Article published by the magazine 2015 IGHB- Geographic and Historic Institute of Bahia. This article aims to formulate a new social model as an alternative to neoliberal capitalism that prevails in the world today.

1. 1
PROJECT OF NEW MODEL OF SOCIETY TO BE BUILT IN THE FUTURE
Fernando Alcoforado
Abstract: This article aims to formulate a new social model as an alternative to neoliberal capitalism that
prevails in the world today.
Resumo: Este artigo tem por objetivo formular um novo modelo de sociedade como alternativa ao
capitalismo neoliberal que prevalece hoje no mundo.
Keywords: failure of liberalism, socialism and neoliberalism in the world, new model of society to build.
Palavras-chave: fracasso do liberalismo, socialismo e neoliberalismo no mundo, novo modelo de
sociedade a construir.
1. Introduction
This article aims to formulate a new social model as an alternative to neoliberal
capitalism that prevails in the world today. To achieve this goal was accomplished
initially reflection on the ideologies that were the basis for the evolution of human
society from the eighteenth century, from the French Revolution held in 1789, to date.
The analyzed ideologies are liberalism, socialism, social democracy and neoliberalism
adopted in several countries around the world. The failure of liberal and neoliberal
capitalism and socialism in its various forms puts on the agenda the need to build a new
model of society in all countries of the world. Social democracy especially implanted in
the Scandinavian countries which proved to be a successful alternative to the course of
history could serve as a basis for building a new social model for all countries of the
world. This new model of society should result in the improvement of the current model
of Scandinavian social democracy that would operate with a tripod structured on the
basis of a neutral State, civil society organizations active and productive sector (state
and private) efficient and effective.
2. The advent of liberalism ideology in the world

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).

2. 2
Left and Right are a common way to classify political positions, ideological, or political
parties. These terms have emerged with the advent of the French Revolution. During the
reign of Louis XVI, the people who were part of the clergy (First State) and nobility
(Second State) sat to the right of the king and members of the Third State sat on the left.
The most radical that usually were against decisions became known as the left while the
favorable decisions were the right. The Third State was composed of representatives of
bankers, big businessmen, professionals, artisans, shopkeepers, workers, apprentices,
marginalized urban and peasants. It was about the Third State weighing the burden of
taxes and contributions for the maintenance of the State and the Court. Even without a
unit, the Third State members agreed with the out of order of birth and privileges and
that was established civil equality.
France was an absolutist country in the seventeenth century. The king ruled with
absolute power by controlling the economy, justice, politics and even religion of his
subjects. There was a lack of democracy, because workers could not vote, not even give
opinions on the form of government. The opposition were imprisoned in the Bastille
(prison policy of the monarchy) or sentenced to death. French society was stratified and
hierarchical. At the top of the social pyramid, were the clergy and the nobility formed
by the king, his family, earls, dukes, marquises and other nobles who lived of banquets
and very luxurious in court. The basis of society was formed by the workers, peasants
and bourgeoisie, as we have said, held the whole society with their work and with
paying high taxes. Worse was the condition of life of unemployed increased on a large
scale in the French cities. The life of workers and peasants was of extreme poverty,
therefore, wanted improvements in quality of life and work. The bourgeoisie, even
having a better social status, wanted greater political participation and more economic
freedom in their work.
The social situation was so serious and the level of popular dissatisfaction so great that
the people took to the streets in order to seize power and forcing the government the
monarchy led by King Louis XVI. The first target of the revolutionaries was the
Bastille. The Storming of the Bastille on 14/07/1789 marks the beginning of the
revolutionary process, as the political prison was the symbol of the French monarchy.
The motto of the revolutionaries was "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", as it
summarized very well the wishes of the Third French State. During the revolutionary
process, much of the nobility left France, but the royal family was captured while trying
to flee the country. Prisoners, members of the monarchy, including King Louis XVI and
his wife Marie Antoinette were guillotined in 1793. The clergy also not left unpunished,
because the goods of the Church were confiscated during the revolution. In August
1789, the Constituent Assembly canceled all feudal rights that existed and promulgated
the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights. This important document brought
significant social progress, ensuring equal rights for citizens and greater political
participation for the people.
After the revolution, the Third State begins to transform and political parties begin to
emerge with diverse opinions. The Girondins, for example, representeded the high
bourgeoisie and wanted to avoid a greater participation of urban and rural workers in
politics. On the other hand, the Jacobins represented the low bourgeoisie and advocated
a greater popular participation in government. Led by Robespierre and Saint-Just, the
Jacobins were radical and defended also profound changes in society that benefit the
poor. In 1792, the radicals led by Robespierre assume power and organize the national
guards. Robespierre ordered to kill any of the leaders of the new opposition

3. 3
government. Many members of the nobility and other opposition French were sentenced
to death in this period. Violence and political radicalization are the hallmarks of this era.
In 1795, displacing the Jacobins of power, the Girondins take begin to install a
bourgeois government in France. A new constitution was adopted, guaranteeing the
power of the bourgeoisie and extending their political and economic rights. The French
general Napoleon Bonaparte is placed in power after the coup of 18 Brumaire
(November 9, 1799) in order to control the social instability and deploy a bourgeois
government. Napoleon takes over as first consul of France, establishing a dictatorship.
The French Revolution was an important milestone in the modern history of our
civilization because it meant the end of the absolutist system and the privileges of the
nobility and the people gained more autonomy and had assured their social rights. The
life of urban and rural workers improved significantly. On the other hand, the
bourgeoisie led process to ensure their social domain. The foundations of a bourgeois
and capitalist society were established during the revolution.
Immanuel Wallerstein (1998), an American sociologist, best known for his contribution
to the world-system theory, states that "the French Revolution opened the Pandora's box
and has raised the aspirations, expectations and popular hopes that all authorities - both
conservative as liberals- had difficulty to contain". For Wallerstein, conservatives and
liberals differed on the strategies to contain popular uprisings resulting from failure to
meet the social demands, the first in favor of strengthening the authority of the
institutions and symbolic leaders, while liberals argued that the normality of change,
sovereignty popular and citizenship should be granted. At this stage, the right was
represented by conservatives and the center by liberals. The left, which had not yet
assumed its own identity, was inserted between the Liberals as its most radical sector.
According to Wallerstein (1998), "this fight between conservatives and liberals of the
ruling minorities occurred in all major States in the world system between 1815 and
1848. The story of those years is a constant intensification of popular dissatisfaction in
many ways and in many places". Wallerstein also states that "the Revolutions of 1848
constituted, therefore, the moment of emergence of a third ideology, a leftist ideology
that severed ties with what was then considered a centrist liberalism and settled in
opposition both to this liberalism as the right of conservatism. This left-wing ideology
has had several names but, in general, began to be called socialism".
3. The advent of socialism ideology in the world
The year 1848 marked the European continent with revolutionary movements, from
Paris, had spread rapidly in urban centers. The consolidation of political power of the
bourgeoisie in France and the rise of the industrial proletariat as a political force were
the most important consequences of that year, which was also marked by the
publication of the "Communist Manifesto" of Marx and Engels. The bourgeoisie will
perceive themselves from the dangers of revolution, realizing that their political
aspirations could be alleviated with the granting of universal suffrage that would avoid
conflicts and upheavals. Thus, the Revolution of 1848 was very important for a new
political polarization came to life with the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in opposing
camps that deeply mark the coming political clashes. Not coincidentally, the same year
of 1848, other riots of trace liberal and socialist shook the archaic Old World structures.

4. 4
From 1848, exacerbated in the world confrontation between the right, represented by the
Conservatives, and the left, represented by the Socialists, while the centrist liberals were
standing between the two ideological currents tending more to the positions of
conservatives. Conservatives were characterized, according to Bobbio the defense of the
past, of tradition, heritage. Bobbio states that "the right man is one who cares, above all,
to safeguard the tradition; the man of the left, by contrast, is who want, above all else, to
free their fellow of the chains imposed on them by race, caste, class privileges, etc.
'Tradition' and 'empowerment' can be also interpreted as the last or ultimate goals and,
as such, indispensable, both as part of another ... ". Another key difference between left
and right is that the first is uncompromising advocate of equality and the right not. The
left believes that most of inequality is socially and, as such, eliminable and the right
think that most of it is natural and therefore ineliminable (BOBBIO, 1995).
According to Wallerstein (1998), "in the post-1848 period, there were two very clear
models. On the one hand, we had a triad of ideologies- conservative, liberal, Socialist-
competing politically in almost all parts. On the other hand, the centrist liberalism
became the predominant ideology throughout the world, precisely because the programs
of both conservatives and socialists began to turn into mere variants of latent liberal
theme of a managed political reform. Both models remained valid not only until 1917
but until 1968". Wallerstein also states that "the outbreak of popular passions and, in
particular, the legitimacy of popular objectives, forced the ruling groups to make major
concessions in the medium term through liberalism program. Of these the most
important were the suffrage (which turned out to be universal) and a partial
redistribution of income (the state of well-being)".
4. The advent of social democracy ideology
Since the nineteenth century, came among the supporters of socialism Marxist thesis to
deploy the dictatorship of the proletariat and build socialism through social revolution
as happened in the Soviet Union and other supporters of the construction of democratic
socialism based on reforms. The latter current gave rise to the social democracy that is a
political ideology that aims the establishment of democratic socialism. This is a political
ideology that emerged in the late nineteenth century by supporters of Marxism who
believed that the transition to a socialist society should work without a revolution, but
through a gradual political reform in the capitalist system in order to make it more
egalitarian. Social democracy turned away, so the Marxist socialism, leading supporters
of the idea of a democratic social state of well being, incorporating elements of both
socialism and capitalism.
The Social Democrats try to reform capitalism democratically through state regulation
and the creation of programs that reduce or eliminate social injustices inherent in
capitalism. This approach differs significantly from traditional socialism, which aims to
replace the capitalist system entirely for a new economic system characterized by
collective ownership of the means of production under the direction of workers. The
state of social welfare consists of a mode of economic and political organization in
which the state acts as an organizer of the economy and social promotion agent. It acts
in order to ensure the interests of holders of the capitalist means of production and
ensure the protection and public services to the people. In other words seeks to reconcile
the interests of the "top" with of the "low" in the social scale.
The social democratic model of society was essential to counteract the advance of the
international communist movement after the Second World War. The importance of this

5. 5
kind of political and economic organization during the Cold War sought to reduce the
dissatisfaction of workers and hinder the advance of socialism in several countries, and
assist in the recovery of European countries after the Second World War with the use of
Keynesianism. Through the State Social Welfare, which is a welfare theory, the state
should guarantee its citizens minimum health conditions, education, justice, housing,
income and social security. Many countries have adopted at different scales and in
different historical moments policies according to this theory, such as the Scandinavian
countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland), France, England and Germany,
among others. To a large extent, the state of social welfare has been successful in many
countries, especially in Scandinavian countries.
5. The advent of the "Third Way" ideology
In the second half of the twentieth century happened the Third Way, whose mentor was
Anthony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics. The "Third Way"
sought to create a new mixed economy and a new democratic state stepping between the
social democratic vision in which the economy is mixed, the state is cooperative,
dominates the civil society and its role in social assistance is extremely strong and the
neoliberalism, which considers that the market is sovereign and the state's role should
be minimal. As understood by Giddens, the old left was closely identified with the state,
while the new left was to identify with democracy and democratization of the state.
Giddens believes that globalization is not only economic but also a social and
intellectual phenomenon. He says that just as ended the family, with women's equality,
just ended the nation-state, with the victory of economic liberalism and the imposition
of world trade. He concludes that we can only adapt and get into the race. Asked about
the negative impact of globalization on countries and impoverished people and the
unjust growth of social inequality, with the increasing concentration of wealth in a few
hands and the impoverishment of the majority, Giddens was unable to give a convincing
answer, which makes it clear that this is not the concern of the "Third Way". In practice,
the "Third Way" is an attempt to camouflage their identity with neoliberalism.
6. The failure of liberalism
Liberalism failed not only in the political-institutional field, but also in the field of
economy that, driven by the free market, was responsible for the occurrence of two
large depressions in 1873 and 1929 in the world capitalist system, climbing from
colonialism and imperialism throughout the quadrants of the Earth and the advent of
two world wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945). In liberal capitalism, the State did not
intervene in the economy except to collaborate with the ruling classes of their countries.
The first major crisis of capitalism, the First Great Depression, began around 1873 and
ended in 1896 whose effects were felt most in Europe and the United States. A
consequence of the 1873 Depression was the high concentration of capital, creating
monopolies, the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, the export of capital,
which shall overcome the export of goods and the emergence of international
monopolies that divide the world each other. Liberal capitalism entered a new phase, the
monopoly stage.
In 1929, there was new depression in the world capitalist system. European countries
were devastated by the weakened economy and strong decrease of consumption that
shook the world capitalist system. On the other hand, the United States profited from
the export of food and industrial products to European countries after the World War I.

6. 6
As a result, between 1918 and 1928 the United States production grew stupendous form.
There were employment, prices fell, agriculture and industry produced a lot and
consumption was encouraged by credit expansion and the parceling payment of goods.
Subsequently, the European economy is reestablished and began to import less and less
from the United States. With lower consumption in Europe, the United States industries
were no longer to sell to. The crisis of overproduction in the United States caused the
crack of the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of large companies suffered a
precipitous fall, losing almost all of its financial value. The companies were forced to
reduce the rate of production. As a result, promoted the mass dismissal of workers.
With the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, banks and investors lost large sums of
money. The situation of banks was aggravated by the fact that debtors are unable to pay
their debts. With the increasing closure of banks, fewer funds were available in the
United States market, making the United States industrial production continued to fall.
In several countries, the Great Depression of 1929 caused disastrous effects, including
Brazil that had vertiginous decline in export revenue from coffee, our main export
product. There was an increase in unemployment, inflation, reducing the purchasing
power of the population and the disruption of economic production. One of the serious
consequences of the Great Depression of 1929 was the advent of the 2nd. World War I
that was triggered by Germany, Italy and Japan in order to promote the redivision of the
world market among the major powers.
The confrontation between the right and the left hit the heights around the world with
the advent of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the creation of the bloc of socialist
countries in Eastern Europe and the national liberation struggle that led to the
decolonization occurred in several countries of the periphery capitalist after the 2nd.
World War, the Chinese revolution in 1949, the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the
Vietnam War. The victories by leftist movements worldwide during the first half of the
twentieth century around the world have created the feeling that a new world, socialist,
even with different nuances in each country, would be in the making. The perspective
was that humanity was heading inexorably towards socialism. In the 1960s and 1970s,
for example, much of Asia and Africa countries were governed by parties that led the
national liberation movements, the socialist countries by Marxist-Leninist parties and
various countries in Europe, North America and Australia by social democratic parties.
However, since 1991, when there was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist
system in Eastern Europe, there was a reversal of all the progress made by left
worldwide since 1848.
7. The failure of socialism
The failure of socialism was set at the end of the Soviet Union and the socialist
countries of Eastern Europe. Many analysts consider that one of the causes of the failure
of the Soviet Union in building socialism would have been the exhaustion of extensive
model of economic growth adopted, which would require the adoption of technological
advances that were used to substantially increase the productivity of the economy as a
whole. Another cause would have been a structural failure of the Soviet economic
system and the industrialization model adopted to ensure the transition to the
information society with the use of production factors based on information and
knowledge.
The Soviet economic system prevented that were created the conditions for the diffusion
of information technologies in the social system, affecting the process of spontaneous

7. 7
innovation by use and networked interaction that characterize the paradigm of
information technology. Despite the huge amount of resources allocated by the Soviet
Union for the advancement of science and research and development (R & D), and
although the country have the largest number of scientists and engineers between the
economically active population in relation to any other country important in the world,
the system also discouraged the search for innovation in a time of fundamental
technological change.
Another cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the failure of economic reforms
with the adoption of Perestroika and of political opening through Glasnost implemented
by Gorbachev that gave vent to unbridled pressure of repressed national identities and
manipulated during Stalinism. The search for distinct identities of socialist ideology into
force caused the weakening of the Soviet state decisively. Nationalism has become the
ultimate expression of the conflict between the state and civil society, and the
immediate political factor that culminated in the process of disintegration of the Soviet
Union.
The Soviet Communist Party was not able to make use of repressive mechanisms to
prevent the end of the socialist regime because it was divided, disconcerted and
disjointed by the maneuvers of Gorbachev and infiltration in the ranks of the values and
projects of a capitalist society revived. A surprising fact is that the socialist model
implemented in the Soviet Union did not collapse under attack from social movements
born of the contradictions between the state and civil society. The Soviet experience
shows that social systems can disappear as a victim of its own pitfalls without being
attacked irreversibly by social actors mobilized consciously.
Wallerstein (1998) says that the socialist Marxist parties failed because "the main
element that led to the removal of these parties was popular disillusionment, a sense that
these parties had had their historic opportunity, they had obtained support based on one
of two strategy steps to transform the world (take state power, then turn it), and that had
not fulfilled its historic promise". About the failure of the Soviet Union and of the
socialist countries, Wallerstein (1998) said "the three major charges against the
historical socialism are: 1) the arbitrary use of state authority (and party) in which, in
the worst cases, the terror led by the State; 2) the extent of the Nomenclature privileges
(dominant group in the power structure of the Soviet Union and other socialist
countries); and 3) extensive economic inefficiency which resulted in a containment of
the increase in share value rather than promoting it".
From the 1990s, the Marxist left that was born in 1848 and came to power in several
countries has lost its way. The failure in the construction of socialism in the Soviet
Union and Eastern European countries, China, Cuba, etc. demonstrate that the old
socialist project is no longer viable and a new socialist society project will have to be
prepared. It should be noted that the old socialist project as it was built in the Soviet
Union and other countries turned into state capitalism, with political power exercised
despotic and corrupt form of a new type of bourgeoisie (state bourgeoisie or
Nomenclature). The proletariat, on behalf of which the socialist revolution was carried
out, did not have the power and the population did not participate in the decisions of
governments. The real socialism came to an end and there was no popular reaction to
fight in its defense and keep it demonstrating the immense frustration of the people by
not meeting their expectations.
8. The failure of neoliberalism

8. 8
The loss of direction of the Marxist left happened, not only because of the lack of an
alternative project to the one implemented in the Soviet Union and other countries, but
also by the offensive of the conservative forces of the United Kingdom and the United
States under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan that led forward
the neoliberal counterrevolution whose economic doctrine advocates the absolute
freedom of the market and a restriction on state intervention on the economy and should
only occur in this vital sector and yet a minimum. In the old left Marxist had no other
alternative but to participation in parliamentary elections defending neoliberal thesis and
giving up the social revolution that has always been the main mobile of his political
action in the past. The loss of direction also happened with the social democratic parties
in many countries such as Spain, France, Portugal, Greece and others in which they
were not able to meet the social demands.
In many countries, including Brazil with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula and Dilma
Rousseff, social democratic parties and the Marxist left came to power in the State with
the adoption of neo-liberal prescriptions. What one finds in practice is the adoption
today by leftist governments, with few exceptions, of neoliberal capitalist theses by
granting broad spoils the ruling classes, especially the financial sector, and "alms" to
"low" in the social scale, to counteract social upheavals as currently occurs in Brazil
with the income transfer program "Bolsa Familia". This is why there is the belief in
broad sectors of society that today there is no difference between right and left, feeding
the thesis of the end of ideology.
The failure of neoliberal capitalism is configured in the outbreak of the global crisis of
2008 that broke out in the United States in the mortgage lending sector that immediately
spread to other parts of the world financial system, with a rapidity and an amplitude that
surprised the market. The major Western banks played the world in a recession. The
losses reached US$ 1 trillion. The Bank of England said that the losses of the banks had
to adjust their investments to market prices are $ 3 trillion, equivalent to about a year of
economic production in the UK. The Asian Development Bank estimated that financial
assets worldwide may have suffered a drop of more than US$ 50 trillion - a number
equivalent to the world total annual production. The financial system is embittering
damage on a scale that no one ever predicted. The international financial system no
longer works. The neoliberal model that ruled the world in the last 40 years died and
there will be depression that will last many years.
9. The imperative of a new model of society
In an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian on 16/04/2009, under the
title Theoretical assumptions of "mixed economy", Eric Hobsbawm says that we know
two practical attempts to realize both systems, socialist and neo-liberal, in its pure form:
for first, the economies of state planning, centralized, Soviet-type; on the other, the
capitalist free market economy free from any restriction and control. The first came
down in the 1980s, and with them the European communist political systems; the
second is breaking down before our eyes in the greater crisis of global capitalism
occurred in 2008.
Hobsbawm said that we did not know the severity and duration of the current crisis that
erupted in the United States in 2008, but no doubt she will mark the end of the kind of
free-market capitalism started with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Hobsbawm
also states that impotence, therefore, threatens both those who believe in a market
capitalism, pure and without state, a sort of bourgeois anarchism, and those who believe

9. 9
in a planned socialism and decontaminated for the search for profits. Both are broken.
The future, like the present and the past, belongs to mixed economies in which the
public and the private are mutually linked in one way or another. Does this means that
the Social Democracy with the State Social Welfare, incorporating elements of both
socialism and capitalism, the most successful system already deployed in the world,
especially in the Scandinavian countries, may prevail in the future after the neoliberal
"tsunami" that overwhelms the planet where we live on?
10. Social democracy in the Scandinavian mold as a new model of society to build
Throughout history, liberalism, socialism and neoliberalism have failed in building an
economic society, socially and politically viable in countries around the world leaving
behind the barbarism that characterizes the world we live in. To end the barbarism,
promote economic and social progress and establish a civilized coexistence among all
human beings urge the building of a new model of society. By analyzing the model of
social democracy implanted in the world, it appears that it was in Scandinavia where
there was the most successful among them all despite the need for improvements to be
presented in the conclusions of this article.
10.1- The experience of social democracy in Scandinavia
The Nordic model or Scandinavian social democracy could best be described as a kind
of middle ground between capitalism and socialism. It is neither fully capitalist nor fully
socialist, with an attempt to fuse the most desirable elements of both in a “hybrid”
system. In 2013, magazine The Economist stated that the Nordic countries are probably
the best governed in the world. The UN World Happiness Report 2013 report shows
that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe, with Denmark at the top
of the list. The Nordic have the highest rating in real GDP per capita, the highest
healthy life expectancy, greater freedom to make choices in life and the greatest
generosity.
Among the Scandinavian or Nordic countries, Norway is the most successful in the
world, with the State Social Welfare characterized by a lot of equality and much social
justice. In Norway, does not thrive inequality, selfishness, individualism characteristics
of liberalism and neoliberalism. 100 years ago, Norway became the condition of one of
the poorest countries in Europe, living with ice and darkness for half the year to be
synonymous with wealth and social justice with a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per
capita of US$ 100 thousand. Norway prioritizes spending on education that is
guaranteed for the entire population. In 30 years, the Norwegians have reduced their
working hours in 270 hours, earning more than ten days of vacation per year, and a
significant part of workers can now work only four days a week. According to the UN,
never a society has achieved a level of human development equal to that of Oslo, capital
of Norway. In addition, Norway translated oil in prosperity and equality [See the text
Noruega, um paraíso com muito Estado Social, serviços públicos e impostos (Norway, a
paradise with very welfare state, public services and taxes) on the website
<http://blogdotarso.com/2014/04/13/noruega-um-paraiso-com-muito-estado-social-
servicos-publicos-e-impostos/>].
Even in an age of austerity and global crisis, the State System of Social Welfare in
Norway remained intact, with a minimum salary of US$ 4800 and unemployment is
2%. Norway was the country that less felt the global crisis that erupted in 2008 in the
United States. In Norwegian elections the only debate is what to do with the money left

10. 10
in the public coffers. Norway has the largest sovereign fund in the world, estimated at
US$ 815 billion and are flush in the state coffers. The Norwegian state bought 1% of
shares in exchanges around the world and invests in 3,200 companies. In Norway there
is a strong state presence in virtually all fields of economy, since after the 2nd
World
War, when the government nationalized companies linked to Germany. The state got
44% of the shares of Norsk Hydro, has a stake of 37% in the Oslo Stock Exchange and
in dozens of companies. Today the state of Norway controls the oil Statoil, the Telenor
telecommunications group, the manufacturer of Yara fertilizers, and the largest bank in
the country DnBNor.
Norway unions negotiate their salaries every year, depending on the needs of the export
sector and to ensure that the national product to remain competitive in the global
market. In Norwegian elections political parties promise not to cut taxes. In the State of
Social Welfare in Norway men take care of their babies and each year the government
allocates 2.8% of GDP to support families everything they need to have children.
Parents who decide not to take the kids to daycare centers receive, every month, a check
for US$ 200 to help in spending. There citizens receiving social benefits from the state
are not called bums. It is a legitimate right [See the text Noruega, um paraíso com muito
Estado Social, serviços públicos e impostos (Norway, a paradise with very welfare
state, public services and taxes) on the website
<http://blogdotarso.com/2014/04/13/noruega-um-paraiso-com-muito-estado-social-
servicos-publicos-e-impostos/>].
Norway maternity leave is 9 months for the mother and four months for parents. In
these months the state pays the salary of the parents. The government estimates that
these incentives for women and laws to ensure gender equality are positive for the
economy. Companies are required to give 40% of the places in their advice to women.
75% of women work out and the government that is more activity in the economy and a
greater number of people paying taxes. In Norway the income tax reaches 42% that is
higher than in Brazil. There is consensus that the value is just to keep the system. The
state pays from the nursery to the funeral, finance students and even holiday. The
Norwegian model of society is the minimum expected for a just society. The rest is
barbarism.
For these reasons, Scandinavia, particularly Norway, is the birthplace of more
egalitarian model that capitalism has ever known. It dates back to Sweden of the 1930s,
more precisely 80 years ago, when concretized the social democratic hegemony in the
Nordic country government, setting off a series of social and economic reforms that
would usher in a new kind of capitalism, as opposed to liberalism of previous decades
whose final act was the crisis of 1929. It was the birth called the Scandinavian model,
which quickly exceed the Swedish borders to become influential in northern Europe, but
also an important reference in the formulation of heterodox economic policies
(progressive) throughout the planet. The success of this model is due to the combination
of a large State of Social Welfare to strict regulatory mechanisms of market forces, able
to put the economy on a dynamic path, while reaching to the best health social
indicators between capitalist countries.
10.2- The Scandinavian social democracy in the face of neoliberalism climbing
According to Immanuel Wallerstein, American sociologist and university professor,
social democracy had its heyday in the period between 1945 and the late 1960s. At that
time, represented an ideology and a movement that advocated the use of state resources

11. 11
to ensure some redistribution in favor of the majority of population by several concrete
ways: expansion of health and education systems, income levels guaranteed lifelong
through support programs to the needs of jobless groups, particularly children and the
elderly and programs to minimize unemployment. Social democracy promised a future
always better for future generations, a sort of permanent increase in the national income
and families. It was called this a “state of social well-being.” It was an ideology that
reflected the point of view that capitalism could be “reformed” and acquires a more
human face [WALLERSTEIN Immanuel. A ilusão social-democrata (The social
democratic illusion). Published on the website <http://www.esquerda.net/ opinion /
AU% C3% A3o-social Democrat />].
According to Wallerstein, the Social Democrats were particularly powerful in Western
Europe, in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the United States (where
they were called the New Deal Democrats) – in short, in the rich countries of the world
system, those that constituted what might be called the pan-European world. Its success
was so vast that in the rest of the world, many countries to go up in this carriage,
through projects of national “development”. Social democracy was a very successful
project during this period. It was supported by two realities of that time: the incredible
expansion of the world economy, which created the resources that made possible social
redistribution and the United States hegemony in the world system, which ensured its
relative stability and, in particular, the absence of serious violence within this rich area.
This would come, however, to finish. The world economy failed to expand and entered
in a long stagnation in which we still live; and the United States began their long, albeit
slow, decline as the hegemonic power. These new realities have accelerated
considerably in the 21st
century.
From the 1990s, a new wave of liberalism reaches the world with the advent of
neoliberalism that spilled over the planet. The orthodox recipe (conservative)
implemented in the Scandinavian countries, starting with Sweden itself, essentially
aimed at financial deregulation and the flexibility of the labor market. The logic of these
reforms was, as usual, remove the chains present in the economy in the form of rules
and institutions so that the market could allocate resources (capital and labor) in the
most efficient way possible. As occurred in all capitalist countries, preached to wage
cuts, reduced taxation and capital controls as a way to resume the stimulation of
business activity. Neoliberal economists thought they had found the magic formula to
remove the capitalism of stagnation that existed all over the world [See the text Modelo
nórdico (Nordic model) published on the website
<http://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modelo_n%C3 B3rdico%>].
Coincidentally, a small Scandinavian country social democrat, Iceland, faced one of the
worst crises in its history. There, the chronic economic and social situation caused by
neoliberal policies led to an unprecedented challenge in Western Europe of the
deregulation of markets strategy. It should be noted that Iceland was the first country to
feel the effects of the global capitalist financial meltdown. Its main banks were strangers
and put the Icelandic economy in a financial maelstrom that anticipate, small-scale, the
effects of the global crisis that erupted in 2008 in the United States. The speculative
bubble produced with the savings of the population finally broke when it was revealed
that banks would not be able to guarantee the deposits because they had invested in the
notorious United States mortgage securities. The collapse brought the country to ruin.
As a result, unemployment exploded and an impressive number of Icelanders left the
country.

12. 12
10.3- Rescuing the social democracy in Scandinavia after the neoliberal
catastrophe in Iceland
After the crisis, it was erupted in Iceland an organized civil resistance movement. The
results were not long: the Conservative government was defeated at the polls and
replaced by another social Democratic majority that decided to break with neoliberal
orthodox view of the free market. The new government began to intervene directly in
the exchange, producing a devaluation of the local currency, were resumed the controls
on capital and investments in the social security system, and the banks were
nationalized to ensure liquidity citizens. Iceland was thus able to avoid a greater evil
and, above all, to draw attention to the need to rescue the Scandinavian social democrat
model. The key to this model was the ability to establish between civil society and elites
a national pact in which they would give up the unjustified abundance in living to
contribute to a larger goal, the well-being of the population.
For such a turnaround, had been decisive the initiative of Swedish economists, led by
Gunnar Myrdal, who in the early twentieth century would provide the theoretical
foundation for a social democratic alternative economic policy. The School of
Stockholm, as would be named this branch of heterodox economic thought, denounced
the evils of liberalism and demonstrated the primacy of household demand to resume
cycles of economic boom, in contrast to innocuous stimuli supply that characterized
(and still feature) liberal and neo-liberal conservative view. Today, the Scandinavian
once again alert the world to free market forces equivalent to open a real “Pandora’s
box” catastrophic. For those who still fall into this temptation, is the message of the
Icelandic experience. Iceland revolution rescued the heterodox tradition of Scandinavian
economists, whose reflections inspired the writing of a new constitution in the country,
aiming at the resumption of social control over economic resources as the essential path
to independence and prosperity. To argue otherwise is to support an injured dogma of
death with the global crisis.
11. Conclusions
Despite the success of Scandinavian social democracy, the new social democratic model
should result from the improvement of what is called social democracy Nordic or
Scandinavian practiced in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Despite their
differences, they share some common features: state of well-being and social
universalist that is geared to enhance individual autonomy, promoting social mobility
and ensuring universal provision of basic human rights and stabilizing the economy. Is
distinguished also by its emphasis on the participation of the workforce, promoting
gender equality, reducing social inequality, extensive levels of benefits to the population
and large magnitude of redistribution of wealth [See the text Modelo nórdico (Nordic
model) published on the website <http://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modelo_n%C3
B3rdico%>].
It was social democracy ever built, especially in Scandinavian countries, the only model
of society that allowed economic, social and political simultaneous advances with the
State, even of the service of capital, acting as a mediator of conflicts between the
interests of capital and Civil Society. It is no accident that the Scandinavian countries,
in addition to presenting great economic and social achievements, are leaders in HDI
(Human Development Index) in the world. Unlike, liberalism and neoliberalism where
the State is always in the service of capital and civil society is marginalized, and
socialism where the state is at the service of a party or a group in power and civil

13. 13
society is also marginalized, the social democracy of the Scandinavian countries
avoided the occurrence of the excesses of liberalism, socialism and neoliberalism.
Despite the great success of social democracy practiced in Scandinavia, the social
democracy of the future should result from the improvement of the current model that
would operate with a tripod structured on the basis of a neutral State, civil society
organizations active and productive sector (state and private) efficient and effective. The
neutral State would seek to reconcile the interests of the productive sector (state and
private enterprises) with Civil Society mediating their conflicts in several instances of
executive and legislative powers and, when not achieved consensus, the final decision
would be up to the people who would decide democratically by plebiscite and / or
referendum. In the new social democracy, should not be allowed the action of monopoly
groups and private cartels in the economy. Private companies would act only in
economic sectors where there is competition. State or mixed enterprises occupy the
economic sectors where it was not possible to have competition.
Brazil that suffer the adverse effects of the devastation produced on the Brazilian
economy by the neoliberal model introduced by Fernando Collor in 1990 and
maintained by Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula and Dilma Rousseff
governments should be inspired by the Scandinavian social democracy to reverse the
situation current, whose balance is extremely negative from every angle. The current
stagnation of the Brazilian economy that is at the moment will deepen in the coming
years should take place simultaneously with the rise in inflation rates which result the
stagflation phenomenon. Most likely, it will grow the deficit in the balance of payments
due to the fall in export revenues and an increase in remittances of profits and dividends
by multinational companies that have grown dramatically in recent years, far outpacing
the value of interest remittances of foreign debt.
As far as dollar inflows to cover the deficit in the balance of payments, foreign direct
investment, in turn, tends to also fall due to likely decline in the growth of the Brazilian
economy. No foreign investor would invest in Brazil with a stagnant economy as it is
right now. The stagnation of the Brazilian economy will cause there are also
government revenues fall at all levels so that there is no public resources for investment
in sufficient quantity to invest in economic and social infrastructure, as well as to
maintain the social income transfer programs as the "Bolsa Familia".
The maintenance of the neoliberal model in Brazil will result in deepening
denationalization of what remains of public assets in Brazil and, consequently, a greater
subordination of the country from the outside. The results are in: meager economic
growth, inflation above-target, external imbalances, economic stagnation, and now also
kick in the social achievements. A seriously government committed to the defense of
national sovereignty, the progress of Brazil and the social welfare of its population have
to necessarily repel this scenario replacing the neoliberal economic model by social
democrat model of selective and controlled opening of national economy that would
certainly make the country less vulnerable to attack by speculative foreign capital with
the government exercising effective control of the economy, and help to revive the
national development. The neoliberal revolution of Iceland should inspire the writing of
a new Constitution in Brazil, as did the Icelandic, in order resumption of social control
over economic resources of the country as the indispensable way to independence and
national prosperity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

14. 14
BOBBIO, Norberto. Direita e esquerda. Editora UNESP.São Paulo, 1995.
BLOG DO TARSO. Noruega, um paraíso com muito Estado Social, serviços públicos e
impostos. Disponível no website <http://blogdotarso.com/2014/04/13/noruega-um-
paraiso-com-muito-estado-social-servicos-publicos-e-impostos/>).
HOBSBAWN, Eric. Theoretical assumptions of "mixed economy". The Guardian.
16/04/2009.
ONU. World Happiness Report 2013.
WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. Utopística ou as Decisões Históricas do Século Vinte e
Um. Editora Vozes. Petrópolis, 1998.
WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. A ilusão social-democrata. Disponível no website
<http://www.esquerda.net/opiniao/ilus%C3%A3o-social-democrata/>.
WIKIPEDIA. Modelo nórdico. Disponível no website
<http://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modelo_n%C3%B3rdico>).