C Class in Brazil

Brazilians prepare to rage against state failures in World Cup summer | World news | The Observer:  "There was a growth of people's income above the growth of GDP. Last year it was 7.9%, and the GDP grew 0.9%," Neri said. "So life inside people's houses is getting better, and outside is not getting better at the same velocity."

Class C now makes up more than half of the Brazilian population. The demographic group once marginalised as "the poor" now plays a confident and central role in Brazilian culture, with its own pop stars, like singer Anitta, and even a hit soap opera on Globo called Brazil Avenue, which for the first time celebrated its brash, colourful suburban style on primetime television and was a nationwide hit.

"Globo soap operas used to be a magic eye, for the poorer people to see the rich," said Antonio Prata, one of the soap's scriptwriters. "Brazil Avenue did the opposite … Class C didn't want to see the rich, they wanted to see themselves reflected."

But what Class C members can buy in terms of consumer goods – often on credit – does not make up for the failing social services around them, particularly in health, education, sanitation and transport. Many live in tiny breezeblock houses, in endless, gritty suburbs, hours away from city centres by bus. Transport was the spark that lit June's protests: an increase in bus fares in São Paulo and Rio.

"These Brazilians are consumers without citizenship, without civil rights. They are not citizens," said celebrated novelist Milton Hatoum. "There is consumerism but no citizenship. The schools for their children are terrible. Education is terrible. Often there is no sanitation.

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