Displacement of social security and social disprotection in Brazil

Abstract

After 30 years in force, CF-88 must be salvaged and commemorated but also evaluated in relation to how much social and political resistance it acquired in the execution of its determinations. These determinations not only conflict with those of the dictatorial period preceding it but were also shown to be minimally attractive to neoliberal forces in Brazil in the late 1980s and early 1990s and are now widely recognized as conservative. One of the main recommendations of CF-88 — the subject of this article — was the notion of universal public State social protection adopted under the basis of security and/or social security and, with it, a social security budget. Over the last 30 years, this idea has shifted from this founding matrix due to forces of conservatism, individualism, and privatization. This has limited the State’s role as a provider, thus conditioning access to the consumption capacities of social protection commodities.