In 2020, the structure of capitalism and liberalism proclaimed by several coun tries, including Brazil, was badly shaken by a serious health crisis. The enemy
this time is invisible: COVID-19, an infectious disease, caused by the new coro navirus, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Be cause of the COVID-19 mortality rate in Brazil, the country has become the epi center of the Latin America crisis. The economy has begun to emanate typical
signs of a recession with projections of a decline in the GDP of up to 6.25%.
In terms of socioeconomic stratification, the pandemic has accentuated social
inequality, revealing old anomalies regarding the poor distribution of income,
generating a greater deepening of poverty, a significant increase in unemplo yment and, principally, a worsening of racial, cultural, age, ethnic and gender
discrimination. With this prolegomena in mind, it is possible to arrive at the
fundamental objective of the article: to understand the role of the State and of
social democracy - inspired by the theory of John Maynard Keynes – in
times of the novel coronavirus and of the liberalist, authoritarian, denialist
manage – ment of the President, Jair Messias Bolsonaro. To achieve this
objective, the article will make use of exploratory and qualitative research
methodology. The main conclusion is that Brazil urgently needs to rescue the
welfare state – defended by Keynes – within the framework of social
democracy, under threat of entering a state of conflagration and suffering a
major post-coronavirus econo- mic depression with negative consequences
for more vulnerable socio-econo- mic stratifications.
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