Do social-desenvolvimentismo ao desenvolvimento social: a trajetória da categoria econômica do mercado consumidor interno no desenvolvimento como direito constitucional e econômico vigente

Abstract

This article examines the trajectory of Brazilian developmentalist thought, with particular emphasis on social developmentalism and the contributions of Maria da Conceição Tavares, seeking to identify its incorporation into Brazilian constitutional and economic law. Drawing on different experiences of national developmentalism between the 1930s and the 1960s, the article argues that social developmentalism introduced a fundamental shift by assigning income distribution, the expansion of mass consumption, and the strengthening of the domestic market a central role in the dynamics of economic development itself. It argues that this approach finds legal and constitutional expression in the 1988 Federal Constitution, particularly in the separation between the Economic Order and the Social Order, the recognition of the domestic market as part of the national patrimony, and the progressive universalization of social rights. In this context, the article examines the consolidation of policies and institutions such as the Unified Health System (SUS), the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS), the Bolsa Família Program, and the Basic Family Income. It concludes that the economic category of social developmentalism is projected into the Brazilian legal order in the form of Social Development, understood not merely as a field of social protection policy, but as a constitutive dimension of the constitutional development strategy. Social inclusion, income redistribution, and the universalization of social policies thus perform both social and economic functions by increasing households’ disposable income, strengthening the domestic consumer market, and creating the conditions for more robust and sustainable economic growth.