Gustavo Henrique Thought

(Not to be confused with Gustavoism, the former ideology of the real Gustavo Henrique) Gustavo Henrique Thought is the ideology of Gustavo Henrique (1920-2002), a Brazilian educator and politician who ruled the country between 1965 and 1991.

Gustavo Oliveira Henrique was born in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul on November 9, 1920, to Evandra Oliveira (1893-1953), a housewife, and Pedro Henrique (1890-1961), a primary school teacher. He had no siblings.

Gustavo lived a lower middle-class lifestyle growing up, later claiming to intrinsically understand the concerns of the average Brazilians. During his youth, he was a devout Catholic and voracious reader who preferred reading to playing.

Gustavo Henrique was considered to be a very intelligent student with a photographic memory, being especially knowledgeable in the field of history. He was also a staunch supporter of Getúlio Vargas from 1936 onwards.

From 1938, his mind was set on becoming a teacher. In 1941, Gustavo started teaching history at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), being known as an excellent, communicative and very knowledgeable person; during his political career, one of Gustavo's main support bases was among UFRGS alumni.

In 1944, Gustavo Henrique married his girlfriend, Ana Paula Oliveira (1919-2006). They had four children: Samuel, Fernando, Joana and Vitor.

Economic Policy
After taking power following a general uprising against the Brazilian military dictatorship, Gustavo Henrique decided to implement a socialist economic program modeled after the former Yugoslavia, with non-strategic sectors being based around cooperatives, and small businesses being privately owned.

Between 1965 and 1968, Henrique issued several decrees redistributing unused land, banning the remittance of profits and royalties, mandating the formation of rural cooperatives, massively mechanizing agriculture, extending workers' rights to rural areas, requiring large businesses to provide paid leave to pregnant employees, imposing wage and price controls, establishing a base price for essential commodities, nationalizing strategic sectors, and estabilishing a literacy program, MOBRAL.

These went hand-in-hand with the massacre of businessmen and landowners. During his dictatorship, there was a significant brain drain which Brazil only recovered from in the 1980s.

Starting in the first day of 1970, workplace democracy was implemented in businesses with more than 100 employees, and outside of oil and heavy industry. This had mixed results, improving living standards but reducing productivity.

However, government revenue increased as a result of the nationalizations, and as such, the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) was founded in 1972 as an universal healthcare system offering free hospitalization for everyone. But these policies, plus the war in Chile, pushed Brazil *deeply* into debt and inflation.

After the reform process began, Brazil reformed its economy by privatizing some industries, implementing floating exchange rates, ending rural collectivization, lowering tariffs, easing wage and price controls, and reducing military spending. The Brazilian economy slowing improved; after the end of the dictatorship, Brazil became neoliberal.