned".
Finally, we report the voting processes by National Congress, which could
authorize or not, investigations by the Federal Supreme Court, from serious
denunciations received by Republic's General Attorney, Rodrigo Janot, and which could
culminate in the actual Republic's President's (2017) removal, Michel Temer.
Temer, even with his unpopularity touching the clouds (97% disapproval,
according to CNI / IBOPE, 09/28/17) and surrounded by various corruption's
allegations involving himself, as former President Collor, played masterfully the
politic's game with National Congress and shelved two serious investigation's requests
against him, by Republic's General Attorney, Rodrigo Janot. Another Temer's fact to
highlight, returning to Fernando Henrique Cardoso's practice - interrupted by Lula and
Dilma, appointed Raquel Dodge as Republic's general Attorney, who wasn't, like
Geraldo Brindeiro, the most voted on the list sent by his peers.
As Machiavelli would say: "...The politic's world doesn't lead to the heavens,
but its absence is the worst of the hells”. We don't know if Temer, politically moribund,
saved his soul. However, he seems have escaped from hell that he would live without a
mandate and privileged forum. The final results "ends", for him, were justified by the
means which he used in his favor and in desfavor of the state, which is dearly paying
with billions of reais in indiscriminately released amendments, hundreds of distributed
jobs and the worst: Forgiveness of sixty percent on agribusiness billionaires debts,
fiscalization's relaxing, work's conceptualization analogous to slavery and the
sovereignty's raffle of Amazon, oil and other state-owned.
In the struggle for self-salvation, even releasing to public opinion "his" Reason
of State: That the troubled economy and brazilian state couldn't handle another
President's change and more political instability, ends up committing a bigger sin. It's
possible that concessions have caused to Brazil a loss far greater than the crimes
committed by himself and his supporters.

IV – CONCLUSION

Considering the cases mentioned above, involving the Executive Power's

relations with the National Congress, we inquire: Faced with the narrated facts, does
brazilian State remain protected or become increasingly threatened with that structural
corruption and its consequences?
If politics is a game which counts with the cheating of the several types of
corruption, seems (by consequence) to ends up, in many ways, impairing the state itself,
which should be protected by politics.
Therefore, corruption wouldn't be justified by the Republican
Machiavellianism's rules, even with Machiavelli's pessimistic view about human nature
and knowing that man is the politic's agent.
Corruption and its effects would belong to the vulgar, negative Machiavellism's
sphere. It would be a cheat of the politic's game's rules and, therefore, it wouldn't be
justified even when the ends were the Reasons of State, especially because these are
generally used as an excuse to illicit actions.
 In the same way, it seems to us, it was also clear, by the facts's unfolding, how a
weak, and politically devastated - by corruption's accusations, prince becomes more
sensitive and vulnerable to concessions far above the State's reasons, which would
motivate him to govern in collectivity's function.
It's possible recognize that in some moment the "honestismo" which expands the
focus on corruption's allegations, sometimes acts as a smokescreen to cover greater
damages that are occurring to the State. Or even, properly manipulated and controlled,
denunciation would merely serve as the wear and governments take's over driving force
by those who are outside, wishing to occupy it.
The own corruption in the electoral process, as a way of votes's capture, is a
component that deserves to be highlighted, because gives access to political agents to
the State, who, in their mandates's exercises, executive or legislative, will works as
representatives of the ones who financed them. This has the potential to be the most
sordid consequence: The greater evil than the political agent's corruption (internal to the
State), which privileges the real power's owners, in general, external agents to the State,
but who takes advantage from it, through their representatives.
Lastly, the solution's construction to these problems are, long-term, based on
education, together with the citizen's political formation's process, to make them
understand that in his choice of which politician are going to represent them, honesty is
the minimum that must be demanded. The citizen's role (besides voting and consider to
be voted) is the elected candidate's surveillance and mandate's collaboration, because
the public is also ours, so the citizen must takes care, be involved, takes his part, helps
to build and preserve, with the eyes focused on the collectivity and common good.
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