Fernando Alcoforado *
From the time I was a high school student and especially a university student in the 1950s and 1960s, I believed that Brazil could overcome its political, economic and social problems and evolve to be among the most developed in the world. From this time until the present moment I have deepened my knowledge of the history of several countries of the world that enabled me to note the deplorable trajectory of Brazil throughout history. The trajectory of Brazil is deplorable because, although it is a country with a great territorial dimension, immense natural wealth and a working and creative people, it has not been able to promote the political, economic and social development whose problems are aggravated in the contemporary era. It is this situation that explains the fact that many Brazilians leave Brazil by immigrating to other countries.
This article demonstrates that Brazil failed to achieve high levels of political, economic and social development. It can be seen from the analysis of our article that the problems faced by Brazil at the moment and unresolved result from causes that have been added and accumulated throughout its history of more than 500 years, that is, in the colonial period and during the Empire and the Republic. The trajectory of Brazil throughout its history is deplorable because the country still faces problems that were created and persist since the colonial period and the attempts of their overcoming were aborted by the repression against the social movements, by the overthrow of governments committed to the progress of the country and with the adoption of anti-national and anti-social government policies.
In order to demonstrate the deplorable trajectory of Brazil throughout history, the periods that characterize the economic, political and social evolution of the country from 1500 up to the present moment were analyzed. These periods are as follows: 1) Brazil during the colonial period; 2) Brazil during the Empire; 3) Brazil during the Old Republic; 4) Brazil during the Era Vargas with the national developmentalism; 5) Brazil as a dependent capitalist country; and, 6) Neoliberal Brazil.
- Brazil during the colonial period
In the colonial period, from 1500 to 1822, Brazil focused its economic activity on the production of primary products for export. It was this process that consolidated, in Brazil, the latifundium, that is, the great rural property, the export monoculture, slavery, the dependence of the country on the outside and its unfortunate consequences. In Brazil, the colony of exploitation of Portugal prospered, which was one of the main causes of the failure to implement the settlement colony in Brazil, characterized by the existence of small and medium-sized property dedicated to self-consumption and / or to internal market in the same way that it was installed in the United States. It can be affirmed that the implantation of a colony of exploration instead of a settlement colony is an inheritance of the colonial period that contributed to the economic backwardness of Brazil throughout its history.
During the colonial period, it was deplorable that Portugal had not taken any initiative to develop the University in Brazil unlike Spain, France and England in colonial America that were concerned with the development of the culture of their colonies where they were implanted numerous universities from 1538. Only after 300 years, with the arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family in Brazil, in 1808, due to the occupation of Portugal by the Napoleonic troops, did the first cultural initiatives occur in Brazil, with the creation of Faculties such as, in 1808, the Faculty of Surgery of Bahia in Salvador and the Faculty of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro.
In 1810, D. John VI signed an agreement granting special tariffs to British products. From then on, the trade relationship between Brazil and England increased significantly, which led to a number of direct investments by the British in Brazil and accentuated their dependence on the United Kingdom. For many scholars, the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro was positive because it started the founding of the modern Brazilian state. However, it was deplorable in promoting the opening of ports that contributed to deepening Brazil’s dependence on Britain.
During the colonial period, there was also a deplorable fact of repression against various revolts that occurred in Brazil, aiming at its separation from Portugal, such as the Inconfidência Mineira of 1789 and the Bahian Conjuration of 1798. With the return of D. João VI to Portugal in 1821 his son, D. Pedro I, replaced him as Emperor and decided, on September 7, 1822, to proclaim the Independence of Brazil in relation to Portugal with the main objective of maintaining the territorial unit of Brazil and avoiding the fractionation in several countries such as occurred in the Spanish colonies. D. Pedro I maintained the unity of the territory of Brazil, pleasing the interests of the groups that dominated the colony. The deplorable fact regarding the Independence of Brazil resides in the fact that it did not lead to the abolition of slavery that would benefit the main social segment that inhabited the country, the enslaved Africans.
The main deplorable fact of the Independence of Brazil is that it did not result from the struggle of the Brazilian people, but from the will of the Emperor D. Pedro I. The Independence of Brazil differed from the experience of the other countries of the Americas because it did not present the characteristics of a typical revolutionary-national liberation process. Revolutionary nativism, under the influence of the ideals of liberalism and the great revolutions of the late eighteenth century, gave way in Brazil to the logic of change, preserving the privileges that prevail until today. The Independence of Brazil was, therefore, an “independence without revolution” because there were no changes in the economic base of the nation. The State that is born of the Independence of Brazil maintains the execrable latifundium and intensifies the not less execrable slavery making of this the support of the restoration that realizes as to the economic structures inherited of the Colony.
- Brazil during the Empire
As Emperor of Brazil, D. Pedro I proved to be a questionable leader in choosing a constitution he had drawn up in 1824 and paying a heavy indemnity to the Portuguese coffers for the Independence of Brazil, which cast doubt on his commitment to the interests of Brazilian nation. In 1824, there was a severe repression against the Confederation of Ecuador, which was a revolt in the Northeast resulting from the great discontent against the political centralization imposed by D. Pedro I present in the Constitution and with the Portuguese influence in the political life of Brazil, even after the Independence.
Pedro I authorized enormous expenditures on the Cisplatina War that occurred between 1825 and 1828, among Brazil and Argentina, for the possession of the Province of Cisplatina, now Uruguay. The money spent in the fighting greatly imbalanced the Brazilian economy, already depleted with the payment to Portugal for the recognition of the Independence of Brazil. The unfavorable outcome to Brazil with the Cisplatina War that wished Uruguay to remain integrated with the Brazilian Empire worsened the political crisis in the country and was an additional reason for the Brazilians’ dissatisfaction with the Emperor D. Pedro I.
The assassination of the journalist Libero Badaró, a great critic of the Empire of Brazil and the episode that was called The Night of the Garrafadas, a conflict among the defenders and opponents of D. Pedro I, ended up leaving precarious the political support of the Emperor that led him to abdicate the throne on April 7, 1831. D. Pedro I’s departure from the imperial government represented a new phase in Brazilian political history. Not having the age to take the throne, his son, D. Pedro II, should wait his age to become emperor. To solve this problem, there were meetings and debates for the organization of the regentary order. To govern Brazil, a Provisional Regency was elected. Subsequently, a Trina Permanent Regency was elected. A troubled period had begun, in which the territorial unit of the country and the central authority were questioned and put to the test by riots, revolts and rebellions throughout Brazil.
In the year 1834, trying to placate the great volume of revolts, the Additional Act was approved, which granted greater freedoms to the provinces. Another important measure was the establishment of the National Guard, a new military detachment that should keep the order in force. Being controlled and integrated by members of the elite, the National Guard ended up having its firepower monitored by large landowners who legitimized the social, political and economic dismantling and exclusion that marked that context. Among the major revolts of the regency period are Cabanagem (Pará), Balaiada (Maranhão), Revolta dos Malês and Sabinada (Bahia), and the Farrapos War (Rio Grande do Sul / Santa Catarina).
In the year 1840, with only fifteen years of age, Dom Pedro II was crowned Emperor of Brazil. From this moment on, he would become the most important political figure in the country for almost five decades. In order to remain so long on the throne, Dom Pedro II had sufficient ability to negotiate with the political demands of the time. The stable framework of D. Pedro II’s government must also be attributed to the new situation that the Brazilian economy has experienced with the increase in coffee consumption in the foreign market that has transformed coffee production into the fundamental support of Brazil’s economy.
During the Empire, Brazil became involved in the war against Paraguay which was the largest international armed conflict that occurred between 1864 and 1870 in South America. This war happened because the dictator Solano Lopez of Paraguay fed the expansionist and militaristic dream of to form the Great Paraguay, which would cover the Argentine regions of Corrientes and Entre Rios, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso and Paraguay itself. Against the pretensions of the Paraguayan government, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay reacted by signing the military agreement called the Triple Alliance that defeated Paraguay after more than five years of fighting during which the Empire of Brazil sent around 150,000 men the war. With regard to Brazil, the war cost thousands of lives (60,000) and affected the economy a great deal, requiring several loans to maintain the country’s financial equilibrium. England did not directly participate in the war, but it was the only country to profit from it, because it enlarged its markets and Brazil increased its debt with the United Kingdom.
Reaching its peak between 1850 and 1870, the imperial regime subsequently declined with the unfolding of various events. The end of the slave trade and slavery, the introduction of immigrant labor, and military and religious disputes were fundamental issues that shaken the monarchy. The first coup against Pedro II happened in the year 1888, when Princess Isabel authorized the liberation of all the slaves by British imposition. From there, the government lost the support of the slaveholders, the last pillar that supported the existence of the imperial power. The following year, the worsening of relations between the Army and the Empire was enough for a military coup to overthrow the Monarchy and proclaim the Republic in Brazil that was born without the participation of the people in its construction.
The main deplorable fact of the Proclamation of the Republic is that it did not result from the struggle of the Brazilian people, but from a coup d’état sponsored by the Army with the support of the economic oligarchies that dominated Brazil. It was repeated with the Proclamation of the Republic what happened with the Independence of Brazil that did not result from the struggle of the Brazilian people but from the will of the Emperor D. Pedro I. The Republic that is born of the coup d’état maintains the agrarian- exporter model that privileges the interests of the oligarchies since 1500 with the execrable latifundium inherited from the colonial period. Also deplorable was the maintenance of the country’s subordination to England since 1810.
- Brazil during the Old Republic
The Old Republic is the name given to the period between the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 and the outbreak of the Revolution of 1930. Usually, the Old Republic is divided into two moments: the Republic of the Sword and the Republic Oligarchic. The Republic of the Sword encompasses the governments of the marshals Deodoro da Fonseca and Floriano Peixoto. It was during the Sword Republic that it was granted the Constitution that would guide the institutional actions during the Old Republic. In addition, this period was marked by economic crises, such as the Encilhamento, and by conflicts such as the Federalist Revolution and the Navy Revolt. The Encilhamento was the name given by which became known the economic policy adopted during the provisional government of Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca with the emission of paper money to face the crisis of the lack of money circulating in the country. The failure of this economic policy provoked the discontent of the sectors related to the agrarian-export sector.
The Oligarchic Republic was marked by the political control exercised over the federal government by the São Paulo coffee oligarchy and by the rural elite of Minas Gerais, in the well-known “coffee latte policy”. It was during this period that colonelism developed more strongly, guaranteeing regional political power to the local elites of the country. This period also marks the rise and fall of the economic power of the farmers of São Paulo based on the production of coffee for export. During this period there were several social conflicts such as the War of Canudos, the Revolt of the Vaccine, the Revolt of the Chibata, the War of the Contestado, the Tenentismo, the Column Prestes and the Cangaço.
The agrarian-exporting economic model that was adopted from the colonial period from 1500 to 1930 had as main interests in its maintenance the class of landowners and agro export sectors. This model was exhausted as a consequence of the world economic crisis of 1929 that affected Brazil’s exports to the international market, the emergence of an industrial bourgeoisie committed to the modernization of the Country and the political crisis resulting from the fraudulent election of the successor of then President Washington Luis which resulted in the so-called Revolution of 30 and the rise to power of Getúlio Vargas. From the colonial period until 1930, Brazil focused its economic activity on the production of primary products for export. During this period, there were three major production cycles in Brazil – that of sugarcane, gold and coffee – which, alongside other less productive production systems, sought, fundamentally, to supply the external market. The crisis of the rural oligarchies and the world economic crisis that deeply affected the coffee production in 1929 led to the fall of the Old Republic. It was the end of the Old Republic and the beginning of the Vargas Age.
The Old Republic was deplorable because it still prevailed in Brazil the agrarian-export model that was structured based on the latifundium since 1500. Also deplorable was the exercise of power in a pseudodemocratic way by the oligarchies that dominated Brazil. Also deplorable was the maintenance of the country’s subordination to England since the Empire from 1810.
- Brazil during the Vargas Era with the national developmentalism
It can be affirmed that the maintenance of the agrarian-export model for more than 400 years during the colonial period, the Empire and the Old Republic constituted a gigantic obstacle to the development of Brazil. The agrarian-export model was structured on the basis of latifundium and slave labor until 1888 and based on the latifundium from 1888 to 1930. The agrarian-export model was replaced by the national-developmentalist model from 1930, when Getúlio Vargas rose to power and begins the period of industrialization in Brazil. This economic model promoted the development of Brazil with the import substitution policy, mainly supported by government investments, especially in infrastructure, investments by state-owned enterprises and investments of national private capital.
Vargas based his administration on the precepts of populism, nationalism, and labor. Economic policy began to value the domestic market that favored industrial growth and, consequently, the urbanization process. The Era Vargas marks, therefore, the change of the directions of the Republic, transferring the nucleus of the political power from agriculture to the industry. The Brazilian capitalism that was born with the wages of the coffee economy of the West Paulista in 1880 could only develop necessarily with the integration of the national market. Integrating the national market with the prioritized development of industry was Brazil’s only option not to stagnate. The Vargas government’s economic policy and public investment made it possible for capital to remove the main barriers to national market integration.
The centralism of the Vargas period paved the way for the complete unification of the internal market, which was all the more important as the driving force of the economy became industrial activity. It was thanks to this centralizing impulse that Brazil definitively endowed itself with an integrated internal market capable of generating its own growth. Until 1930, the participation of industry in the Brazilian economy was insignificant. The economic crisis of 1929 and the Revolution of 1930 created the conditions for the beginning of the process of rupture of Brazil with the colonial past and the takeoff of the process of industrialization of the country.
The political forces that assumed power in Brazil in 1930 supported and implemented an industrialization project with the objective of withdrawing it from economic backwardness and pushing it toward progress with the establishment of its own industrial park, in the mold of the European nations and from United States. It was the first time in Brazilian history that a government made such an option. In 1930, the ideology of nationalism became victorious: autonomous development with a strong industrial base. Industrialization developed through the process of import substitution, that is, producing in the country what was formerly imported from abroad. In the first phase of industrialization from 1930 to 1940, the emphasis was on the production of immediate consumer goods (non-durable goods).
It is possible to emphasize some political facts that were remarkable in the decade of 1930. It happened the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932 or Civil War Paulista that was the first great uprising against the administration of Getúlio Vargas. The movement was a response of São Paulo against the Revolution of 1930, which ended with the autonomy of the states guaranteed by the Constitution of 1891. The insurgents demanded of the Vargas government the elaboration of a new Constitution and the convocation of elections for president. The Constitutionalist Revolution broke out on July 9, 1932. The Paulistas, led by their governor, made a great campaign using newspapers and radios, and managed to mobilize a good part of the population. There were more than 200,000 volunteers, 60,000 of whom were combatants. On the other hand, while the movement gained popular support, 100,000 Vargas government soldiers set out to confront the Paulistas. The Paulistas expected the support of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul. However, both states did not join the cause. In total, there were 87 days of fighting, from July 9 to October 4, 1932 with 934 deaths, although unofficial estimates reported up to 2,100 deceased.
Despite the defeat on the battlefield, politically the Constitutionalist Revolution achieved its objectives because the struggle for the Constitution contributed to the convening of the Constituent Assembly that would make the new Magna Carta of the Country in 1934. However, it would never be implemented by account of the auto coup d´état of Getúlio Vargas that instituted the dictatorship of New State in 1937 after the outbreak of the revolutionary movement led by the communists in 1935, which was crushed by the federal government. The New State was an authoritarian regime that was aligned with other authoritarian regimes in the world, as at that moment Germany and Italy were the two countries that represented the most authoritarianism in Europe. In Brazil, which was also ruled by an authoritarian government, Getúlio Vargas shows sympathy for the fascist regime, so that the new constitution of 1937, called Polish, is directly inspired by the Italian molds of that era.
As the end of World War II became clear, there was growing rejection of Getúlio Vargas’s government, which was forced by local political forces to grant amnesty to political prisoners, to allow freedom of party organization, to call a new Constituent Assembly and set new elections. On October 29, 1945, under pressure from the United States government, soldiers invaded Catete Palace in Rio de Janeiro and forced the resignation of President Vargas. Thus, the fall of the Estado Novo was consolidated.
Following the deposition of Getúlio Vargas, General Eurico Dutra was the first president elected by direct vote. Internally, it had as its first great action, the convening of the National Constituent Assembly that drafted the laws to be integrated into a new Constitution. Officialized in 1946, the new Brazilian Constitution determined the autonomy between the three branches of government and the holding of direct elections for state, municipal and federal executive and legislative positions. In the economy, being a consumer market of great interest, Brazil absorbed a significant quantity of consumer goods, mainly of the United States. In a short time, the country’s foreign exchange reserves slowed, domestic industry slowed and foreign debt started to grow, making the country more and more vulnerable economically.
President Dutra experienced the tensions and problems that marked the development of the Cold War in the international political scene. Not restraining itself to the economic field with the increase of the dependence of Brazil in relation to the United States, the alliance of the Dutra government with the US government also had repercussions on political actions of authoritarian nature in the internal plane. By imposition of the United States, the Communist Party, after receiving a significant amount of votes in the 1946 elections, was put into lawlessness and all civil servants belonging to the same party were exonerated from their positions. Shortly thereafter, the Brazilian government announced the breakup of its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Brazil was again governed in the first half of the 1950s by President Getúlio Vargas, who came to power through the electoral process and, by implementing to his government the same populist and nationalist policy adopted from 1930 to 1945, be the target of the US government and its internal allies, who wanted it out of power. The deposition of Getúlio Vargas in 1945 and his suicide in 1954 were consequences of this process. At that time, during the Cold War, it was fundamentally important for the United States, in its confrontation with the former Soviet Union, to keep under its control its areas of influence in Latin America, including Brazil, and in other parts of the world.
In the period 1951/1953, during the Vargas administration, a much more ambitious and complete planning effort was carried out than in the previous period. At that time, there was one of the most complete surveys of the Brazilian economy, as well as proposing a series of infrastructure projects with its execution programs, covering modernization projects for railways, ports, coastal navigation, electricity generation, etc. Measures were adopted to overcome regional disparities in income, that is, to better integrate the Northeast with the rest of the national economy and to achieve monetary stability. Also created were BNDES and Petrobras. By not accepting his deposition by the military in 1954, President Vargas committed suicide, and his attitude represented, also, the final act of the first Brazilian ruler who guided his action in defense of national sovereignty.
In spite of the economic successes in promoting the industrialization of Brazil and in creating governmental institutions that promoted economic and social development and the social advances resulting from new legislation, Era Vargas also had its deplorable aspect represented by the state of exception that was implanted from 1937 to 1945 in which the Vargas government arrested in its prisons and assassinated many of its opponents. It was deplorable, too, the suicide of President Getúlio Vargas to avoid suffering the consequences of the evolving coup d’etat in 1954.
- Brazil as a dependent capitalist country
Brazil adopted the model of dependent capitalist development from the Juscelino Kubitschek government in 1955 and maintained until 1985 by military rulers who came to power with the coup d’état in 1964. This economic model promoted the development of Brazil with the policy of replacing imports, supported by government investments, especially in infrastructure, domestic private equity investments and foreign investment and technology as well as financing from international banks. During the administration of President Juscelino Kubitschek (JK), elected in 1955, the extensive program of public and private investments made between 1956 and 1961, when heavy industry and durable consumer goods were introduced, changed the pattern of market domination national. It reinforced, on the one hand, the industrial concentration that took place in São Paulo and in neighboring regions and, on the other, demanded greater agricultural and industrial complementarity between São Paulo and the rest of the country. In the JK government, it was believed that it would be possible to carry out the country’s development from a single dynamic center (in this case, São Paulo). The policy of centralizing development in São Paulo contributed decisively to widening the existing regional inequalities in Brazil.
The expansion of the Brazilian economy was done with increasing participation of oligopolized foreign capital that realized its investments aiming at the complete conquest of the national market. From the Kubitschek government, the de-nationalization of the national economy with foreign capital has been deepened, taking over the industrialization process of Brazil and the national industry being relegated to its own fate by suffering competition from external groups attracted by official incentives and advantages. In the mid-1950s, Brazilian industrialization took a new turn. Until then, during the Vargas administration, the process of industrialization had advanced under the leadership of the Brazilian company. From the Juscelino Kubitscheck government, foreign capital will gradually assume control of the most dynamic branches of the Brazilian economy.
The Jânio Quadros government, who was elected replacing the Juscelino Kubitschek government, lasted only 7 months. With regard to economic policy, Jânio Quadros carried out a currency reform that favored the export sector and international creditors. Despite adopting a conservative economic policy in line with the interests of the United States, he proposed the resumption of diplomatic and trade relations with countries of the socialist bloc (China and Soviet Union), causing much criticism from the sectors that supported his government. On August 25, 1961, Jânio Quadros resigned the Presidency of the Republic promptly accepted by the National Congress. In the resignation letter, Jânio Quadros said: “terrible forces have risen against me,” intending to provoke a popular reaction against his resignation to remain in power. However, this did not happen, and Vice-President João Goulart assumed the presidency of the Republic, on September 3, 1961, in a parliamentary regime, which was the political solution found before the opposition of the Armed Forces to his possession.
Vice President João Goulart assumed the Presidency of the Republic in 1961 succeeding Jânio Quadros. Faced with the great structural problems experienced by Brazil and to face the economic, political and social crisis that existed in the early 1960s, the João Goulart government sought to implement the so-called Basic Reforms. Under the name of “basic reforms” were initiatives that aimed at banking, tax, urban, administrative, agrarian and university reforms. It also included offering the right to vote for illiterates and the subaltern patents of the Armed Forces. The measures also sought a greater participation of the State in economic matters, regulating foreign investment in Brazil. Among the changes intended by the basic reforms was, first, agrarian reform. The objective was to enable thousands of rural workers to access land in the hands of the latifundium. The law of remittance of profits sought to reduce the very high profit index that the great foreign companies sent from Brazil to their headquarters.
The government’s assault on the implementation of grassroots reforms began on March 13, 1964, through a large rally in Central Brazil Station in Rio de Janeiro. At this rally, President João Goulart announced the signing of the decree that became the property of the government private petroleum refineries and the decree that expropriated unproductive lands located alongside roads and railroads. As the proposals were influenced by left-wing thinking, proponents of capitalism, latifundia, and members of the Brazilian right feared the growth of a possible communist government in the country.
The rally in Central Brazil Station was the decisive moment to determine the organization of the military to begin the coup d´état that was launched on March 31, 1964 establishing a military dictatorship in the country. The Armed Forces were also influenced by the ideological polarization experienced by the Brazilian society in that political conjuncture due to the breakdown of the hierarchy and the discipline due to the upheaval of subaltern sectors. The scholars of the subject affirm that, the breakdown of hierarchy and discipline within the Armed Forces was the main factor that caused the removal of support of the legalistic military to the government of João Goulart, facilitating the coup d´état movement.
After the coup d’état of 1964, the political model adopted was aimed at strengthening executive power and debugging the political environment of leftists or liberals who opposed the dictatorship. Seventeen institutional acts and about a thousand exceptional laws were imposed on Brazilian society. With Institutional Act No. 2, the old political parties were closed and bipartisanship was adopted. Thus emerged: the National Renewal Alliance (Arena), which supported the government and the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), representing opponents, but surrounded by narrow limits of performance. The government set up a strong repressive system with the creation of the National Information Service (SNI). The institutional acts promulgated during the governments of the generals Castello Branco (1964-1967) and Artur da Costa e Silva (1967-1969) ended the rule of law and the democratic institutions of the country. In order to contain the opposition, General Costa e Silva decreed in December 1968, Institutional Act No. 5 that suspended the activities of the Congress and authorized the persecution of opponents.
In October 1969, 240 general officers appointed General Emilio Garrastazu Medici (1969-1974), the former head of the SNI, as President of Republic. In January 1970, a decree-law made previous censorship of the press more rigid. In the fight against leftist groups, the Army created the Department of Internal Operations (DOI) and the Internal Defense Operations Center (CODI). The activity of the repressive organs dismantled the organizations of urban and rural guerrillas, which led to the death of hundreds of militants of the left. On March 15, 1974, Medici was replaced in the presidency by General Ernesto Geisel (1974-1979), who assumed power promising to resume economic growth and reestablish democracy. Even slowly and gradually the political opening began, which allowed the growth of opposition.
Slow, gradual and secure political openness became a necessity for the military regime because it was increasingly difficult to keep the country operating on the basis of repression. In 1975, faced with the MDB’s refusal to approve the reform of the Constitution proposed by the dictatorship, Congress was closed and the president’s term was increased to six years. The opposition began to pressure the government, along with civil society. With increasing pressure, the Congress that was reopened in 1979, approved the repeal of the AI-5. Congress could no longer be closed, nor could the political rights of citizens be annulled. Geisel chose as its successor the general João Batista Figueiredo, indirectly elected. Figueiredo took office on March 15, 1979, with the commitment to deepen the process of political openness. However, the economic crisis continued, with foreign debt reaching more than 100 billion dollars, and inflation reaching 200% a year. The economic crisis and the political crisis together put in question the governability of the country and the military dictatorship.
From 1968 to 1973, Brazil experienced high rates of economic growth, generating a climate of general optimism that was soon christened the “economic miracle,” and industry was the main sector in the development boom begun in 1968. During the military dictatorship, were implemented 3 PNDs – National Development Plan in the governments Garrastazu Médici, Ernesto Geisel and João Figueiredo. It was above all in the Ernesto Geisel government, with the II PND, whose objectives were to complete the Brazilian industrial structure, to replace imports of basic inputs and capital goods, to overcome the exchange problems resulting from the oil crisis, to develop coal projects, non-ferrous metals, sugarcane alcohol, electric energy and oil deployed in the 1970s in various parts of the country and contribute to the deconcentrating of productive activity in Brazil.
The spaces of struggle for the end of the presence of the military in the central power were multiplying. In the last months of 1983, a campaign for the direct elections for president, the “Direct Already”, that united several political leaders. The movement reached its peak in 1984, when the Dante de Oliveira Amendment was voted, which sought to re-establish the direct elections for president. On April 25, the amendment, despite winning the majority of votes, failed to get the 2/3 needed for its approval. Soon after the defeat of April 25, a large part of the opposition forces decided to participate in the indirect elections for president. The PMDB launched Tancredo Neves for president and José Sarney for vice president. When the Electoral College was assembled, the majority of the votes went to Tancredo Neves, who defeated Paulo Maluf of the PDS, candidate of the military dictatorship. Thus ended the military dictatorship. Tancredo Neves passed away before assuming, a fact that caused Vice-President Jose Sarney to occupy the Presidency of the Republic.
With the end of the military dictatorship, a new Constitution was necessary. The National Constituent Assembly began to meet in February 1987 and only had its activities closed in September 1988. In addition to the federal deputies and senators, there was also the presence of “notables”, that is, specialists in various subjects that concerned the citizenship, education, jurisprudence, that is, all matters related to the legal structure of a Federal Constitution. The new Constitution was promulgated on October 5, 1988, and remains to this day as the fundamental law of Brazil, that is, it is the basis of the entire Brazilian legal system.
From 1980 to 1989, during the period of the governments João Figueiredo and José Sarney, there was a profound deterioration of Brazil’s economic and social situation. In the 1980s, Brazil presented a deficit in the balance of payments, which was aggravated by the second “oil shock” and the sharp rise in interest rates in the international market. The development model based on the process of import substitution and dependent on technology and foreign capital, which reached its peak in the 1970s, was exhausted in the early 1980s and nothing has been done in the whole decade to restructure the Brazilian economy on new bases. The 1980s and 1990s marked Brazil’s longest and most serious crisis in its history only overcome by the current crisis that broke out in 2014.
The recession and rising unemployment of the early and late 1980s took on a hitherto unknown dimension. The most characteristic feature of the Brazilian economy is that the sharp fall in the growth rate indicated the depletion of a pattern that gave it impressive dynamism throughout the period of modern industrialization, particularly after the mid-1950s. With the economy claudicating, the return of some exiles who were in charge of reporting the barbarities witnessed or lived in the basements of the dictatorship, and the pro-amnesty campaign winning the streets, Brazilian society was winning the struggle for democracy. Even so, having to give up and negotiate, such as the amnesty for “both sides”, it ended up burying any possibility of punishment for those guilty of crimes of gross human rights violations during the military dictatorship.
It can be seen, therefore, that the developmental experience in Brazil from 1930 to 1985 had in the federal government its main agent and as its main support the process of industrialization. The industrialization process accentuated the regional concentration of economic activities and made it even more difficult to redistribute income. Inspired by ECLAC’s theses, the Brazilian rulers of the 1950s believed that import substitution industrialization would make the economy less caudatory of the central capitalist countries. The hope of gaining a greater degree of economic independence through industrialization has diminished because it has come to the realization that it has brought a new and more complex kind of dependence with the penetration of multinational corporations into the Brazilian market. In addition, the coup d’etat that deposed João Goulart aborted the initiative to return to the national developmentalism initiated by Getúlio Vargas.
The main deplorable facts of this period of Brazilian history were undoubtedly the abandonment of the national development model that aimed to promote autonomous development and combat the economic and technological dependence of the country in relation to the outside, the economic concentration of Brazil in São Paulo that contributed to the deepening of regional inequalities, the failure of the dependent capitalist development model that led to the bankruptcy of the Brazilian state and of large sectors of the Brazilian economy, and the most deplorable fact was the military dictatorship that lasted for 21 years from 1964 to 1985.
- The neoliberal Brazil
The neo-liberal economic model was initiated in Brazil under the Fernando Collor government in 1990, when the process of dismantling the institutional apparatus characterizing the national developmentalist model of the Vargas Era and the model of capitalist development dependent on the Kubitschek government and the rulers of the military regime in Brazil. Internal and external factors contributed to changes in this institutional apparatus. Internally, the state financial crisis, which made it unable to act as an investor, the insufficiency of domestic private savings, the cessation of financing of international banks and the reduction of foreign direct investment in Brazil as a result of the foreign debt crisis in the 1980 put in check the model of financially and technologically dependent capitalist development of the exterior until then in force. The neoliberal economic model seeks to promote development supported exclusively by domestic and foreign private investments, including infrastructure that has always been an area reserved for government investments.
Fernando Collor de Mello was the first president of Brazil elected directly by popular vote after the end of the Military Regime of 1964-1985. His government had to face a severe financial crisis, which required drastic measures. The solutions presented by his team of economists, such as the plans Collor I and Collor II, were disastrous, provoking a strong popular rejection. That was not enough, the treasurer of Collor’s presidential campaign, Paulo César (PC) Farias, was accused of being involved in a corruption scandal. This suspicion eventually involved the figure of the president in the scandal, a fact that cost not only his position, but also his political rights.
Adopting the neoliberal adjustment strategy formulated by the Washington Consensus, the Itamar Franco government, which replaced Fernando Collor government, and the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) government, which replaced the Itamar Franco government, began to fulfill its three stages described below: 1 ) stabilization of the economy (combating inflation); (2) structural reforms (privatization, deregulation of markets, financial and trade liberalization), and (3) resumption of foreign investment to leverage development. The governments Itamar Franco and FHC have processed the fight against inflation with the Real Plan, privatized state enterprises and opened the national economy even more to international capital. The Lula government maintained the same policy as its predecessor FHC, except for the privatization policy. The government Dilma Rousseff continued the governments of FHC and Lula that preceded it, resuming the privatization policy that had the denomination of public-private partnership.
The economic neoliberal model in Brazil brought with it the economic recession that began in 2014, the general bankruptcy of companies, the massive unemployment that reaches 13 million workers, the underutilization of 27 million workers, the deindustrialization of the Country and the the denationalization of what still remains of the public patrimony in Brazil and, consequently, in greater subordination of the Country in relation to the exterior. The recessive economic crisis associated with systemic corruption that was present in several federal government organs caused Dilma Rousseff, who was president of the Federative Republic of Brazil from January 2011 to August 2016 (reelected in the 2014 elections), to suffer rejection of the economically dominant classes, of a large part of the population and of the majority of the National Congress and underwent a process of impeachment that resulted in his removal from office.
The Michel Temer government, which replaced Dilma Rousseff’s government, further aggravated Brazil’s economic and social situation by adopting measures that deepened the recession and made it unfeasible for Brazil to resume its development. The results are there: negative economic growth, external imbalances, deindustrialization of the country, stagnation of productivity, generalized bankruptcy of companies, mass unemployment, high internal debt, fiscal crisis of federal, state and municipal governments, and now regression in the field of social achievements with the adoption of labor reform.
Prospects for the future of Brazil are extremely negative with the Jair Bolsonaro government, which should further radicalize the adoption of the neoliberal model whose consequences will be disastrous for Brazil in the face of the threat it poses to democracy, social rights and Brazil’s independence in relation to major powers and international capital. In the neoliberal era in which we live, there is no room for advancing democracy, social rights and national independence. On the contrary, there is the elimination of democracy and social rights and the deconstruction and denial of the achievements already made by the subaltern classes. The so-called “reforms” of social security, labor laws, privatization of public enterprises, etc. – “reforms” that are currently present on the political agenda of both central and peripheral capitalist countries (now elegantly renamed “emerging” as Brazil) are aimed at the pure and simple restoration of the conditions of a “savage capitalism” which the laws of the market must be vigorously enforced. This is, therefore, the deplorable trajectory of Brazil with the adoption of the neoliberal model.
- Conclusions
It is well known that unlike Brazil, the countries that have advanced politically, economically and socially are those whose peoples have achieved, through social revolutions, the required political, economic and social changes. To exemplify, the Glorious Revolution in England in 1689, which is the equivalent of the French Revolution (1789), since it meant the end of absolutism and the rise of the bourgeoisie to power, laid the foundations of the British Empire, the American Revolution or the War of Independence of the United States in 1776 began the transformation of the United States into a world power, the French Revolution in 1789 revolutionized France and turned it into a great world power, the Meiji Revolution in Japan in 1868 laid the foundations that turned Japan into a great world power , the Russian Revolution in 1917 transformed an agrarian country into a world superpower despite the unsuccessful implementation of socialism, the Scandinavian Revolution that provided its people with a state of social well-being with a society holding the highest Human Development Index and the Chinese Revolution in 1949 was a key factor in the development of this country whose have been collected in recent decades.
Unfortunately, the most important historical events in Brazil were intended to maintain the privileges of the ruling classes and the subordination of the country to the great powers of the time, which resulted in the political, economic and social backwardness of Brazil. The transformations that occurred in the history of Brazil did not result from movements from the bottom up, involving the population as a whole, but they were always directed through a conciliation between the representatives of the economically dominant social classes. The process of economic and social development of Brazil throughout history (Colony, Empire, Republic) was based on conciliation “on the top”, never hiding the explicit intention of keeping marginalized or repressed, outside the scope of the decisions, classes and strata social “from below”. The extremely negative tendency of the political, economic and social transformation in Brazil to take place through “conciliation by the high” marks its trajectory throughout history. There have always been, in the past and the present, explicit manifestations of an openly elitist and authoritarian vision that defended the exclusion of the popular masses from any active participation in major national decisions. It is for all that has been described in this article that the trajectory of Brazil has been deplorable throughout history that there is the need for the future generations of Brazilians to reverse this tendency.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, holder of the CONFEA / CREA System Medal of Merit, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.
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