State, law, and public fund in the Brazilian revolution

Limits and possibilities of a structural transition under dependent capitalism

Abstract

This article critically examines the relationships among the state, law, and the public fund in Brazilian dependent capitalism, focusing on contemporary fiscal rules that legally regulate the allocation of socially produced wealth. Grounded in historical-dialectical materialism, it understands the state and law not as neutral or autonomous institutions, but as historically determined social forms intrinsically linked to the reproduction of production relations, private property, and class domination. Based on a theoretical literature review, documentary analysis, and a non-exhaustive empirical survey, the study examines the Fiscal Responsibility Law, primary balance targets, the so-called Golden Rule, the Expenditure Ceiling, and the New Fiscal Framework. It demonstrates that these instruments operate not merely as technical mechanisms of budgetary management, but as legal forms through which disputes over the public fund are organized in Brazil. Although relevant changes occurred across successive governmental cycles—from Lula’s first administrations to the Temer and Bolsonaro governments and Lula’s current administration—a structural tendency has persisted: primary social expenditures remain subordinated to fiscal discipline, debt sustainability, and the imperatives of financialization. The article also argues that austerity’s effects are socially unequal, disproportionately affecting historically vulnerable groups, especially women, the Black population, informal workers, and peripheral urban communities. It concludes that democratizing the public fund is a strategic dimension of any project aimed at national sovereignty, substantive equality, and emancipatory structural transformation, requiring criticism of the legal and fiscal forms that transform distributive choices into apparently neutral technical imperatives.