The Shield of Dignity and the Dialectic of Scarcity: Brazilian Social Security between the Constitutional Promise and Crisis Jurisprudence (1988–2025)

Abstract

This research analyzes Brazilian Social Security as the "Shield of Dignity" within the 1988 constitutional order, investigating the dialectical tension between the promise of universal welfare and budgetary constraints exacerbated by the decoupling of revenues. Adopting a qualitative methodology through a literature review and an examination of the Supreme Federal Court’s jurisprudence (1988–2025), the study maps the Court's hermeneutic trajectory, which has evolved from the dogmatic consolidation of social rights to a stance of fiscal deference in recent reforms, without, however, abandoning the safeguarding of the existential minimum during the pandemic. The analysis integrates data from Ipea and IBGE to demonstrate the system's efficacy in mitigating hunger and structural inequality. It is concluded that Social Security constitutes the fundamental barrier against social barbarism and that its sustainability requires not the dismantling of guarantees, but a new pact of fiscal justice that modernizes funding, reaffirming social protection as a civilizational imperative and a sine qua non condition for the maintenance of substantive democracy in Brazil.