On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:38 AM, <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> On Mon, September 28, 2009 8:29 pm, John Gulick wrote:
>
>> Was not Brazil more of a "developmental state" under the generals in the
>> 1970's than it is under Lula today?
>
> I've been doing some research on Brazil, because it's the BRIC country I
> know the least about, so here's my crude, reductionist take: the story
> seems to be, Brazil wasn't even close to a developmental state back then.
> The boom had nothing to do with the military, it was mostly due to
> Juscelino Kubitschek's industrialization drive in the late 1950s.
> Infrastructure, heavy industry, the building of Brasilia, the expansion of
> state enterprises -- Kubitschek got the ball rolling. The model wasn't
> transnational, the model was the USA. He had to borrow heavily to do it,
> which caused the IMF back then to throw a fit, but they had no power to
> stop him. Kubitschek was also a firm believer in democracy -- his era
> ushered in a true flowering of Brazilian literature and film.
>
> Kubitschek did achieve great things, but the flaws in the model: (1) heavy
> dependence on overseas capital and technology, (2) a lack of internal
> redistribution, and (3) a complete lack of empathy or understanding for
> other nations of the periphery/semiperiphery (Kubitschek was an
> enthusiastic supporter of Portugal's dying colonialism... sounds crazy,
> but true). The generals literally and figuratively papered over these
> contradictions, via a vast overseas debt binge and decades of
> hyperinflation, but essentially coasted on the structures the Kubitschek
> era had created.
>
> I don't know enough about contemporary Brazil to say whether Lula has
> succeeded in changing points (1) or (2), but he's definitely changed point
> (3).
>
> -- DRR
>
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