Industrial policy serving a national development strategy

Abstract

This paper aims to propose an approach that integrates industrial policy, the macroeconomic regime, and the overcoming of socioeconomic inequalities as a path towards establishing a national development strategy for Brazil. Firstly, we analyze the institutional reforms carried out in the country since the 2016 coup, along with their impacts on the scope of the state's influence over the economic process. Subsequently, we discuss the internalization of demands for improving the living conditions of the lower classes within the industrial policy's formulation as a mechanism to involve them in the battle for the development strategy's success and counterbalance the structural power of finance. Next, we present the necessary changes in the current macroeconomic regime of the country so it can contain implicitly the goals of productive modernization and the social transformation explicitly outlined in the industrial policy. Lastly, we propose government measures in strategic areas crucial to the industrial policy's success, such as financing, regional development, integration with Latin America, enhancement of domestic enterprises, and infrastructure.