Throughout the history of Brazil is flagrant the failure of the Brazilian people to play a protagonism role in the structural changes necessary for economic and social progress of the country. Generally, in times of political and economic crisis ever occurred agreements between the dominant economic classes and holders of political power that allowed maintain the "status quo". The critical political, economic and social situation in Brazil at the time may have to reconcile "by the high" among holders of economic and political power to keep the Dilma Rousseff government in power if the majority of the Brazilian people remains passive in regarding political, economic and social devastation in progress. This is the trump card of the incompetent and corrupt holders of Brazil's political power who do not fear of the people of Brazil that is primarily responsible for the rise them to power.

1. 1
A LACK OF BRAZILIAN PEOPLE'S PROTAGONISM IN BRAZIL HISTORY
Fernando Alcoforado *
Throughout the history of Brazil is flagrant the failure of the Brazilian people to play a
protagonism role in the structural changes necessary for economic and social progress
of the country. Generally, in times of political and economic crisis ever occurred
agreements between the dominant economic classes and holders of political power that
allowed maintain the "status quo" as happened, for example, during the "Old Republic"
after the Republic Proclamation in 1889 and, after the end of military rule in 1985, with
the indirect election of Tancredo Neves to the presidency of Republic. When there were
no "agreements by high" throughout history, Brazil was victim of coups d'état as
occurred in 1889 with the end of the Empire, in 1930 with the end of "Old Republic"
and in 1964 with the deployment of the military dictatorship. Throughout the history of
Brazil, the Brazilian people have never been the protagonist of the political, economic
and social changes.
It can be said that in Brazil, there was never, in fact, a social revolution. The very
independence of Brazil did not result from the struggle of the Brazilian people, but the
will of the Emperor D. Pedro I. The Independence of Brazil differed from the
experience of other Latin American countries because it did not present the
characteristics of a typical national-liberating revolutionary process because it was
aborted in the Brazilian case, by the episode of the transmigration of the Portuguese
royal family to Brazil, when Cologne welcomes the structure and staff of the Portuguese
metropolitan State.
The revolutionary nativism, under the influence of the ideals of liberalism and the great
purposes of revolutions of the eighteenth century gave way in Brazil to the logic of
conserve -changing prevailing today, it is for the D. Pedro I initiative, Crown Prince of
the Portuguese Royal House and not the Brazilian people the political act that led to
independence. The Independence of Brazil was therefore a "revolution without
revolution" because there were no changes in the economic base and the political and
legal superstructure of the nation. The state that born of Brazil's Independence keeps the
execrable landlordism and intensifies no less despicable slavery making this the support
of the restoration that performs as the inherited economic structures of Cologne.
In 1889, 1930 and 1964 was not possible the "agreement by the high" with the
reconciliation between the dominant economic classes and holders of political power. In
these historic moments, the coup d'état became the solution to mitigate the existing
political economic and social contradictions. Despite numerous popular uprisings
recorded throughout the history of Brazil, a true political, economic and social
revolution able to carry out deep structural change and promote development for the
benefit of the population never actually happened in the country. All the revolutionary
attempts made in Brazil were aborted with harsh repression by those in power. It is
known that in the world, countries that have advanced politically are those whose
people were the protagonists, through social revolutions, of the changes made in the
economic and social sphere.
Brazil was the last country to end slavery in the nineteenth century, land reform is yet to
be realized because the lamentable agrarian structure based on large estates still exists in
Brazil, modernized today with agribusiness, and the industrialization process it was
introduced late in Brazil, 200 years after the Industrial Revolution in England. This

2. 2
reflects Brazil's economic gap with the more developed countries. The economic crisis
faced by Brazil throughout its history were not able to generate political crises that took
the Brazilian people to the social revolution and put them at question the economic
system and those in power in order to promote their economic and social development.
The transformations in the history of Brazil were not the result of authentic revolutions,
movements from the bottom up, involving the whole population, but they walked
always through a compromise between the representatives of the economically
dominant opposition groups, conciliation that was expressed in the figure policy of
reforms "from above" [See the article Os efeitos da “via prussiana” sobre a
intelectualidade brasileira (The effects of "the Prussian way" on the Brazilian
intelligentsia) of Carlos Nelson Coutinho available on the website
<http://laurocampos.org.br/2008/09/os-efeitos-da-via-prussiana-sobre-a-
intelectualidade-brasileira/>, 2008].
The economic and social development process in Brazil throughout history followed a
"Prussian way" along the lines of capitalist modernization process in Germany and in
contrast to the US model. According to Vladimir Lenin in the " Prussian way", the great
pre-capitalist ownership of the Germany of the late nineteenth century turns gradually in
capitalist enterprise with labor relations maintaining aspects of coercion that
characterized them and the former owners, to ensure the maintenance of economic
forms in which they support, are able to maintain a prominent role in the state apparatus
and thus guide the very process of modernization. In contrast, the model of the United
States, of democratic character, according to Lenin, was characterized by the destruction
of the great pre-capitalist property, divided into small peasant properties.
According to Carlos Nelson Coutinho, all major concrete alternatives experienced by
Brazil (Independence, Abolition, Republic, modification of the power bloc in 1930 and
1937, passage to a new level of accumulation in 1964), found an answer "to the Prussian
way"; a response in which conciliation "by the high" never hid the explicit intention of
keeping marginalized or suppressed in any way outside the scope of the decisions,
classes and social strata "low". The objective trend that has social transformation in
Brazil to carry through "conciliation by the high" marks the history of Brazil. Appeared
in Brazil explicit manifestations of "Prussian" ideology that in the name of an openly
authoritarian and elitist vision defend the exclusion of the masses of any active
manifestation in major national decisions.
In the neoliberal era in which we live there is no space for advancement of social rights.
Instead, there is the elimination of those rights and the deconstruction and denial of
reforms already conquered by the lower classes. The so-called "reform" of social
security, the protection laws of work, privatization of public enterprises, etc. - "reforms"
that are currently present on the political agenda of both the central capitalist countries
and the peripheral (now elegantly renamed as "emerging") - are aimed at the simple
restoration of conditions for "wild" capitalism, in which shall be maintained without
brakes the laws of the market.
The critical political, economic and social situation in Brazil at the time may have to
reconcile "by the high" among holders of economic and political power to keep the
Dilma Rousseff government in power if the majority of the Brazilian people remains
passive in regarding political, economic and social devastation in progress. This is the
trump card of the incompetent and corrupt holders of Brazil's political power who do
not fear of the people of Brazil that is primarily responsible for the rise them to power.

3. 3
The massive presence of people during Carnival while the country is in a pre-
bankruptcy economic situation shows, on the one hand, the alienation of the population
and, on the other, their lack of patriotism. This alienated and disengaged people with the
fate of the Brazilian nation poses no threat to those who hold political and economic
power of Brazil a fact that contributes to the reconciliation “by high” will prevail.
Rousseff will only be deprived of power through impeachment by the fiscal
responsibility crime or by the electoral crime by use of funds from Petrobras corruption
if does not prevail passivity of the majority of the Brazilian people.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012) and
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015).