ABSTRACT
The chapter deals with the Brazilian economic thought in the 1930–1980 period as focused on “developmentalism”, meaning the ideology of the transformation of the Brazilian society by means of State planning and support of industrialization. It analyses the “movement of ideas” showing the formation and evolution of currents of economic thought, along what they name the “ideological cycle of developmentalism”. This cycle started from 1930s to 1940s, reached its maturity in the 1956–1964 period, and its heyday from 1964 to 1980. Up until 1964 five currents of thought are identified, namely liberalism, three variants of developmentalism (authors in the private sector and, in the public sector, non-nationalist and nationalist authors) and socialism. The currents of thought in the 1964–1980 military regime period are dealt with according to a slightly different composition as compared to the previous period, comprising only two developmentalist currents of ideas (“pro-government” and “opponents”), besides liberalism and socialism.
