The Golden Straightjacket and Funk

In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman argues that the new globalization has forced nations to abide by a new series of rules to survive, including "making the private sector the primary engine of its economic growth...(and) deregulating capital markets". When regarding nations that have transformed themselves in this fashion and now sport a dapper "Golden Straightjacket", as Friedman calls these characteristics, one must consider Brazil (it is, after all, one of the famously developing BRIC nations). Brazil's spectacular and swift rise to a complete democracy with an unfettered free market has created a rapid modernization, but, unfortunately, has been accompanied by increased crime and poverty; most notably in Rio de Janeiro. While the free market system has made many prosperous, it has also extended the favelas in both size and seriousness of poverty. In capitalist Brazil, there are simply no jobs for these masses of destitute citizens, and they seek organized crime as a way to make ends meet. This is the social situation that birthed Funk; an art form that is one of the few benefits to arise out of a disastrously poor social class whose problems were exacerbated by the modernization of Brazil.