Os sentidos do desenvolvimento econômico do Brasil: o pensamento de Caio Prado Júnior entre 1940 e1970 e a interpretação do Brasil

Abstract

This dissertation is themed on the ways of Brazilian economic development through Caio Prado Júnior’s thinking, built between the 40s and the 70s. This work intends to comprehend the vitality of “caiopradian” thinking, as also the trajectory on which this interpreter followed while making his contributions on the historical, political and economic evolution of Brazil. In order to do this, it was necessary to understand the production conditions on Economic History and Political Economy, thus seeking to contextualize the stage on which interpretations of the historical shapes of capitalism are made, so we also question how the concept of Political Economy was undermined through the process of hegemony of the capitalist production mode. Another main factor brought up in research that led to this work was the comprehension using the theoretical arsenal offered by the Marxist Theory of Speech Analysis, founded by Michel Pécheux, through which it was possible to reach to the production conditions of “caiopradian” discourse and also to Caio Prado Júnior’s ideological formation. Through these means, we have reached the understanding that the aforementioned intellectual was subject to a series of specific conjuncture conditions that were marked in his contributions, especially in his effort to build an interpretative theory of the Brazilian reality from its particular shapes, rather than to just transpose theoretical models based on Other historical realities. Finally, that Caio Prado Júnior’s theoretical and interpretative contributions led to a series of developments like the Brazilian capitalism’s colonial way of entification, as proposed by José Chasin, that comes to pass as the primary intelectual inheritance from the author of Formação do Brasil Contemporâneo (1942).