Niche no longer

AMONG the buskers on Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s main thoroughfare, one act stood out on a recent Friday afternoon. A live rock band played spiffy renditions of “Blue Suede Shoes” and other 1950s classics; between numbers, six panellists sang the praises of competition and fielded questions from 100-odd onlookers about such issues as transport prices. The event was organised by the Free Brazil Movement (MBL), a group founded last year to promote free-market answers to the country’s problems. The al fresco concert-cum-colloquium was a riposte to demonstrators who took to the streets a half-dozen times in January to demand free bus transport. A better idea would be to open bus services to competition among private firms, which would improve quality and lower costs, the MBL-ers claimed.

Although Brazil thinks of itself as a “tropical Sweden”, advocates of freer markets and a less intrusive state are making headway. Of the 50 organisations that belong to the Liberty Network, an umbrella group, all but a handful were founded in the past three years. A “liberty forum” in April is expected to draw some 5,000 South American freedom-lovers to Porto Alegre, a southern city. This year’s theme, inspired by the Charlie Hebdo murders, is freedom of expression.