Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira

Revista USP, 84: 58-75. Número especial sobre a queda do Muro de Berlim organizado por Maria Hermínia Tavares, dezembro de 2009.

The twenty century socialist revolutions have turned, first, into statist or technobureaucratic systems and, second, have proved to be a path to capitalism to the extent that the state is an effective instrument to promote forced savings. The first conversion derived from the high initial inequality conditions existing in modern societies and from the fact that although human beings are not only egoistic, their solidarity must be built. The second conversion from the fact that a state controlled economy is incompatible with the complexity of developed economic systems. Actually, men and women are always building a better state and a better society. If socialism finally turns reality, it will be the outcome of a gradual social construction.