Culture of Transgressions in Brazil (Revista Bovespa)

By ETCO

Source: Bovespa Magazine, June 2008

Excessive tolerance for transgressions - such as indiscriminate wiretapping, monthly payment, broken codes and dossiers - was addressed, explicitly or implicitly, in the book Culture of Transgressions in Brazil, published by the Brazilian Institute of Competition Ethics (Etco) and by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Institute.


It is a timely book on the country's dilemmas.

Bolívar Lamounier, of Augurium Consultoria, dealt with the precariousness of the justice system and the inducement of informality that comes from the tax burden.


"Far from facilitating the fight against tax evaders, what such a tax squeeze does is to encourage them, including pushing further cuts to informality and preventing thousands of individuals from leaving it."

The historian José Murilo de Carvalho showed society at the mercy of the excess of laws.


“The regulation craze was introduced and reinforced by the large presence of lawyers in the Legislative Branch and in the administration of the State.”
He continued: “The legifying fury and the legal tangle that derives from it are not without consequences.


They benefit the operators of the police and legal system, lawyers, prosecutors, public defenders, judicial police.


The complexity of the system places its operation above the ability of laypeople to understand and gives specialists a damaging monopoly.
Legal corporations know this and use their power for their own benefit ”.
Worse, “the body of laws incites transgression and elitizes justice”, making “the life of the honest citizen impossible”. It creates, he adds, “a vicious circle: excess of law leads to transgression which leads to more law, which leads to more transgression, etc.
As a consequence, the statistics of transgression are fattened ”.


In this "foolish race, only the law enforcement officers and those who can pay for the costs of a lawsuit" win.

Book: Culture of Transgressions in BrazilCulture of Transgressions in Brazil


Editora Saraiva