Brazilian Miracle

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The Brazilian Miracle (Portuguese: milagre econômico brasileiro) was a period of exceptional economic growth in Brazil during the rule of the Brazilian military dictatorship, achieved via a heterodox and developmentalist model. During this time the average annual GDP growth was close to 10%. The greatest economic growth was reached during the tenure of President Emílio Garrastazu Médici from 1969 to 1973.

James Petras argues the short-lived economic miracle in Brazil was based on:

a) violent illegitimate seizure of political power by the military;

b) the institutionalization of violence through an extensive and intensive system of military-police controls throughout civil society;

c) the systematic use of terror to contain popular discontent, to disarticulate mass organizations and to destroy guerrilla resistance;

d) the elaboration of the National Security ideology to justify the State's "permanent state of war" against autonomous class or nationalist movements.^[1]

Perception of the so-called Golden Age of Brazilian development was strengthened in 1970, when Brazil, for the third time, won the FIFA World Cup, and the official adoption of the slogan "Brasil, ame-o ou deixe-o" ("Brazil, love it or leave it") by the Brazilian military government.

According to Elio Gaspari, in his book A Ditadura Escancarada: "The Brazilian Miracle and the Years of Lead happened simultaneously. Both were real, coexisting and denying each other. More than thirty years later, they continue to do so. For every person who thinks one existed, there is a person who doesn't believe (or doesn't like to admit) the other one happened."^[2]