Brazzil

{mosimage}In Capitalismo e Escravidão no Brasil Meridional (Capitalism and Slavery in Southern Brazil), Cardoso takes special pains to distinguish the dialectical mode of analysis he uses to study slavery from the functionalist approach, which seeks to understand how each part of society contributes to the whole.   

Cardoso summarizes dialectical sociology as the study of the "concrete totality" of a social system, where the reciprocal interaction between thought and the material reality of a particular historical situation makes its understanding possible (1:25). 

This method was first used by Marx.

Dialectical Thinking

Whereas functional sociology focuses on the harmonious interplay among components of a social system, dialectical sociology focuses on the conflicts and contradictions that lie within.  

Cardoso used this dialectical approach in his research on slavery to explain the relationship between slave and master. 

The very violence and brutality, on which this relationship was based, combined with an economy that was diversifying in response to large inputs of foreign capital and influence, were the main factors contributing to the "Golden Law" that abolished slavery in 1888. 

Cardoso observed that slavery had been introduced for capitalist purposes, but became less attractive when technology improved and more skilled labor was needed. 

Slaves were poorly motivated by their cruel relationship with their masters and required more supervision than free laborers, who also produced more. 

Community leaders noticed this fact, the more progressive of whom thought progress and modernization required the abolition of slavery. 

Abolition and Development

In addition, abolitionist sentiment was fueled by embarrassment that Brazil stood out as the last independent nation in the world where slavery remained legal. 

Generally speaking, abolition took place nonviolently in response to both international pressures and domestic economic trends. 

That Cardoso's analysis of slavery in Capitalismo e Escravidão no Brasil Meridional illustrates how the ending of the slave trade actually spurred economic development in Southern Brazil is telling. 

Between 1850 and 1860 the number of corporations in the region boomed.  Ventures in manufacturing, railroads, insurance, mining, savings banks and land settlements became prevalent (2:67). 

Ecological destruction and a corresponding decline in economic growth of the once dominant Northeast contributed to the emerging economic power of Southern Brazil.  

The emerging prosperity was, however, not shared by freed slaves anywhere in the country.  Negroes remained defined by considerable doubt as to their very status as human. 

Unprepared for Freedom 

While the Golden Law of 1888 brought emancipation, it was accompanied by social practices and even legislation that served to drastically limit opportunities for blacks and deny them of virtually all civil and human rights.

Joaquim Nabuco, the famous statesman and abolitionist of the period, lamented how the triumph of abolition was not complemented by social measures for the benefit of the freed, nor by any movement to refashion public awareness (3:186). 

As the British did in Australia, Portuguese policy of the period remained to send criminals and undesirables to Brazil during the country's first hundred years as a Portuguese territory (2:46). 

Descendants of these malefactors and European workers who were encouraged to immigrate to Brazil by José Bonafácio prevailed over blacks in the social hierarchy. 

Once emancipation had been achieved, abolitionists shifted their attention to other causes and did nothing at all to help newly freed blacks prepare for life as free men.      

Slaves:  History's Hidden Social Class

For this reason Cardoso describes the social position of the slave as "hidden" 1(6:4). 

As both a hidden and excluded social actor, the most to which a slave could aspire was to be free.  Free in a formal sense like the master, but without the freedom to aspire to attain the structural position of the master (6:4). 

This legacy of subservience is carried by the Negro in Brazilian society to the present day, and is the key fact by which Cardoso and his colleagues proved UNESCO wrong in their assumption that Brazil was a model melting pot society. 

Marxism:  The Opium of the Intellectuals [2]

By applying these anthropological conclusions to the debate over class struggle in Brazil, Cardoso's research raised the question of how to politicize Marxist class relations in a slave society that is not of classes, but of castes? (4:4)  

The answer to this fundamental question will reveal how Fernando Henrique Cardoso developed his reputation as a Marxist scholar and why he is worthy of it to the present day. 

We will see how Cardoso uses the history of slavery in Brazil to reveal the inadequacies of Marxism and its inability to provide a practical basis from which to encourage Brazilian social change, while in turn demonstrating how impractical the political objectives of the Left have been all along.    

Footnotes

[1] At issue here is the Portuguese word desvão, which is not commonly used and has no direct dictionary translation to English.  I believe my translation of the word to mean "hidden" is accurate. 

See the word spoken by Cardoso in its context:  "Como é que você iria explicar o problema da relação "de classes" numa sociedade que não é de classes, que era escravocrata?  Como o escravo vai negar a ordem escravocrata (atuar para superá-la?)? 

"O escravo não é classe universal (como o proletariado).  Ele é um desvão da história.  Essa idéia sempre foi muito presente na minha cabeça.  Em certos momentos, certas categorias sociais viram desvão da história. 

"Os excluídos não são necessariamente portadores do futuro, como pensa a esquerda vulgar.  O escravo era excluído e não portador do futuro.  O que ele poderia aspirar era a mesma condição do senhor - ser livre, formalmente.  Isto é, não ter a mesma posição estrutural, mas ser livre. 

"A escravidão não poderia ser explicada sem referência à expansão do grande capitalismo.  Mas a história do Brasil não é uma cópia do que está acontecendo lá.  Há uma singularidade.  Por outro lado, ela não tem leis próprias: é derivada, subordinada e dependente. 

"Do ponto de vista teórico era o mesmo mecanismo que usei depois para discutir a dependência.  ("How does one suppose to explain the problem of 'class' relations in a society that is not class-based, but slavery based?  How does the slave negate the order of slavery; how does he act to overcome it?  Slaves are not a universal class, like the proletariat.  Slaves are hidden in history. 

"This idea has always been present in my head.  At certain moments, certain social categories become hidden in history.  Those excluded are not necessarily the carriers of the future, as the vulgar left would argue.  The slave was not only excluded, he was no carrier of the future either. 

"Slavery cannot be explained without reference to the expansion of greater capitalism.  But the history of Brazil is not a copy of what is happening there [in Europe].  There is singularity. 

"On the other hand, Brazil's history does not have its own laws either: it is derived, subordinate and dependent.  From a theoretical point of view this was the same mechanism I later used to discuss dependency.") 

[2] This phrase is borrowed from the title of the book by the great French sociologist Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals.  It is worth noting that Aron was a professor of Cardoso's while he was a student in Paris.

References

1. Goertzel, Ted.  1999.  Fernando Henrique Cardoso:  Reinventing Democracy in Brazil. Boulder, CO:  Lynne Rienner.

2. Levine, Robert.  1999.  The History of Brazil.  Westport, Connecticut:  Greenwood Press.

3. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique.  2001a.  Charting a New Course:  The Politics of Globalization and Social Transformation.  Edited and introduced by Mauricio A. Font, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. 

4. Freire, V.T.  1996.  "Para lembrar o que ele escreveu:  FHC explica a formação de suas idéias sobre a história brasileira e por que elas não mudaram" (Remembering what he wrote:  FHC explains the formation of his ideas about Brazilian history and why they haven't changed).  Folha de São Paulo, October 13, 1996.  See footnote [1] for a partial translation.

5. Aron, Raymond.  1954.  The Opium of the Intellectuals. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

This is the fifth part of a multi-part series on former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Richard F. Kane, from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Illinois State University, can be reached at rfkane@ilstu.edu.

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