Making Progress: A Conversation with Fernando Henrique Cardoso

The American Interes Online, July-August 2011 Issue

When I was in office, I said even then that the future was already here. It was in 1999, after all, that the label “BRICs” came about, largely because Brazil was on its way. The country’s economic and social development had by then passed some important landmarks. The first was the new constitution in 1988, not just because it brought democratization but because our old constitution was outmoded in certain respects. It had come about in a bipolar world, and it overemphasized the role of the state in the economy.