Brazil, 1964-1985 by Herbert S. Klein Francisco Vidal Luna

Author:Herbert S. Klein,Francisco Vidal Luna [Klein, Herbert S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300223316
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

4

The Social and Institutional Reform Projects of the Brazilian Military

ASIDE FROM ATTEMPTING to reorganize the political system, the military regimes carried out significant reforms in pensions, health, and education. This area of reform, just as with economic policy, had its origins in earlier periods of government, though in this case it was during the authoritarian regime of the first Vargas administration and not during the democratic administrations of Vargas and Kubitschek. The reasons why the Brazilian generals would support such profound changes are many. These social reform measures were extremely popular and gave added support to their regime even in the most violent period of the Medici government. They were also a fundamental part of their “authoritarian developmental” agenda. To prevent the left and radicals from promoting change from below, change had to come from above. They reasoned that only controlled change could create a solid middle class and a “responsible” working class, which would be impervious to the ideologies of the populists and radicals. Finally it was a continuation of the model that had been so successful under the Vargas dictatorship. Although the military hated the Vargas labor politicians, they liked the labor control that was already in place, and they supported and furthered many of the social reforms that Vargas implemented. In fact, the military regimes can be seen as a logical extension of the Vargas period in this specific area. It is now agreed by most scholars that it was the two authoritarian regimes of 1930–45 and 1964–85 that created Brazil’s contemporary welfare state. Thus to understand the social reforms, it is important to examine what was done under the Vargas regime and how it relates to what developed under the military. Brazil is one of the classic cases of authoritarian regimes being the initiator of social welfare policies, which was the norm in Latin America, in contrast to the experience of most of the European states.1

Until the 1930s, social welfare was of little concern for the governments of Brazil. In the colonial period the royal government maintained pensions for royal officials and the military, and the Church created a host of charitable institutions from hospitals to orphanages. Little changed under the imperial government of the nineteenth century, with some efforts devoted to public education and health and with minimal pensions being granted to select government employees in the last days of the imperial government. But as in most Latin American states, the period up to the Great Depression was one of limited advances in the area of social welfare.2

Although the new republican government established in 1889 finally put more emphasis on health and education, carrying out major public health campaigns of vaccination and sanitation and promoting free public schools at the local and state levels, there was little institutional change in terms of health care, pensions, and workman’s compensation schemes. It was not until 1919 that the first national workers compensation for job accidents was passed, and it was not until 1923 that the first government-supported pension plan was established under the Eloy Chaves law.

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