In search of a new model: reflections on the contemporary crisis

Based on the evidence that, during the mid-19th century and the early 20th century, Brazil was certainly one of the fastest-growing economies, Celso Furtado notes that its people, however, benefited very little from this growth, the fruits of which were absorbed by the minority of the population engaged in producing the lifestyles of rich countries. Thus, the increase in income, which should have been directed toward reproductive activities, was absorbed by the modernization of the living standards of a privileged minority. The country did not develop, but merely modernized. In his new book, a summary of the central ideas of his theoretical work, Celso Furtado resumes his analysis of the historical process of underdevelopment, whose essential feature—income concentration—is increasingly visible in our country.