The Right to a Nonprojected Future

Abstract

In his book A Bias for Hope, economist Albert O. Hirschman (1971) chal­ lenges social scientists to move beyond categorical prejudgments, beyond the sole search for general laws and orderly sequences of what is required for wider social and political transformation. Having in mind the Latin American countries in which he worked (including Brazil), Hirschman challenges us, instead, to engage the unexpected. The study of how beliefs, attitudes, and values are refashioned and molded by “more or less accidentally undertaken practices,” Hirschman argues, “widens the limits of what is or is perceived to be possible, be it at the cost of lowering our ability, real or imaginary, to discern the probable” (p. 28). At stake is helping “to defend the right to a nonprojected future as one of the truly inalienable rights of every person and nation; and to set the stage for conceptions of change to which the inventiveness of history and a ‘passion for the possible’ are admitted as vital actors” (p. 37). This book addresses the crucial question of what happens when such luminous prospects of social science are politically and technologically operationalized. Brazil has, against all odds, invented a public way of treating AIDS. In 1996, it became the first developing country to adopt an official policy that universalized access to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), about five years before global policy discussions moved from a frame­ work that focused solely on prevention to one that incorporated universal treatment. Some 200,000 Brazilians are currently taking ARVs that are paid for by the government, and this policy is widely touted as a model for stemming the AIDS crisis in the developing world. This life saving policy came into existence through an unexpected alliance of activists, government reformers, development agencies and the pharmaceutical in­ dustry. Will to Live moves between a social analysis of the institutional practices shaping the Brazilian response to AIDS and the stories and lives of people affected by it.