Politics and society in the first eclac generation: the development theory of Celso Furtado and José Medina Echavarría

Abstract

The analyses of the political and social dimension existent in the theory of development, considering ECLAC structuralism in its first generation (1948-1960) are marked by the interpretation of Celso Furtado and José Medina Echavarría. We put in discussion theses and projects of these two thinkers, trying to analyze how authors with such different methods converged in the same sphere of development/underdevelopment debate, which is politics, with the privilege of the theme democracy, and the analysis of social structures. We aim to understand the similarities and differences that are found in these two authors, first, in what refers to the expansion of the idea of development beyond the economic dimension and, secondly, in the proposition of democratic planning as a strategy to overcome underdevelopment. The analysis proceeded on productions of the 1950s and 1960s, in order to demonstrate the novelty of this enlarged development dimension present in these authors.