According to Bertha K. Becker, the economy of Brazil "has altered dramatically since the Great Depression of the 1930's and the close of World War II in 1945, and within the last several decades has experienced tremendous growth in numerous areas, such as the export of minerals, farm products and manufactured goods, not to mention the explosion of growth from a basic rural society into an urban giant" (56). As evidence for this drastic change, by the late 1980's, Brazil's national income related to agriculture had dropped to about 10%, while the manufacturing industry rose by about 25% and provided more than 70% of the country's entire export income (Becker, 67).
             Although Brazil's agricultural base did not expand as fast as its industrial base following World War II, its overall growth was quite substantial, due to an expansion in cultivated land (which continues to this very day as a result of rain forest depletion) from about sixteen million acres in 1920 to more than one hundred and fifteen million acres in the mid 1980's. Brazil also became the world's biggest exporter of sugar products and the second largest exporter of soybean. Today, Brazil continues to export a very large percentage of the world's coffee crop along with large amounts of cocoa and cotton. Thus, Brazil remains quite self-sufficient, especially regarding food products, such as beans, corn, rice and meat products and its economic future looks very bright indeed.
             Beginning roughly at the end of the 1980's, the economy of Brazil became a mixture of domestic private companies, multinational corporations and state enterprises which often worked together while also competing against one another. As to private companies, the Brazilian
             government realized that these entities were necessary for the on-going development of the market economy and at times intervened, due to the lack of industrialization in area...