Dados é uma das principais e mais longevas publicações nas ciências sociais no Brasil. Criada em 1966, divulga trabalhos inéditos e inovadores, oriundos de pesquisa acadêmica, de autores brasileiros e estrangeiros. Editada pelo IESP-UERJ, é seu objetivo conciliar o rigor científico e a excelência acadêmica com ênfase no debate público a partir da análise de questões substantivas da sociedade e da política.
Dados n. 18 Rio de Janeiro 1978
Resumo
The importance of economic growth us universally acknowledged. However, in the case of Brazil, distribution of the national surplus presents problems: the participants are unequal in their functions and accordingly divided in the apportionment of the returns. How can the surplus be controlled and the yield distributed by democratic means, while preserving security and equality? There are externalities in both the market and planning mechanisms. An externality is at work when someone is seriously afected by the outcome of a decision in the making of which he did not take part. The major organization which internalizes the market's externalities in the world today is the State. The impact of the market's externalities, in terms of Western world structures, has caused the liberal state to become an interventionist state. The latter, however, has not eliminated the price system. As the price system proceeded to coexist with an interventionist state in post-64 Brazil, decisions were made to promote economic growth. While quantitatively substantial, the ensuing growth not only brought inequality but also failed to eliminate the problem of absolute poverty. Since the indicators of income distribution and the absolute level of poverty are highly unsatisfactory from the standpoint of a secure social order, reforms are clearly called for, specifically to redefine the appropriate policies so as to broaden the basis of social participation. As a means of change, reforms can be implemented through an act of enlightened liberality' on the part of the ruling group and the social cadres to which it belongs. Nevertheless, without political participation, reforms generate and cause the externality of state intervention to the extent that they affect a community which does not directly partake of it. Hence the question: How can the reforms which the aforementioned indicators appear to counsel be carried out with political acumen and economic efficiency? The answer, according to the author, is a political system containing such mechanisms of expression and control in the administration as will allow for the emergence of the most appropriate solutions from the flow of discussion and ideas that is part of an authentic civic life.
Crescimento, Igualdade e Democracia
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