ABSTRACT
This paper aims to illustrate how the adoption of economic policies to achieve short-term growth does not hold intertemporal perspective. Therefore, it is used the methodological tool of comparison of two recent periods of significant economic growth in Brazilian contemporary history. The analogy between the “economic miracle” (1968-1973) and the “spectacle of growth” in the second half of the 2000s presents similarities that must be analyzed by social scientists whose purpose is to interpret Brazilian recent history. At the end of the period, the inevitable results are economic recession and the necessity of a new macroeconomic adjustment.
Brazilian economy; economics cycles; economic populism; “Economic miracle”; New Economic Matrix