Brazil and Spain’s finance ministers reject the idea that economic growth, fiscal responsibility and social investment must compete. They point to their governments’ records to make the case for an economic model that puts people’s lives at its centre.

By combining fiscal responsibility, growth and social development, progressive governments in Brazil and Spain have improved millions of people’s lives and refuted the hoary belief that conservatives are better stewards of the economy. Such a successful alternative model could not have come at a better time.

Few zombie ideas return as persistently as the claim that right-wing governments are good for the economy, whereas progressive administrations mismanage it. Yet this belief reflects a conception of economics that ignores the sustainability of growth and conservatives’ actual record.

Indeed, in country after country, the neoliberal experiment of the past four decades widened public deficits, deepened inequality, produced recurrent financial crises and left economies more fragile. And time and again, left-wing governments had to repair the damage.

Yet segments of the left have surrendered the banners of growth, fiscal sustainability and price stability to conservatives, even though the evidence shows that progressives have defended these objectives better. Such unforced errors have eroded the left’s credibility with citizens who simply wanted to work, start a business and improve their lives.

Our own two governments have taken the opposite approach. In Brazil, following the defeat of a right-wing government, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration returned to the path of fiscal responsibility and social justice that the previous government had abandoned.

After increasing transparency, expanding social policy and rescinding tax breaks that disproportionately........

© Pearls and Irritations