Celso Furtado as ‘Romantic Economist’ from Brazil’s Sertão

Abstract

In The Romantic Economist (2009), Richard Bronk laments that Enlightenment thinking dominated Economics during its formation as a science. As counterpoint, the ‘Romantic Movement’ had much to offer but remained peripheral. Consequently Economics embraced the centrality of rationality and other Enlightenment precepts, leading to a ‘social-physics’. Meanwhile human characteristics such; as sentiments, imagination and creativity were eschewed. While Bronk fails to identify an in-the-flesh ‘Romantic Economist’, our inquiry seeks to establish that indeed Celso Furtado qualifies. Profoundly influenced by his sensitivities and attachment to place, Furtado relies upon an organic metaphor - o sertão nordestino - for insights into complex developmental processes.

On Celso Furtado and the French influences found in his development economics

“…As an example, heterogeneous production structures could readily be found in the proximate juxtaposition of sugar plantations running along the Brazil's Atlantic coast. Relatively high productivity associated with the production and export of sugar products contrasts with comparatively low level of productivity associated with subsistence production taking place in the adjacent interior in what got designated as the Sertão Nordestino (see Rama and Hall, 2019). It is important to consider that the notion of "dominance" that can be found by contrasting economic structures, registers as a principle that Furtado learned during his stint in Paris and in particular through his classes with Perroux.…”

“…To me, his presentations on the economic history of Brazil reads like a novel, leaving strong impressions on readers, so much so that in the Portuguese and Brazilian literary traditions Furtado could be considered and identified as something like a "romantic" economist (see Rama and Hall 2019). Successes with his writing and publishing the Formação helped to guarantee that his subsequent books published in Brazil would reach marketing status on the order of "bestsellers."…”