ABSTRACT
The election of Tancredo Neves marked Brazil's return to democracy after twenty-one years of authoritarianism Faced with the concrete threat of accelerated inflation, the new president spoke about the necessity of a social pact—a pact between business and labor with government mediation—to stop and reverse inflation. The general hypothesis is that this new pact will not repeat populism and will naturally stand in opposition to the authoritarian-capitalist pact. Two alternative political pacts, or power blocs, will begin to compete. One, more conservative, will draw its support directly from the upper bourgeoisie, from the conservative middle class, and from unorganized labor. The other will have its power bases among the more progressive sectors of both the bourgeois middle class and the technobureaucracy, with its electoral base among organized workers. Nevertheless, if political power is to be exercised, a political pact must be concluded.
