Welfare state in Brazil: a review or the crisis and the end of the “Dunkirk spirit”

Abstract

This article resumes the debate on the welfare state in Brazil to verify how the state and the capitalism developed in the country, were part of the social reform effort that emerged worldwide after the Second World War. The structural character of the welfare state may be considered as a social policy of the mode of production at a particular time of its development, when economic, social, and political crises were enhanced and required reformist and transformative responses. The study focused on national and international literature and examined documents related to social security, assistance, and the context of 1940s and 1950s Brazil. The analysis uses the literature discussing the Brazilian welfare state, its different versions and the data of that period to examine if the changes within the current state and social relations of production can be considered radical opposition to the welfare state model. The results show that in Brazil, the bases for the welfare state model were effectively developed in a format that reflected the local conditions. However, the research found that the unity of the causes that led to social reforms lacks political dimension nowadays, without which the economic dimension, exclusively, is not able to promote solidarity and social policies in their progressive concept.