The Ideology of Development,the Marxist Theory of Dependency,and the Critique of the Popular-Democratic Strategy

The Ideology of Development in Brazil

There is a huge controversy over what ideology is. Virtually anyone who looks at the topic will soon come to the conclusion that “there are few concepts in the history of modern social science as enigmatic and polysemic as that of ‘ideology’” (Löwy, 2013 [1987]: 18) or that “the term ‘ideology’ has a number of convenient meanings, not all of which are compatible with each other” (Eagleton, 1997 [1991]: 15). Even if restricted to the field of Marxism, the subject is controversial. In this connection, Raymond Williams (1988 [1977]: 72) is right when he says that “there can be no question of establishing, except in polemics, a single ‘correct’ Marxist definition of ideology.” Without attempting to establish a “correct” definition of ideology but approaching the controversy synthetically within Marxism—neglecting, therefore, the whole history, often retold, of the origin of the term and its uses up to its treatment by Marx and Engels—it is possible to locate three major lines of perception of ideology: “positive,” “absolute,” and “negative.” ¹

In the positive sense, an ideology is a social view of the world that is expressed in an ideal linked to a specific social class. Thus, it is possible to speak of a “proletarian ideology” waging an “ideological struggle” against “bourgeois ideology.” In another key, an ideology is a discourse linked to specific social interests, regardless of its position in the system of domination. This is one of the predominant uses of the term in Marxism and even outside it. It is common, for example, to use the notion of “ideological struggle” in the economic—union—field, pointing to the transition to a struggle in the political field. The problem with this use is that, ultimately, it sidesteps the important question of ideology as a mechanism of justification, veiling and naturalizing the system of domination. If the latter sense is united with the former, there is a tendency toward undertaking an “ideological struggle” to overcome the “ideology.” Ultimately, the word is being used in two different senses. Therefore, for the positive sense of “ideological struggle” I prefer the notion of a “battle of ideas,” which, as a result of the very contradictions of historical development, at certain moments is expressed as a specific controversy. In my view, there are various ideologies, and the dominated class, in different ways, can unveil them by acquiring class consciousness. ² From this perspective, a world without ideology is a world without exploitation.

The absolute sense of ideology, in turn, ends up being too close to the notion of “culture.” Ideology is the same as the production of meanings, signs, and values arising from society—any society—in which all people are necessarily framed by their respective experiences. It is the terrain through which people are incorporated into social reality in a prereflexive action. When ideology is used in this sense, remembering that societies are divided into classes and fractions of classes (some dominant and others dominated), the problem is no longer that the perception of ideology is emptied in the process but, on the contrary, that there seems to be no area that is “outside” or “beyond” it.

The category of ideology used here is attached to its negative connotation, as suggested, among others, by Ludovico Silva (1979b [1975]: 93, 100):

a field of mental action in charge of preserving the values of the oppressive class . . . a system of self-generated values, beliefs and representations necessary in societies in whose structure there are relations of exploitation . . . with the purpose to justify ideally its own material structure of exploitation, consecrating it in the minds of men as a “natural” or inevitable order or, philosophically speaking, as an “essential note” or quidditas of the human being.

To combat an ideology, it is necessary to denaturalize it and present it in its particular and historical contexts. Hence the interest in pursuing the origin, the roots, the unfolding, and the hegemony of the ideology of development in Brazil and its tendency toward economism—a theme that refers to the “real but illusory” separation between economics and politics in the capitalist mode of production (see Aricó, 2012; Kohan, 2011; Osorio, 2014; Wood, 2011).

The basic hypothesis here is that this ideology was born after World War II, in particular with the Cold War, as part of the consolidation of U.S. hegemony in the capitalist world at the time in opposition to the USSR and also as part of the construction of the hegemony of capitalism versus socialism. Because this point is somewhat consensual (see Esteva, 2000; Fiori, 1999; Marini, 1992; Sunkel and Paz, 2004 [1970]; Wallerstein, 2004 [1999]), I point out just two things about it: First, although the idea of development is obviously earlier than the second half of the twentieth century, it is only beginning in that period that it gains strength in the world context as a kind of “geoculture” (see Wallerstein, 2003 [1996]), somehow employing the opposition “civilization vs. barbarism” characteristic of British hegemony in the nineteenth century. At the political-intellectual level, it was in this context that development economics and a whole academic-political field, with all its recipes for achieving development (of the other), emerged. Second, identifying this origin does not mean that this ideology was simply “implanted” around the world, without there being germs of its origin in the concrete situations of some countries that at that time began to be called “underdeveloped”— precisely because in its origin the ideology of development was amalgamated with developmentalism, an idea or project linked to the “Latin American industrial bourgeoisie, especially that which, responding to a greater degree of industrialization and sharing the power of the state with the agrarian-exporting bourgeoisie, was trying to expand its space at the expense of the latter by pursuing an alliance with the industrial proletariat and the salaried middle class” (Marini, 1992: 79).

As for the roots in Brazil, in addition to the “call for development” made under the hegemony of the United States and within the framework of the Cold War, various factors contributed to different degrees to these roots’ being so deep. Among them, the following stand out: (1) the conjunction and transformation of social forces linked to certain ideas that historically were important within the ruling classes in Brazil, “(a) nationalists, (b) defenders of industry, (c) papermakers, and (d) positivists” (Fonseca, 2012: 24); (2) the existence—since the beginning of the twentieth century and, since the formation of the Estado Novo [New State] in 1937, with direct participation in state power—of a military elite (assisted in the conservative civil and intellectual sphere) with the project of expanding national power; (3) the translation, publication, dissemination, presence in public debate, and intellectual influence of proposals of so-called development economics; (4) the establishment, in 1955, of the Higher Institute of Brazilian Studies (ISEB), which had a strong presence in the intellectual, political, and ideological field, especially during the government of Juscelino Kubitschek, and whose function was nothing short of creating an ideology of national development; and (5) the tactical confluence around capitalist development during the 1950s as part of the national democratic strategy defended by the main communist political force in the country up to that moment, the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB).

This ideology was quickly perceived and confronted in the late 1950s and early 1960s because of the increase in the degree of class consciousness that was achieved in the struggles fought in those years—struggles derived from the dialectic of capitalist development in Brazil itself. For example, as early as 1959 an article in Movimento Socialista said, “The developing nation is nothing more than the developing bourgeoisie. The promises of material improvement as a consequence of the development ‘with the participation of workers in the fruits of progress’ serve to deceive the proletariat and castrate it politically” (Soares Thomas [pseudonym attributed to Ruy Mauro Marini], 1959: 32). In line with this reading, Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos (1963: 62) pointed—with brilliant theoretical clarity and tact—to the roots of the ideology of development:

Ideologically, the consolidation of the power of the representatives of the expanding capitalist system is manifested by the indisputable predominance of developmental theory. In the last five years, the fiercest representatives of the decadent forces have been beaten since 1930, and at present development is the dominant ideology in the country—the ideology of the ruling class. It is not important, here and now, to consider the doctrinal content of this ideology, not least because its variants are innumerable and, in reality, there is no modality that overlaps the others. Today, there is a dispute over which theory most accurately reflects the desires for Brazilian development, and the most brilliant theorists of the dominant class are engaged in it. It is relevant to consider that, despite the range of developmentalist manifestations, all have as a common denominator the need for development on the basis of capitalist production. This fact of contemporary Brazilian reality is very important and deserves careful consideration.

No one would find it strange if these lines, written in 1963, were reproduced in a critical analysis of the contemporary Brazilian situation.

A Deeply Rooted Ideology of Development

The utopian horizon of development is almost ubiquitous and is in constant dispute, comprising different and often contradictory political projects and discursively encompassing different and equally contradictory historical processes. At the most current historical level, it is evident in the programs and interventions of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT), the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social Democracy Party—PSDB), and the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (Brazilian Democratic Movement—MDB) (see Prado, 2015). At the broadest historical level, none of the political projects in Brazilian history after the second half of the twentieth century have failed to maintain development as a utopian horizon, revealing the effectiveness and hegemony of the ideology of development. This is pointed out by Miriam Limoeiro Cardoso (2013: 211–212) in an interview on the “persistent ideology of development”:

Developmentalism ran out in the 1970s. Development ideology, however, persisted and still persists, although for reasons that are no longer the same, under historically different conditions.

In Brazil, we have been thinking politically within this ideological framework at least since the Juscelino Kubitschek government. There are some important differences that must be remembered, . . . but within the ideological framework that became dominant. . . . Some of these different perspectives are worth mentioning: the Jânio Quadros government, which proposed national development without giving up national sovereignty . . . the João Goulart government, which also sought national and sovereign development in addition to concentrating all the emphasis on the imperative and urgent need for so-called basic reforms. . . . As for critique, we find a few intellectuals (academic or activists) and a few political groups on the left. In any case, only very few managed to perceive and expose development as an ideology of big capital. The differences mentioned were opposed to development as it had been put in place, but they could not avoid maintaining development as an objective, which demonstrates the effectiveness of that ideology. The big difference is that they advocated autonomous development, directed by the country itself, safeguarding national sovereignty. They did not realize what “development” meant for capital at that time.

“Development,” which had become the state policy of the United States, aimed at expanding capitalism as a system throughout the world, a system that was integrated and that had to be kept well-integrated at all costs: it had to be able to integrate new areas into it, always under the direction and command of the big capital that promoted this project. Thus the capitalist system was strengthened and American hegemony consolidated in this new global expansion of capitalism. “Development” meant development of the system at a global level, which, therefore, did not admit any claim of autonomy. In view of its extraordinarily important and strategic significance, the prospect of autonomous development constituted an unacceptable contradiction and obstruction for capital.

Here it is evident that, since the 1950s, different political projects have been guided by the development project and horizon, this being the “ideology of big capital.” At the same time, it is evident—or should be—that the class struggle, with its expressions in the dispute between different political projects for society as a whole, has not always been about “development” and certainly will not go on forever revolving around it. When one observes this picture without naturalizing it, the use of the category “development” stands out in a way that, explicitly or implicitly and within the defense of different political projects for achieving development, identifies this utopian horizon with certain historical processes. This identification often occurs through the dehistoricization of processes that are confused with the predominant political project of a given time without explaining the dispute between different projects and the historical construction through which a given project became predominant. In other words, it obscures the class struggle.

The most obvious identification of different projects with certain historical processes in the dispute over development is related to the conjuncture of countries that are considered “developed.” This is what the so-called developing countries or emerging countries, in contrast to the developed countries—a division that is widely used in institutional documents (national and international), in academia, in the media, in political speeches, and in ordinary conversation and is reminiscent of the contrast in the 1960s and 1970s between “First World” and “Third World,” ignoring the “Second World” represented by the socialist field (see Dos Santos, 1978)—are called upon to do. But there is another form of identification that is more subtle and therefore more ideologically effective. It is a mechanism that, within the dispute over political projects circumscribed by the utopian horizon of development, equates “development” with certain historical processes related to the history of Brazil and/or of countries within the capitalist international system (usually those considered “developed”), and it obviously does so by giving a positive meaning to the historical process in question, because otherwise development would not appear as a utopian horizon.

It turns out that this historical process is generally seen in an idealized way, as a kind of “model country-period,” without recognition of the totality or of the inherent contradictions of each historical process as part of the development of the international capitalist system and its class struggles. This approach appears, for example, in the common interpretation that Brazil experienced a period of development between 1930 and 1980, interrupted by the “lost decade” and, later, by “neoliberalism.” At the same time, in the Brazilian hegemonic political-intellectual debate, development is defended as a utopian horizon—something positive. In this way, there is a tendency to hide or at least minimize the intense and bloody class struggle of the same period. ³

One may object that this identification between a political project for development and the historical processes of development (identified, in turn, as capitalist development in general, although this adjective is often hidden—which also has ideological implications) is the result of a realistic rather than a utopian perspective, as there is a concrete topos represented by the historical process in question that serves as a horizon. This is, however, both true and false. The problem with this formulation is that it ignores (or pretends to ignore, in a more cynical reading) the ample evidence that the historical “model” process is unique, a particular form of totality, a process that is not universalized but is nevertheless taken as an abstraction—a judgment, an idea, a concept: development—representing both the singular ideal and the universal ideal (for examples, see Prado, 2016). In this sense, and regardless of the form, an ideological strategy is engendered that plays an eminently dehistoricizing role, since it empties the particular elements of the historical processes. The ode to development emerges from the quid pro quo between project, process, and horizon and thus plays the role of an ideology.

On the political-intellectual plane, particularly in the history of Brazilian economic thought, “the theme of development is the organizer of the country’s economic thought and debate” (Malta et al., 2011: 24), and this organizing theme brings with it the circularity associated with its ideological character. Many important analyses conflate the political project of development, the historical process of development, and the utopian horizon of development in this way, presenting what is a precondition—capitalist development—as if it were a goal. This is because they imagine that policies for development or even developmentalism (as an idea or project, whether or not it is reduced to a set of economic policies) are the way to overcome economic and social problems within the framework of the capitalist system and that this will happen when development is finally achieved. Furthermore, when periods, governments or subtypes of developmentalism that historically have not solved the economic and social problems they set out to deal with are identified, there remains a need for developmentalism (as an idea or project) for development to be achieved. It is as if it were necessary to develop (politically and intellectually) the development (project) through developmentalism (program) for the country to become developed (utopian horizon). This circularity, which is very common in contemporary Brazilian economic thought—especially in the thought linked to developmentalist ideas, generally seen as “progressive”—is one of the aspects that both reflect and reproduce the ideology of development within that thought.

In problematizing the combination of developmentalism, developmentalist ideas, and development ideology, I intend to highlight some points that may be useful for informing possible analyses of contemporary Brazil:

That said, among the possible consequences of this reflection I want to highlight here that this circular reasoning about development is embedded in the hegemonic Brazilian political economy and even permeates much of the dependency controversy. In this sense, it can be said that the dependency controversy reveals and reinforces the hegemony of this ideology in that it often brings to light interpretations that support it in other ways—after all, “dependency” is often understood only as an obstacle to “development.” But at the same time the dependency controversy points to ways of overcoming this ideology in that the subject of dependency has been appropriated by Marxism.

Provisional Conclusions

A class is not dominant because it universalizes its ideas; on the contrary, it can universalize its ideas because it is dominant (Marx and Engels, 2007 [1845/46]), and the fight against an ideology does not take place only in the battle of ideas. In any case, by denaturalizing certain ideologies, placing them in their particular historical contexts, it is possible to contribute to a better reading of reality and thus avoid repeating strategic errors. This consideration comes from a certain understanding of Marx’s critical discourse and the Marxist tradition—recognizing, of course, the very broad controversy surrounding Marxism itself. Marxism is here understood as an instrument for understanding reality; it does not start with preconceptions, which would necessarily be idealized. This presupposes a method for investigating reality in its essentials, the material reproduction of life in the reassembly of the concrete through a synthesis of multiple determinations—dialectical materialism. But Marxism is more than this, and it is only in this sense that its orthodoxy can be understood. As a political-philosophical trend, it does not simply seek to understand reality but considers itself an instrument of the proletarian revolution.

Taking this into account and in view of the concrete reality of the battle of ideas in contemporary Brazil, I believe that, in terms of the Marxist tradition, it is inconsistent to claim a critical position maintaining or disputing “development” as a utopian horizon. ⁴ On the contrary, the task, reflecting Ludovico Silva’s characterization of ideology, is to reveal that the problem of development has become “a field of mental action charged with preserving the values of the oppressive class.” This problematic tends to reify, naturalize, and dehistoricize the present, still dominated by the capitalist mode of production (see Bonente, 2011; De Paula, 2014).

This is the point I want to highlight in provisionally concluding this essay. We cannot limit ourselves to the questions and approach of development. We cannot be ruled by our political-intellectual opponents. Avoiding it is not easy, mainly because of the particularities of Latin American capitalism and of the way that the pursuit of understanding of that capitalism has approached the dependency controversy. Very directly: considering a country or Latin America in general “dependent” does not make anyone or any organization socialist and/or revolutionary. ⁵ From this perspective it is possible to see dependency as a type of capitalism in Latin America, one that exists materially but is not always apprehended conceptually in all its dimensions.

Now, if the center of the Marxist theory of dependency is Marxism and the center of Marxism is revolutionary knowledge, the debate turns to the strategy of building socialism in Latin America, even in a situation as adverse as the current one. ⁶ And although no single strategy is derived from the Marxist theory of dependency, the discussion of the socialist strategy for Latin America is its central element, and this makes it a localized contribution within the Marxist tradition.

To formulate and build a strategy (any strategy) it is necessary to know the terrain on which we are operating. In the case of the socialist strategy for Latin America, it is necessary to know the specificity of capitalism in Our America. This is the role of the Marxist theory of dependency. The dispute over and within that theory is over the understanding of dependent capitalism and its unfolding in strategic terms. This brings us to issues such as the pattern of capital reproduction, the superexploitation of labor, the capitalist state and the specificities of the state in Latin America, the experiences of socialist struggle in Latin America and the world, imperialism, subimperialism, the transfer of value, land rent (which refers to the agrarian question and the urban issue), and the national issue, among many others, all of them aimed at understanding reality and better acting on it in the effort to overcome dependent capitalism—building socialism.

The driving issue behind Marxist dependency theory is the socialist revolution in Latin America (see Prado, 2011; 2016). It is not how to develop the country or how to overcome obstacles to the development of the country or the national economy (see Bambirra, 1971; 1973; 1978; Bambirra and Dos Santos, 1980; 1981; Marini, 1969; 1974; 1976; 1978; 2005 [1991]; Dos Santos, 1969; 1978). Even so, and in view of the hegemony of the ideology of development in Brazilian politics and academia, we certainly cannot ignore the formulations that fit this framework. Just as the original Marxist theory of dependency, although it was focused on the critique of the bourgeois-democratic strategy in the struggle for socialism in Latin America, also had to dialogue critically with developmentalism and its nuances, so the rescue of that theory at the current juncture needs to critically dialogue with and get to know neodevelopmentalism in all its nuances, especially those that are not identified as such but ultimately share the strategic developmentalist project (making Brazil a fair, free, democratic, sovereign society in which the fruits of technical progress are well distributed, and so on).

In other words, what the Marxist theory of dependency originally did by disputing and contributing to the formulation and realization of the socialist strategy for Latin America was to call into question the understanding of the category “dependency” based on Marxism and organically linked to the revolutionary left and attempt to overcome the bourgeois-democratic or national-democratic strategy. And this is the sense that the current rescue of the Marxist theory of dependency must have. What the original Marxist theory of dependency did with regard to the bourgeois-democratic strategy must now be done with regard to the strategy predominant on the left with a view to overcoming it. After all, we are being defeated—we suffered a new coup in 2016—and this shows, at least, that there are problems with that strategy.

The predominant strategy of the recent historical period has been the popular-democratic strategy, and the ultimate objective of it was socialism (in its origins). It is based on extending (bourgeois) democracy, (capitalist) development, and strengthening the national economy so as to generate a gradual expansion of rights and political participation through pressure from social movements and the occupation of institutional spaces in the state—producing a challenge to the interests of our ruling class and the autocratic character of the state from which will emerge the possibility of socialism and even the need for socialism to assume the tasks that the bourgeoisie has been unable to perform. In my opinion, in contrast and comradely dialogue with part of the left, this strategy was not betrayed or abandoned but was carried out and is now exhausted, defeated in the class struggle even in the minimal sense of the hegemony dispute, and we must replace it. This replacement—in the form of a synthesis that is yet to come and may not occur—must begin with, among many other things, making an inventory of the coherent analyses of Brazilian and Latin American reality that informed that strategy—an inventory in Gramsci’s (1986 [1930–1935]: 246; 1999 [1932–1933]: 94) sense of “awareness of what really is, that is, an understanding of oneself as a product of a historical process ongoing to this day that has left one a multitude of features received without critical analysis.” ⁷ And in this inventory we must try to understand, militantly and collectively, which elements of this strategy belong to the dependency controversy in general and which to the Marxist theory of dependency in particular, whether they point to a replacement of the predominant strategy or inform and (re)affirm it. This is a task “in development” among many others in the battle of ideas, with a view not only to overcoming “dependency” but to tearing down the pillars of Latin American dependent capitalism and constructing socialism in Our America.