Brazzil
November 2001
Memory
Roberto Campos was referred to as apostle for the free market and was a militant anticommunist. For his liberal ideas and opposition to Statism he was derisively called Bob Fields (a free translation of his name into English) in the '50s, an epithet that he carried with bonhomie throughout his life. Former ambassador, former minister, former House representative, economist, writer and member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) Roberto de Oliveira Campos died October 9 in his house in Rio. With a sharp tongue and witty tirades this ex-seminarian had the gift for collecting enemies. He was the last of a generation of brilliant Brazilian economists, which also included Eugênio Gudin, a man Campos considered his master and "great inspiration", Octavio Gouvêa de Bulhões and Mario Henrique Simonsen.
Born on April 17, 1917, in Cuiabá, Roberto Campos almost became a priest, having studied 11 years in a seminary. Soon after leaving the seminary he became a high school teacher of Astronomy, History, Grammar and Latin in Batatais, in the interior of São Paulo. His teacher stint didn't last one year and in 1939 he left for Rio, then the capital of Brazil. Since his studies weren't officially recognized and he couldn't type, Campos was prevented from applying for some jobs he was interested in and ended up starting a diplomatic career.
Still in 1939 he was approved by the Itamarati (the Brazilian Foreign Service) and began as a third class consul. His first foreign mission came in 1942 when he went to work in the commercial section of the Brazilian embassy in Washington. It was there in 1946 that he met British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes would become a life-long inspiration. Studying at night he graduated in economy from George Washington University and did post graduation from Columbia University.
In the United States he still represented Brazil at the UN until 1949. After a period in Brazil he was sent to the Los Angeles consulate in 1953, but he spent less than two years there. In March 1955 he was back in Brazil to head the BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social—National Bank for Economic and Social Development), a federal financial institution that had been created in 1952 as BNDE.
In recognition for his backing during the presidential campaign, President Jânio Quadros invited Campos to be the Brazilian ambassador of the then Federal Republic of Germany. He declined saying that he didn't agree with the President's "independent foreign policy." Campos once again voiced his disapproval when the Quadros administration recognized the government of Cuba's Fidel Castro.
He was recruited during João Goulart's presidency to improve communications between Washington and Rio, but in January 1964 he resigned from that post arguing he didn't want to be "a herald without voice" and "an interpreter without a doctrine." Having backed the military who took over the country in 1964, Campos was appointed Planning Minister of President Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco. It was under his guidance that several institutions were created, including the Central Bank, the FGTS (workers' pension fund), the BNH (Banco Nacional da Habitação—National Housing Bank), indexing and the National Monetary Council.
Campos would be back to the diplomatic track in 1975, at the invitation of President General Ernesto Geisel. He was sent to England as ambassador staying there for six years. Another General, President João Batista Figueiredo thought about inviting him to join the Foreign Ministry in 1979, but was dissuaded by his aides who argued that the diplomat was not in tune with the nation's official line. Invited to be a "bionic" senator (chosen by the military regime to run intervention) for Mato Grosso he declined, alleging "technical reasons." It was time for him to try an elected post.
He became senator for Mato Grosso in 1982. At the end of his mandate, in 1990 he was elected deputado federal (House representative) to represent the state of Rio. He won re-election in 1994, the same year he published his 1400-page book of memoirs A Lanterna na Popa (Stern Lantern). Campos tried a third term as congressman, but was defeated in 1998. In September 1999 he was chosen by the Academia Brasileira de Letras to the seat left vacant by the death of playwright Dias Gomes, a leftist author. A movement to prevent the economist from being elected—did not sway the 39 other members of that literary body.
Playwright and journalist Nelson Rodrigues used to tease him. "Nothing is more insignificant than an ex-minister," the conservative author said once referring to Campos. In this demolishing criticism, the diplomat didn't spare people, institutions or the nation. "In Brazil there's a certain allergy to neo-liberalism. In reality, what we have are monopolies all over: the "petrosaur," the "telesaur," the "electosaur." To say that liberalism is a threat is to have a grotesque reading of history. Brazil holds the 94th place concerning freedom and free market among 102 countries evaluated.
In his last speech to his colleagues from the House he said, "My melancholy doesn't come from an anticipated longing for Brasília, city that I consider a bazaar of illusions and a deficit factory… The melancholy comes also from the finding of our insufferable sameness. When I came to Congress, in 1983, elected senator for Mato Grosso the burning themes at that time were moratorium and recession. Sixteen years later, when I say farewell to two mandates of Representative for Rio de Janeiro, the disturbing themes are again recession and currency crisis. This demonstrates that Brazil, while capable of development leaps, has not learned the technology of a sustained development. It's a jumper of short jumps and not a long distance runner."
Campos was already 80 years old when he was invited to the inaugural class of Ibmec's Faculdade de Economia e Administração in Rio. It was a moment of personal triumph. Two hundred or so students were enthralled by his speech and burst into laughs when he said, "The homage they just paid me is transforming this gathering into my obituary. Normally, only the sins are pointed out for those still alive"
Some of Campos' books:Economia, Planejamento e Nacionalismo, 1963
Ensaio de História Econômica e Sociologia, 1964
A Moeda, o Governo e o Tempo, 1964
Política Econômica e Mitos Políticos, 1965
Temas e Sistemas, 1968
Ensaios contra a Maré (1969)
A Nova Economia Brasileira (1974)
A Técnica e o Riso, 1976
A Lanterna na Popa, 1994
Also Spracht Campos:
Virtue and Sin
"Maybe I was entitled to the lapses I had because I spent my whole youth in absolute celibacy, in a seminary. This way I accumulated a large credit for sinning. If I only used the right to sin moderately it was for lack of cooperation."
"I pray less for spiritual reasons than for testing my memory. I recite the Hail Mary in Greek, Latin and Hebrew."
Women
"I prefer blondes. I believe one can be unfaithful to a woman, not to a type of woman."
God
"For me God is the terrible God, the one from the Old Testament."
Life
"Those who believe that we should blame the stars and not ourselves for our ills get lost when the sky becomes clouded."
"Envy is the soul's bad breath."
"All advice is good as long as we don't have to follow it."
"Contradiction is a privilege of beautiful women, intelligent men and realistic governments."
"If I had to write a love chapter it would have only one phrase: "I was not a fag." And a footnote: "Nor a sexual athlete."
"The cell phone does harm to masculinity: it's getting smaller all the time, it's always folded, gets disconnected several times and doesn't work when it gets into the tunnel."
"Imbecile is someone who doesn't change. I changed and learned. Many of my critics have neither changed nor learned."
"There are three ways for a man to self destruct. The fastest one is by gambling. The most delicious is by womanizing. The most secure is investing in agriculture."
"Welsh poet Dylan Thomas spoke once on old age: "Do not go gently into that good night." He wanted to say that old people should get angry when the light starts to dim. But I will penetrate gently the solitude of night."
Brazil
"Ridicule does not kill because if it did we wouldn't need contraceptives and today we would a have a soundly smaller population."
"There are only three ways out for the country: Galeão (Rio's international airport), Cumbica (São Paulo's international airport) and liberalism."
Economy
"Economy is the art of reaching misery with the help of statistics."
"This business called partnership is something for homosexuals. Client, for that matter, is something for prostitutes. And outsourcing has everything to do with cuckolds."
"If multinationals were spoliators, as it's already been said, São Paulo would be the poorest state of Brazil and the state of Piauí, the richest one."
USA
"The sweet exercise of cursing Americans in the name of nationalism free us from researching the causes of our underdevelopment and allows any moron to draw applause at stump speeches."
Art
"Opera is a cocktail that worsened the whole. It's poetry of second, theater of third and music of fifth category."
Brasília
"It was the revenge of a communist architect against the bourgeois society."
Politics
"I committed the only sin that politics does not forgive: to tell the truth before it's time."
"By the way, as the target of injurious personal attacks, I've won all championships in this beloved fatherland."
"We are too far from an attainable wealth and too close to a correctable poverty. My generation didn't make the grade."
"In the Brazilian state, assistants are better off than the assisted."
"Nationalists spend so much time hating other countries that they don't have time to love their own country."
"There is only one thing wrong with the word revolution. It's the letter R."
Socialism
"I was a good prophet, better than Marx anyway. He predicted the collapse of capitalism while I predicted the opposite: the failure of socialism."
"Communism is good to get us out of misery, but incompetent to take us to wealth."
"I never deluded myself with the totalitarianism from the left thanks to a simple reasoning. God is not socialist. He created man profoundly unequal. All we can do is to humanly manage this inequality, trying to match opportunities, without imposing results."
"Socialists, who are always talking about masses, didn't create either mass consumption or mass culture. These equalizing "massifications" were produced by the individualistic American culture."
"(President) Fernando Henrique said that leftists are stupid. This is no secret for a long time. And he was kind: he didn't say they are totalitarian."
Government
"The state is an abstract entity that in fact does not exist. What do exist are flesh and blood public servants, with sometimes petty interests and sometimes tyrannical appetites."
"Statism in Brazil is like man's nipples: it's neither useful nor ornamental."
"Diplomacy is like a pornographic movie: it's better to be in it than simply watch it."
"Our constitution is a potpourri of dictionary of utopias and minute regulation of the ephemeral."