Brazilianization
A term coined, or at least made popular, by Michael Lind in his book The Next American Nation. According to Lind, the real threat to the United States is the decline of the influence of principles of Liberal Democracy rooted in the political philosophy of such figures as John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. This will not come about, as many multiculturalists claim, as a result of a Balkanization or fragmentation along racial or ethnic lines. Rather, the decline will come about, Lind believes, due to a Brazilianization which he defines as a "fissioning along class lines". Lind paints a grim picture of this new society.
Brazilianization is symbolized by the increasing withdrawal of the white American overclass into its ... world of private neighborhoods, private schools, private police, private health care, and even private roads, walled off from the spreading squalor beyond. Like a Latin American oligarchy, the rich and well connected members of the overclass can flourish in a decadent America with Third World levels of inequality and crime. Lind warns that such a future cannot be averted by "trivial reforms" but will require a "real revolution... in politics and society", a revolution as "sweeping as the Civil Rights Revolution.
The Next American Nation, ppg. 14, 215-16. |
