Brazil has been a paradigmatic case of “Intermediate Country”, which was successful in obtaining what Ranis and Fei called “shortage point”, but which failed to achieve, in the light of the same analytical model, the “commercialization point”.
In other words, it managed to reach a phase of emergence of a strong middle class (with a very significant endogenous market), emerging a modern sector that, in several activities, is highly competitive on an international scale, but has not reached a phase of widespread and sustainable development of the entire economy, transforming the traditional underdeveloped sector into something residual in the Brazilian economy.
Hence it is not truly an economy of the “developed center”, although it had already abandoned the “periphery”, corresponding to what Paul Krugman calls a “semi-periphery” in transition.
It is true that, between 2000 and 2012, Brazil went through a phase of euphoria, being considered an exemplary case of “Intermediate Country”, presenting a high growth rate in Gross Domestic Product-GDP and a substantial transfer of labor from the Traditional to the Modern Sector.
However, from 2013 onwards, Brazil experienced one of the biggest recessions ever, with a substantial worsening of the unemployment rate and a very serious corruption crisis, a crisis that also generated strong political and social instability.
Despite the recession experienced between 2013 and 2017, Brazil’s economic and financial situation evolved favorably from 2017 onwards, registering some disinflation and a certain reduction in public deficits.
However, there continued to be a high degree of asymmetry in the distribution of income, with the Government unable to create conditions for sustainable and, therefore, inclusive development, with the country currently being completely bipolarized or, better said, radicalized to the right and left.
For authors like Gilda Massari, it would be important to seek to solve the country’s development problems by overcoming existing bottlenecks of a political-institutional nature.
For the author, the electoral system appears inadequate, with the regulations applicable to political parties being very deficient.
The Political System would have evolved from a parliamentary phase to another of a presidential type, which, according to the author, would be somewhat contradictory, as it would correspond to a mitigated presidential system, since the President would be, in many aspects, quite conditioned by Congress.
On the other hand, it would be essential to continue thinking about the indispensability of a consistent Spatial Planning Policy, in the elaboration of Regional Plans and Multi-Year National Plans, tuning strategic sectors, defining a coherent model of economic development and implementing policies that would meet the objectives, however, defined.
Rather, as Massari states, there is a bet on “populist irresponsibility”, which leads, in the long term, to galloping inflationary processes and the worsening of economic-social crises that generate totalitarian temptations.
At the same time, there are weaknesses in the Educational System, as well as in what is conventionally designated as the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation, with a large gap continuing to exist between theoretical production and the scientific and technological results felt at the level of the productive apparatus.
This may mean that there is no adequate interpenetration of Universities/Companies and, therefore, a manifest inability for the business fabric to absorb the positive contributions of theoretical production carried out at the university level, as well as at the level of research centers.
In short, Brazil is going through a critical situation, which leads some theorists to defend the thesis that modernization processes in Brazil tend to operate in “cycles” or “vacancies”, sometimes registering prolonged solutions of continuity over time.
No more, no less…
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Alexandra Leitão
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