Abstract:
This article examines the social ideology of the diplomat, economist and politician, Roberto Campos (1917-2001). With an explicit essayistic bias and a methodological focus on conceptual analysis, we intend to weave together the narrative of his work through an inquiry into the sociology of this ideological thinker. The argument of this article is based on (i) the distance between the public notoriety and the (until now) virtual contempt conferred on this intellectual by scholars; (ii) the fact that Campos was once recognized as a thinker of the state. The answer to the question that guides this article should help clarify: (i) his judgments - perhaps uniform throughout his career - on the constituent elements of Brazilian society, with emphasis on the mechanisms leading, or limiting, to the creation of a bourgeois liberal order; (ii) the ideological underpinnings of the two main projects that have mobilized economists since the mid-twentieth century in Brazil - developmentalism and economic liberalism.
Keywords:
Roberto Campos; Sociology; Developmentalism; Liberalism