This paper aims to analyze the contradiction between the legal concept of artisanal fishery in Brazil and the social practice of this economic activity. Starting from this contradiction, it verifies its effects on artisanal fishery. The point is that the ideology of industrialism stills persists in Brazilian public policies, without any attention to the forms of commerce and social development affected by the forced industrialization. This goes back to the industry-based designs characteristic of the Brazilian military period after 1964. Therefore, the contradiction present in the fishery legislation conducts to the identity of designs and economic policies of developmentalism, between the dictatorial state and the democratic state, according to current Brazilian institutional arrangement.
Artisanal fishery; industrialism; Democratic State