ECLAC's Utopian Vision and Income Inequality in Brazil

In 2014, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) stated that a development strategy aimed at greater economic equity, greater social justice and greater environmental protection could be adopted in several countries in Latin America - a scenario which however has been disfigured in recent years. This article thus has three objectives: (1) to analyze the utopian character of ECLAC's agenda for the promotion of more egalitarian societies in Latin America; (2) to list the main determinants of the reduction of income inequality in Brazil in the period 2004-2014; and (3) to examine the interruption of the trajectory of reduction of income inequality - from the 2016 political coup and the approval of neoliberal reforms that increased the precariousness of jobs and weakened the social protection system -, as evidence of the interdiction of an inclusive development strategy in Brazil.