Brazils first democratically elected president Collor de Mello has in mind the modernization of Brazil. This article analyses the cultural, economic and political consequences of this pretended modernization, distinguishing three layers (not stages): the traditional, the modern and the postmodern, emphasizing the similarities of the first and third. Brazil’s modernism was a cultural revolution aiming at homogenization, whereas Brazil’s postmodernism emphazises plurality and estetisation. Economically, Brazil implemented a peripheral Fordism stimulating the consumption of the middle classes, centered on the nation state as prime economic actor. But Brazil’s Fordism faces strong forces of desorganisation from above (internationalisation and foreign debt), from below (decentralisation and privatisation) and from within (service society). Politically, one can distinguish three political forces (parties) in opposition to neoliberal possessive individualism: Brizola’s traditional populism; the modern, organized social democracy of the Workers Party and postmodern social democracy. The article finishes with an appeal in favour of a political programme based on economic redistribution by strengthening civil society.
