Industrial Policy in a Dependent State: the Case of Brazil

The purpose of this paper is to study the industrial policy of the Brazilian state in relation to the process of internationalization of production. The emergence of world capitalism is often interpreted as modifying the sovereignty, the autonomy, and the state capacity for intervention. The effects of internationalization of capital on the state can differ depending on the mode of insertion of the economy into the world economic system. We do not believe however that one should speak in terms of withering (for developed societies) or strengthening (in the case of dependent societies) but rather of a change in state forms. These transformations brought about by the internationalization of production stem from the relation between the state and big capital existing in a situation of monopoly capitalism. Thus the study of these questions can be reduced to the analysis of the relation between the local bourgeoisies and foreign capital, the latter being partly determined by the relationship between the modes of production and the specificity of state organization. These questions constitute the object of our study which will be focused more precisely on the industrial policy of the Brazilian state. It is our intention to explain, defend, illustrate, and draw conclusions to the thesis which states contrary to what happens in developed countries where classes as political agents are pre-existent to state intervention that in dependent countries it is the state's action which determines class existence (Touraine, 1977). We can state our assumption as follows: the existence of an industrial bourgeoisie in Brazil is a function of the intervention of the state in the process of industrialization.