Hegemony and Social Policies in Brazil: Contributions to the debate about mandatory budget allotments

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reveal how mandatory budget allotments for social policies facilitate or impede attending the interests of the bourgeoisie and its fractions, highlighting as an example the differences between educational policy, for which there are mandatory spending requirements, and housing policy, which does not have this obligation. To do so, it looks at the presumptions in relation to the state and its role in guaranteeing the conditions of production and maintenance of bourgeois hegemony, especially through the use of allocation of government funds to distinct factions of the bourgeoisie. The article then presents different visions about the budget ties and financing of social policies and then presents systematized data based on the government budget and Statements on Tax Spending (fiscal exemptions) from 2003 until 2015, to reveal the space for the reproduction of capital in educational and housing policies, even if with differences in degree due to mandatory budget allocations or not.

Keywords:
Social policy; Hegemony; Budget obligations; Education; Housing