Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira

Texto para Discussão EESP/FGV n. 326, agosto 2013.

The Capitalist Revolution was the period of the transition from the ancient societies to capitalism; it was a long transition that began in the north of Italy, in the 14th century, and was completed, for the first time, in England, in the second part of the 18th century, with the formation of the British nation-state and the Industrial Revolution; it was a major rupture, which divided the history of mankind between the period when empires or civilizations prospered and then fell into decadence and disappeared, and the period of ingrained economic development and long-term improvement of standards of living. Since then the different peoples are engaged in the social construction of their nations and their states; since then, they are experiencing economic development, because capitalism is essentially dynamic; since then they are struggling for their political objectives historically defined for themselves from that revolution: security, freedom, economic well-being, social justice, and protection of the environment.