Alexandre Cunha | UFMG - The Federal University of Minas Gerais (original) (raw)
Books by Alexandre Cunha
Although historians usually trace its origins to the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th Century,... more Although historians usually trace its origins to the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th Century, Latin American political, economic and cultural emancipation is still very much a work in progress. As new national identities were developed, fresh reflection and theorising was needed in order to understand how Latin America related to the wider world. Through a series of case studies on different topics and national experiences, this volume shows how political economy has occupied an important place in discussions about emancipation and independence that occurred in the region.
The production of political economic knowledge in the periphery of capitalism can take on many forms: importing ideas from abroad; translating and adapting them to local realities; or else producing concepts and theories specifically designed to make sense of the uniqueness of particular historical experiences. The Political Economy of Latin American Independence illustrates each of these strategies, exploring issues such as trade policy, money and banking, socio-economic philosophy, nationalism, and economic development. The expert authors stress how the originality of Latin American economic thought often resides in the creative appropriation of ideas originally devised in different contexts and thus usually ill-suited to local realities.
Taken together, the chapters illustrate a fertile methodological approach for studying the history of political economy in Latin America. This book is of great interest to economic historians specialising in Latin America, as well as those who study history of economic thought, political economy and Latin American history.
Articles by Alexandre Cunha
HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 2021
The connection between economic and legal knowledge is an important gateway to the reflection on ... more The connection between economic and legal knowledge is an important gateway to the reflection on the dissemination of Cameralist ideas in continental Europe during the eighteenth century. In the Iberian context, at the end of that century, there was still little separation from the spheres of state action. Due to this, judges and magistrates participated with their decisions in the local economic government, which included the wide range of attributions associated with so-called police matters (i.e., not only public safety but also issues related to education, production, commerce, population, supply, arts and crafts, customs, maintenance of urban space, etc.). Thus, dimensions of economic ideas in various of its matrices (civil economy, physiocracy, political arithmetic, police science, etc.) came to be seen as an auxiliary knowledge of legal interpretation, that is, the justification and explanation of laws. The Medieval Latin term politia (from Greek politeia) was incorporated into several European languages roughly from the fifteenth century, in particular via the dissemination of the uses of Middle French police,
HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 2020
François Perroux was one of the most creative and prominent French economists of the twentieth ce... more François Perroux was one of the most creative and prominent French economists of the twentieth century. With contributions ranging from the 1930s to his death in the 1980s, Perroux produced studies throughout his life on subjects as different as corporatism, national accounts, planning, the dynamics of the disparities and inequalities among nations (with important implications for the field of international political economy), and several other developments of his theory of the dominant economy, particularly in the field of spatial economics. It is difficult to think of Perroux as anything other than an eclectic, given the diversity of the themes he addressed throughout his career. However, considering his contribution simply in terms of eclecticism tends to ignore exactly what seems to be the most interesting and creative aspect of his work. This aspect can be explained only by analyzing how he sought to integrate different dimensions of his analysis into the same analytical effort.
Cuadernos de Estudios del Siglo XVIII, 2023
This article highlights the importance of the field of mining and metallurgy in the dissemination... more This article highlights the importance of the field of mining and metallurgy in the dissemination of cameralist ideas in the eighteenth-century Iberian world. Although mining and metallurgy may not seem at first obvious topics for the analysis of cameralism, they were in fact fundamental topics in the cameral sciences literature and allow us to capture in an expressive way the importance given in this literature to the production of useful knowledge of the natural world, allowing for important connec- tions with the enlightened reformism in southern Europe and in the Iberian world in particular. The article emphasizes a key institution in this process of diffusion, the Mining Academy (Bergakademie) of Freiberg, focusing simultaneously on the trajectories of Spanish and Portuguese students who were there in the last decades of the eighteenth century, to shed light on new questions about the diffusion of cameralist ideas in the context of Iberian Enlightened Reformism.
Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2018
The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920–2004) in the 1970s, an ambitious attempt to ... more The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920–2004) in the 1970s, an ambitious attempt to redefine the field of development economics. Furtado's work has recently been revisited by several authors in the history of economic thought. This text explores Furtado's response to the perceived failure of development theory to explain the reality of underdeveloped nations in the late 1970s. Expanding the scope of analysis and assigning culture a pivotal role helped explain the dynamics of development and underdevelopment. This theoretical movement occurred as development economics was drifting out of the mainstream of economic theory. Unlike the discussion of underdevelopment in the 1950s, this discussion of creativity and dependence encountered an adverse intellectual landscape despite being one of Furtado's most original contributions. This theoretical turning point is interestingly connected to Furtado's second term at the University of Cambridge. Like the first discussion of underdevelopment during the 1950s, which was critical to the formulation of his historical-structural analytical method, the discussions of the 1970s also led to this Brazilian author's vivid and interesting contributions to the field of development economics.
The main purpose of this article is to discuss the influence of economic discourse on the design ... more The main purpose of this article is to discuss the influence of economic discourse on the design and implementation of the economic and political reforms that occurred in Brazil throughout the second half of the eighteenth century (1750-1808).
Reflection upon cameralism and the police in the context of enlightened reformism offers suggesti... more Reflection upon cameralism and the police in the context of enlightened reformism offers suggestive insights into the links between economic ideas and the administration of the state. The Portuguese case is an interesting example of how those ideas are assimilated and put into practice. This paper first presents the characteristics of Portuguese enlightened reformism and its place in the history of ideas. After that, cameralism and the police are investigated, with particular attention being paid to the legislative action of the king. Finally, the paper analyzes and discusses this process of the assimilation of ideas, supported by examples of the Portuguese experience in centralizing the administration of the public finances within the Royal Treasury and in providing technical training to public officers through the School of Commerce.
América Latina en la historia económica, 2015
A controvérsia do planejamento (1944-1945), entre Roberto Simonsen e Eugênio Gudin, é um momento ... more A controvérsia do planejamento (1944-1945), entre Roberto Simonsen e Eugênio Gudin, é um momento privilegiado para o estudo da história das ideias econômicas. A participação de Roberto Simonsen nessa discussão pode ser revista e lida de maneira enriquecedora numa perspectiva de história das ideias. Este artigo investiga a especificidade teórica que distingue a abordagem de Simonsen em relação à de Gudin, postulando que o primeiro entra no debate pela via da história econômica. Sua abordagem está em sintonia com discussões teóricas do final da segunda guerra, levadas a cabo nas próximas décadas pela economia do desenvolvimento no Brasil. A inserção da contribuição de Simonsen no contexto histórico da controvérsia abre novas possibilidades de leitura desse debate essencial na construção de um pensamento econômico no Brasil. Palavras-chave: planejamento; difusão internacional de ideias; era Vargas; industrialização. Abstract. The controversy on economic planning (1944-1945), between Roberto Simonsen and Eugênio Gudin, is a distinguished moment for the study of the history of economic ideas. Roberto Simonsen's participation in this discussion can be revisited and read in an enriching way if a history-of-ideas perspective is adopted. This paper investigates the theoretical specificity that distinguishes Simonsen's approach from Gudin's, arguing that the former joins the debate by means of economic history. His approach was in tune with theoretical questions relevant at the end of World War II, which came to be debated by development economics in Brazil over the next decades.
Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi is an author who rarely figure in the History of Economic Thoug... more Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi is an author who rarely figure in the History of Economic Thought handbooks, however he can be considered one of the main names of Cameralism, a extremely influential perspective in the economic ideas in continental Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Schumpeter, for instance, comparing him with Smith, stressed how Justi was much more prepared to effectively understand the vicissitudes of the practical actions of the government in economic policymaking. The article is concerned with establishing the specific context of production cameralistas ideas, and the work of Justi in particular, highlighting its role both as an original author as well as in systematizing the long tradition of cameralist thought. The paper presents in its first part the trajectory of the author. In the second one, is presented a more analytical discussion of their system of political economy, which takes shape in his “state economy” (Staatswirtschaft), as well as his more pragmatic view of the functioning the economy, aiming at the formulation of economic policies, which is what he develops in his “science of police” (Polizeiwissenschaft). For this analysis were used all the most important works of the author, always in their original 18th century German editions. In the conclusion, the paper states that, even though little remembered today, took effectively part in the mainstream of the European economics of his time, along with names as Pietro Verri in Italy or James Steuart in England, in terms of an author who specifically moved in the understanding of the role of interests, as well as the self-regulating elements of a market economy, but without forget the limits of these processes, particularly with regard to whether or not this functionality to power structure that held the nation states.
Ce travail analyse les rapports entre l’œuvre de Celso Furtado et celle de François Perroux conce... more Ce travail analyse les rapports entre l’œuvre de Celso Furtado et celle de François Perroux concernant surtout leurs interprétations du développement économique. Leur pensée économique est peu conventionnelle et, durant toute leur carrière, ils entreprirent des efforts pour élargir leurs horizons théoriques et conceptuels du discours économique en vigueur. Parmi leurs points communs, il faudrait souligner leur compréhension du développement comme processus de changement qualitatif permanent des structures économiques et, particulièrement, le rôle joué par la créativité et la création collective dans la dynamique socio-économique.
This paper presents Notebook B113, one of Marx's unpublished manuscripts, and suggests its import... more This paper presents Notebook B113, one of Marx's unpublished manuscripts, and suggests its importance for highlighting the monetary and financial issues which Marx was investigating after 1867. The contents of this notebook reveal a systematic effort to investigate new features of financial markets and institutions which were spreading throughout Europe during the 1860's, and which were put in sharp evidence by the events that surrounded the Overend, Gurney crisis in England, in 1866. Besides offering valuable clues with respect to Marx's method of investigation and composition, the relevance of the themes comprised in the notebook for the analysis developed in part five of Capital's volume III suggests that these manuscript excerpts and notes were part of the preparatory material for a future revision of that book, which Marx was never able to carry through.
O artigo reflete sobre a ação política do marquês de Pombal e de Dom Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, c... more O artigo reflete sobre a ação política do marquês de Pombal e de Dom Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, comparando o conjunto de suas orientações no campo econômico e colocando em perspectiva a questão geral do reformismo ilustrado no mundo ibérico. A ambição geral é a discussão de diferentes percursos no plano da história das ideias no século XVIII, mapeando o quadro de influências ao discurso econômico e político dedicado à concepção e execução das reformas, com destaque para a preocupação com o papel das colônias (o Brasil, essencialmente) na dinâmica econômica portuguesa ao longo da segunda metade do século XVIII. Palavras-chave: Reformismo Ilustrado -Política Colonial -Império Luso-brasileiro
The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920-2004) in the 1970s, when the author promotes... more The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920-2004) in the 1970s, when the author promotes an ambitious attempt to redefine the field of development economics. Furtado's works have recently been revisited by several authors, including in the field of history of economic thought. The text is devoted to explore how the author challenges development theory’s perceived failure to explain the reality of underdeveloped nations in the late 1970s by expanding the scope of analysis and giving culture a pivotal role in the dynamics of development and underdevelopment. This theoretical movement happens at the time in which development economics begins to drift out of the mainstream of economic theory. Hence, unlike the concept of underdevelopment introduced in the 1950s, the discussion of creativity and dependence encounters an adverse intellectual landscape, even though it represents one of the author’s most original contributions.
Niterói: Programa de Pós-Graduação em História da …, Jan 1, 2002
Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo), Jan 1, 2008
Anais do V Congresso Brasileiro de História …, Jan 1, 2003
This paper investigates the role of Board of the Royal Treasury (Junta da Real Fazenda) of Minas ... more This paper investigates the role of Board of the Royal Treasury (Junta da Real Fazenda) of Minas Gerais with respect to the various projects submitted from 1770 to the Royal Treasury(ErárioRégio)inLisbon,dealing on the abolition of the circulation of gold powder. The article analyzes the impor tance of the financial administration of Minas Gerais within the empire, in par ticular because of the place that fiscal gains from this region were acquiring in the structure of the Portuguese state finances, and to suggest, based on the specific issue of prohibiting the movement of gold pow der and the need of introducing large sums of metal coins to sustain local commercial activity, the limits to economic reforms in the colony imposed by nature itself of the colonial order.
Although historians usually trace its origins to the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th Century,... more Although historians usually trace its origins to the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th Century, Latin American political, economic and cultural emancipation is still very much a work in progress. As new national identities were developed, fresh reflection and theorising was needed in order to understand how Latin America related to the wider world. Through a series of case studies on different topics and national experiences, this volume shows how political economy has occupied an important place in discussions about emancipation and independence that occurred in the region.
The production of political economic knowledge in the periphery of capitalism can take on many forms: importing ideas from abroad; translating and adapting them to local realities; or else producing concepts and theories specifically designed to make sense of the uniqueness of particular historical experiences. The Political Economy of Latin American Independence illustrates each of these strategies, exploring issues such as trade policy, money and banking, socio-economic philosophy, nationalism, and economic development. The expert authors stress how the originality of Latin American economic thought often resides in the creative appropriation of ideas originally devised in different contexts and thus usually ill-suited to local realities.
Taken together, the chapters illustrate a fertile methodological approach for studying the history of political economy in Latin America. This book is of great interest to economic historians specialising in Latin America, as well as those who study history of economic thought, political economy and Latin American history.
HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 2021
The connection between economic and legal knowledge is an important gateway to the reflection on ... more The connection between economic and legal knowledge is an important gateway to the reflection on the dissemination of Cameralist ideas in continental Europe during the eighteenth century. In the Iberian context, at the end of that century, there was still little separation from the spheres of state action. Due to this, judges and magistrates participated with their decisions in the local economic government, which included the wide range of attributions associated with so-called police matters (i.e., not only public safety but also issues related to education, production, commerce, population, supply, arts and crafts, customs, maintenance of urban space, etc.). Thus, dimensions of economic ideas in various of its matrices (civil economy, physiocracy, political arithmetic, police science, etc.) came to be seen as an auxiliary knowledge of legal interpretation, that is, the justification and explanation of laws. The Medieval Latin term politia (from Greek politeia) was incorporated into several European languages roughly from the fifteenth century, in particular via the dissemination of the uses of Middle French police,
HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 2020
François Perroux was one of the most creative and prominent French economists of the twentieth ce... more François Perroux was one of the most creative and prominent French economists of the twentieth century. With contributions ranging from the 1930s to his death in the 1980s, Perroux produced studies throughout his life on subjects as different as corporatism, national accounts, planning, the dynamics of the disparities and inequalities among nations (with important implications for the field of international political economy), and several other developments of his theory of the dominant economy, particularly in the field of spatial economics. It is difficult to think of Perroux as anything other than an eclectic, given the diversity of the themes he addressed throughout his career. However, considering his contribution simply in terms of eclecticism tends to ignore exactly what seems to be the most interesting and creative aspect of his work. This aspect can be explained only by analyzing how he sought to integrate different dimensions of his analysis into the same analytical effort.
Cuadernos de Estudios del Siglo XVIII, 2023
This article highlights the importance of the field of mining and metallurgy in the dissemination... more This article highlights the importance of the field of mining and metallurgy in the dissemination of cameralist ideas in the eighteenth-century Iberian world. Although mining and metallurgy may not seem at first obvious topics for the analysis of cameralism, they were in fact fundamental topics in the cameral sciences literature and allow us to capture in an expressive way the importance given in this literature to the production of useful knowledge of the natural world, allowing for important connec- tions with the enlightened reformism in southern Europe and in the Iberian world in particular. The article emphasizes a key institution in this process of diffusion, the Mining Academy (Bergakademie) of Freiberg, focusing simultaneously on the trajectories of Spanish and Portuguese students who were there in the last decades of the eighteenth century, to shed light on new questions about the diffusion of cameralist ideas in the context of Iberian Enlightened Reformism.
Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2018
The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920–2004) in the 1970s, an ambitious attempt to ... more The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920–2004) in the 1970s, an ambitious attempt to redefine the field of development economics. Furtado's work has recently been revisited by several authors in the history of economic thought. This text explores Furtado's response to the perceived failure of development theory to explain the reality of underdeveloped nations in the late 1970s. Expanding the scope of analysis and assigning culture a pivotal role helped explain the dynamics of development and underdevelopment. This theoretical movement occurred as development economics was drifting out of the mainstream of economic theory. Unlike the discussion of underdevelopment in the 1950s, this discussion of creativity and dependence encountered an adverse intellectual landscape despite being one of Furtado's most original contributions. This theoretical turning point is interestingly connected to Furtado's second term at the University of Cambridge. Like the first discussion of underdevelopment during the 1950s, which was critical to the formulation of his historical-structural analytical method, the discussions of the 1970s also led to this Brazilian author's vivid and interesting contributions to the field of development economics.
The main purpose of this article is to discuss the influence of economic discourse on the design ... more The main purpose of this article is to discuss the influence of economic discourse on the design and implementation of the economic and political reforms that occurred in Brazil throughout the second half of the eighteenth century (1750-1808).
Reflection upon cameralism and the police in the context of enlightened reformism offers suggesti... more Reflection upon cameralism and the police in the context of enlightened reformism offers suggestive insights into the links between economic ideas and the administration of the state. The Portuguese case is an interesting example of how those ideas are assimilated and put into practice. This paper first presents the characteristics of Portuguese enlightened reformism and its place in the history of ideas. After that, cameralism and the police are investigated, with particular attention being paid to the legislative action of the king. Finally, the paper analyzes and discusses this process of the assimilation of ideas, supported by examples of the Portuguese experience in centralizing the administration of the public finances within the Royal Treasury and in providing technical training to public officers through the School of Commerce.
América Latina en la historia económica, 2015
A controvérsia do planejamento (1944-1945), entre Roberto Simonsen e Eugênio Gudin, é um momento ... more A controvérsia do planejamento (1944-1945), entre Roberto Simonsen e Eugênio Gudin, é um momento privilegiado para o estudo da história das ideias econômicas. A participação de Roberto Simonsen nessa discussão pode ser revista e lida de maneira enriquecedora numa perspectiva de história das ideias. Este artigo investiga a especificidade teórica que distingue a abordagem de Simonsen em relação à de Gudin, postulando que o primeiro entra no debate pela via da história econômica. Sua abordagem está em sintonia com discussões teóricas do final da segunda guerra, levadas a cabo nas próximas décadas pela economia do desenvolvimento no Brasil. A inserção da contribuição de Simonsen no contexto histórico da controvérsia abre novas possibilidades de leitura desse debate essencial na construção de um pensamento econômico no Brasil. Palavras-chave: planejamento; difusão internacional de ideias; era Vargas; industrialização. Abstract. The controversy on economic planning (1944-1945), between Roberto Simonsen and Eugênio Gudin, is a distinguished moment for the study of the history of economic ideas. Roberto Simonsen's participation in this discussion can be revisited and read in an enriching way if a history-of-ideas perspective is adopted. This paper investigates the theoretical specificity that distinguishes Simonsen's approach from Gudin's, arguing that the former joins the debate by means of economic history. His approach was in tune with theoretical questions relevant at the end of World War II, which came to be debated by development economics in Brazil over the next decades.
Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi is an author who rarely figure in the History of Economic Thoug... more Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi is an author who rarely figure in the History of Economic Thought handbooks, however he can be considered one of the main names of Cameralism, a extremely influential perspective in the economic ideas in continental Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Schumpeter, for instance, comparing him with Smith, stressed how Justi was much more prepared to effectively understand the vicissitudes of the practical actions of the government in economic policymaking. The article is concerned with establishing the specific context of production cameralistas ideas, and the work of Justi in particular, highlighting its role both as an original author as well as in systematizing the long tradition of cameralist thought. The paper presents in its first part the trajectory of the author. In the second one, is presented a more analytical discussion of their system of political economy, which takes shape in his “state economy” (Staatswirtschaft), as well as his more pragmatic view of the functioning the economy, aiming at the formulation of economic policies, which is what he develops in his “science of police” (Polizeiwissenschaft). For this analysis were used all the most important works of the author, always in their original 18th century German editions. In the conclusion, the paper states that, even though little remembered today, took effectively part in the mainstream of the European economics of his time, along with names as Pietro Verri in Italy or James Steuart in England, in terms of an author who specifically moved in the understanding of the role of interests, as well as the self-regulating elements of a market economy, but without forget the limits of these processes, particularly with regard to whether or not this functionality to power structure that held the nation states.
Ce travail analyse les rapports entre l’œuvre de Celso Furtado et celle de François Perroux conce... more Ce travail analyse les rapports entre l’œuvre de Celso Furtado et celle de François Perroux concernant surtout leurs interprétations du développement économique. Leur pensée économique est peu conventionnelle et, durant toute leur carrière, ils entreprirent des efforts pour élargir leurs horizons théoriques et conceptuels du discours économique en vigueur. Parmi leurs points communs, il faudrait souligner leur compréhension du développement comme processus de changement qualitatif permanent des structures économiques et, particulièrement, le rôle joué par la créativité et la création collective dans la dynamique socio-économique.
This paper presents Notebook B113, one of Marx's unpublished manuscripts, and suggests its import... more This paper presents Notebook B113, one of Marx's unpublished manuscripts, and suggests its importance for highlighting the monetary and financial issues which Marx was investigating after 1867. The contents of this notebook reveal a systematic effort to investigate new features of financial markets and institutions which were spreading throughout Europe during the 1860's, and which were put in sharp evidence by the events that surrounded the Overend, Gurney crisis in England, in 1866. Besides offering valuable clues with respect to Marx's method of investigation and composition, the relevance of the themes comprised in the notebook for the analysis developed in part five of Capital's volume III suggests that these manuscript excerpts and notes were part of the preparatory material for a future revision of that book, which Marx was never able to carry through.
O artigo reflete sobre a ação política do marquês de Pombal e de Dom Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, c... more O artigo reflete sobre a ação política do marquês de Pombal e de Dom Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, comparando o conjunto de suas orientações no campo econômico e colocando em perspectiva a questão geral do reformismo ilustrado no mundo ibérico. A ambição geral é a discussão de diferentes percursos no plano da história das ideias no século XVIII, mapeando o quadro de influências ao discurso econômico e político dedicado à concepção e execução das reformas, com destaque para a preocupação com o papel das colônias (o Brasil, essencialmente) na dinâmica econômica portuguesa ao longo da segunda metade do século XVIII. Palavras-chave: Reformismo Ilustrado -Política Colonial -Império Luso-brasileiro
The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920-2004) in the 1970s, when the author promotes... more The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920-2004) in the 1970s, when the author promotes an ambitious attempt to redefine the field of development economics. Furtado's works have recently been revisited by several authors, including in the field of history of economic thought. The text is devoted to explore how the author challenges development theory’s perceived failure to explain the reality of underdeveloped nations in the late 1970s by expanding the scope of analysis and giving culture a pivotal role in the dynamics of development and underdevelopment. This theoretical movement happens at the time in which development economics begins to drift out of the mainstream of economic theory. Hence, unlike the concept of underdevelopment introduced in the 1950s, the discussion of creativity and dependence encounters an adverse intellectual landscape, even though it represents one of the author’s most original contributions.
Niterói: Programa de Pós-Graduação em História da …, Jan 1, 2002
Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo), Jan 1, 2008
Anais do V Congresso Brasileiro de História …, Jan 1, 2003
This paper investigates the role of Board of the Royal Treasury (Junta da Real Fazenda) of Minas ... more This paper investigates the role of Board of the Royal Treasury (Junta da Real Fazenda) of Minas Gerais with respect to the various projects submitted from 1770 to the Royal Treasury(ErárioRégio)inLisbon,dealing on the abolition of the circulation of gold powder. The article analyzes the impor tance of the financial administration of Minas Gerais within the empire, in par ticular because of the place that fiscal gains from this region were acquiring in the structure of the Portuguese state finances, and to suggest, based on the specific issue of prohibiting the movement of gold pow der and the need of introducing large sums of metal coins to sustain local commercial activity, the limits to economic reforms in the colony imposed by nature itself of the colonial order.
O trabalho visa introduzir o conceito de terrorismo e sociedade terrorista no pensamento de Henri... more O trabalho visa introduzir o conceito de terrorismo e sociedade terrorista no pensamento de Henri Lefebvre, buscando suas relações com a realidade contemporânea. São assim apresentados alguns conceitos centrais ao pensamento lefebvriano, como vida quotidia- na, sociedade burocrática do consumo dirigido e seus mecanismos de coerção, e a questão ur- bana pensada como espaço de abertura, desdobramento/superação da virtualidade do terroris- mo contemporâneo. O texto traz considerações sobre o problema recente do terrorismo, analisando o tempo presente – e a realidade urbana em particular – como sobreposição de ter- rorismos: dos atentados e da lógica própria de reprodução de uma sociedade super-repressiva. O tema da abertura é discutido então a partir da inspiração lefebvriana e de um diálogo pos- sível com trabalhos recentes de Nestor Garcia Canclini, James Holston e Noam Chomsky.
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, 2023
The length of this new book by Fabio Masini may mislead the reader. Although it is also a short i... more The length of this new book by Fabio Masini may mislead the reader. Although it is also a short introduction to the broad topic of the history of European economic and monetary integration, the book is first and foremost an original and propositional reflection on the past and future of the European integration process. The focus on economic governance, and more specifically on monetary and fiscal issues, does not encapsulate the discussion; on the contrary, it functions at all times as an index of much broader institutional and political dynamics, inviting the reader to reflect with the author on the future of European economic integration. This is enough to understand that this is not another book in the pile of books that call themselves histories of European integration but do not go much beyond a very conventional institutional history, focusing on the same dates and events in sequence and repeating a traditional narrative about the process. Unfortunately, it has to be admitted that the historiography of European integration, in spite of some brilliant exceptions, is in many cases not a very original field. Masini's book, nevertheless, avoids these traps and offers a fresh reading of the subject, reexamining commonplaces and exploring contradictions and blind spots in the process of European economic governance, always in dialogue with a wide and varied literature. The research method used in the book is particularly in line with recent developments in the field of the history of economic thought, in which "theories, events, and public choices are closely interdependent factors in the processes of production and circulation of ideas that are, in turn, key to forging public policies and to determining how history evolves" (p. 4), which makes the reading also interesting for scholars in this field, even if they are not directly interested in the topic of European economic governance. There are occasionally some omissions or imbalances in the analysis of one or another current of thought, but I will not dwell on them here, since this does not seem to me to be an appropriate angle from which to evaluate a book that has the deliberate intention of dealing succinctly with a very broad problem and a wide time span. The book is organized in 6 chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction, which not only presents the other chapters, but also qualifies the main challenges the book seeks to address (and makes clear its main qualities). Masini qualifies his interest in exploring both the past and the future of European economic governance, emphasizing for example how Russia's war in Ukraine Copyright © FrancoAngeli. E' vietata la Riproduzione dell'opera e la sua messa a disposizione di terzi, sia in forma gratuita sia a pagamento. Il documento può essere concesso in licenza individuale o istituzionale.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Review] Juan Odisio and Marcelo Rougier, eds., El desafío del desarrollo: Trayectorias de los grandes economistas latinoamericanos del siglo XX (Santander: Editorial Universidad de Cantabria, 2022)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/119240677/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2023
Contrary to what José Antonio Ocampo praises in the book's prologue, what is probably its main me... more Contrary to what José Antonio Ocampo praises in the book's prologue, what is probably its main merit, and what distinguishes it from other volumes devoted to the subject, is its ambition to produce a series of intellectual biographies, rather than a "study text" or textbook on CEPAL's (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) structuralist thought (p. 12). Books such as those by Osvaldo Sunkel and Pedro Paz (1970) or Octavio Rodriguez (1980) are exemplary in fulfilling this function of a handbook, organizing concepts, proposing general interpretations, and so on. This is not the case with this well-organized and highly informative volume edited by Juan Odisio and Marcelo Rougier. First, the chapters, organized by key authors, focus precisely on the uniqueness of each contribution and the context in which these ideas were produced, and not on the opposition of concepts and theories. And, second, by favoring an intellectual-historical approach, the book has the merit of avoiding the establishment of hasty linearities between different theories, which often contributes to reducing the space for doubts and hesitations in the debates, which are crucial for an effective understanding of how intellectual development took place but which do not correspond to the narratives sought in textbooks. Nevertheless, the way Odisio and Rougier portray the book in the introduction has what seems to me to be a confusion. Although Odisio refers to his own intentions in the chapter he writes on Raúl Prebisch as an "intellectual biography" (p. 29), what the editors present as the original feature of the work is the making of a "social history of ideas on Latin American economic development" (p. 15). The expression "social history of ideas," although somewhat unusual in the Anglo-Saxon world, is not uncommon in Latin languages and generally corresponds to the not exactly new intention of dealing with the broad context of the production of ideas, while at the same time (at least in principle) emphasizing the social dimension of these ideas, going beyond the intellectual trajectory of individuals to encompass broader trends, movements, and groups of thinkers. Nevertheless, I believe that the effort made in this book is much better described by the good old label of "intellectual history," since the chapters are organized by thinkers, each of whom takes into account specific trajectories, and there is no attempt, beyond the introduction (and even then only partially), to reflect collectively on the trajectories of these authors in order to compose this "social history of ideas on Latin American economic development." In this way, the ambition to "show an intellectual and ideological plot that transcends individual trajectories and links them to a specific historical moment in the evolution of ideas and to a specific context of the
History of Political Economy, 2017
This paper provides an in-depth investigation of the origin and meaning of the little-known manus... more This paper provides an in-depth investigation of the origin and meaning of the little-known manuscript, Élémens de la police générale d'un Etat, published in Yverdon (Switzerland) in 1781. The starting point is the determination of the true authorship and origin of the manuscript, which is shown to be in fact an abridged and annotated version of a fundamental German cameralist text by J. H. G. von Justi, Die Grundfeste zu der Macht und Glückseligkeit der Staaten (1760/61). This finding introduces a reflection on the intricate context of juxtapositions and similarities between the ideas of cameralism and Policeywissenschaft (police science) in the Germanic world and in French economic thought during that historical moment. Giving attention to the author/translator of this Élémens, the paper also contributes to an original reflection on the importance of Switzerland in the dissemination of cameralism, between the Germanic and French traditions, and explores the importance of Justi...
Review of Radical Political Economics, v. 45 (2), 162-182, 2013., 2013
This paper presents Notebook B113, one of Marx’s unpublished manuscripts, and suggests its import... more This paper presents Notebook B113, one of Marx’s unpublished manuscripts, and suggests its importance for highlighting the monetary and financial issues which Marx was investigating after 1867. The contents of this notebook reveal a systematic effort to investigate new features of financial markets and institutions which were spreading throughout Europe during the 1860’s, and which were put in sharp evidence by the events that surrounded the Overend, Gurney crisis in England, in 1866. Besides offering valuable clues with respect to Marx’s method of investigation and composition, the relevance of the themes comprised in the notebook for the analysis developed in part five of Capital’s volume III suggests that these manuscript excerpts and notes were part of the preparatory material for a future revision of that book, which Marx was never able to carry through.