Colonial way of life y regulación del sindicalismo rural en Brasil

This article aims to inquire into Oliveira Vianna's intellectual program regarding the unionist-corporatist normative agenda applied for rural workers in Brazil. To do so, we will consider: (a) the theoretical program for intervention in place until Oliveira Vianna's entry into the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor in 1932, which was supposedly expansive in terms of rural unionization; (b) the variations in the law formulation in which Vianna participated, as can be seen in the unionization laws of 1934 and 1939, the latter being representative of the legal dehydration of rural unionization; (c) the changes in the agenda, highlighted in the work História Social da Economia Capitalista no Brasil (Social History of Economy in Brazil), expressed by the opposition to rural unionization. The focus shift regarding rural unionization and corporatism is based on the advantages this author begins to consider in relation to clans’ domination, highlighted as a positive driver of the Brazilian "colonial way of life," which deserves to be maintained and does not normatively align with bilateral union aggregation in rural settings. For the analysis, the key of "instrumental authoritarianism" is challenged in its theoretical potential to encompass the entirety of Oliveira Vianna's work. The proposed guiding thread of interpretation for the revisited phases is the jurist's quest for the organic relationship between the State and society. The methodological proposal involves the use of theoretical research, mainly focused on qualitative analysis of sources from the 1930s and 1940s, and the application of procedures inherent to content analysis.