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Padrão de Resposta
The Old World lies very far away
Karl Marx and Alexis de Tocqueville both agreed on one point: extreme poverty does not lead to uprising but rather to apathy.
RaIf Dahrendorf has resumed the issue in a recent article. “The most critical segment of the population by far – says he – is the one which had begun to make progress towards new and better conditions, but, at a certain point, found the path blocked. These are the groups which rally to violent protests and end up bringing about great changes”.
Dahrendorf anticipated, of course, the unfolding of the rising of the Parisian outskirts, which has inspired additional turmoil in several corners of Western Europe.
I thought about Brazil, vice-champion of the world in poor distribution of income, where 70% of the families live, at most, on two minimum wages and where 30% of the population vegetate below the poverty line. Not to mention the heritage of slavery which has left on the native backs the deep scar of the whip.