> 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