CELSO FURTADO INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES CENTER

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2 Launching Manifesto of the CELSO FURTADO INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES CENTER Helsinki Conference 7 to 9 September, 2005 Finland 1. During the last decades the dominant view decreed the death of national development projects and delivered the destiny of those in the periphery of capitalism to the hazards and vicissitudes of market forces, taking into account neither the history, peculiarities nor urgent needs of each society. 2. The prestige of long term strategies - partially and imperfectly implemented throughout the thirty glorious years of the post-war period - based on the sovereign action of governments and on the coordination of multilateral institutions, entered in decline both in the international sphere and within national States. 3. In their obsessive quest to gain the confidence of financial markets current economic policies no longer reflect the choices of male and female citizen voters but have become hostages of the unstable and short-term oriented opinions of financial operators. This condition reduced the reach of public policies and subtracted economic substance from the ideals of social solidarity and well-being. 4. Homologation of the new rules by Nation-States failed to bring the promised convergence of the various peoples well-being standards. On the contrary: during the last decades the unequal distribution of income and wealth among classes, countries and individuals did nothing but exacerbate. New displacements in the capitalist dynamism axis redesigned the secular outline of geopolitical inequality and redefined the contours of exclusion. 2

3 5. The logic behind the private accumulation of wealth cannot satisfy the demands of a lasting and equalitarian development period. The quest for a new utopia to quote Celso Furtado, became an imperative of the humanistic and democratic conscience of the XXI century. 6. The development agenda is a political equation rather than an economic one. However, it cannot forego a strategic reflection center capable of bringing together the progressive forces and ideas that strive to decipher the enigmas of our time. 7. That is the main objective of the Celso Furtado International Development Policies Center, as proposed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the inaugural ceremony of the eleventh ministerial session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development - UNCTAD XI on 14 June 2004 (Annex 01 and 02). 8. With headquarters in Brazil, the Celso Furtado Center will be an independent institution structured around a Consultative Council, composed of economists, social scientists and key figures of the political, academic and cultural world, from Brazil and abroad. 9. The agenda of the Celso Furtado Center will focus on deepening, systematizing and formulating investigation and research projects on crucial XXI century development themes. 10. In order to fulfill its goals, the Celso Furtado Center will establish partnerships and sign agreements with Governments, Multilateral Institutions, Universities and Development Banks among others, without renouncing its political and financial autonomy. 11. Its creation constitutes a much deserved tribute to the memory of one of the greatest economists of the XX century: Celso Furtado. A humanist, intellectual and public man, Furtado became a world reference in the fight against misery and underdevelopment. (Annex 03) 12. His intellectual production exercised an extraordinary influence on the development of Latin America s critical conscience for over half a century. 3

4 To him we owe the certainty that power and production structures need to be modified for development to break the patterns of dependence and concentration of wealth. The asymmetries between nations and within each nation indicated by Furtado more than 50 years ago were accentuated by the new global market conditions. 13. There is no doubt that the development agenda will have to adapt to the economic and social transformations of the last decades. Nevertheless, the challenge of building institutions capable of reconciling the creative impulse of the private initiative with the republican principles of liberty and equality persists. This was the dream of Furtado and it is the task that lies ahead of the Center that carries his name. 14. The Celso Furtado Development Policies Center manifesto will be launched in September in Finland during the Helsinki Conference 2005, remaining open for other adhesions of interested supporters. 15. In November of 2005 the Celso Furtado Center will promote its first public initiative together with the Federal Senate, ECLAC and BNDES: the International Seminar Celso Furtado s Thoughts on Development. 16. Concurring with Celso Furtado, the below signatories consider that today, as yesterday, the essence of the fight for development lies in restoring society s command over its own destiny. Organizing Committee of the Celso Furtado International Development Policies Center Head manager: Luiz Dulci, Chief Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency. Coordinator: Carlos Tibúrcio, Special Advisor of the General Secretariat of the Presidency. Members: Rosa Freire D Aguiar Furtado; Maria da Conceição Tavares; Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo (UNICAMP) ; Nelson Barbosa e Antonio Prado (BNDES); Ricardo Bielschovski (ECLAC); Luiz Antonio Elias (INPI); Claudio Cerri, Giorgio Romano e Carolina Albuquerque (SG/PR). Brazil s National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) is the first founding institution of the Celso Furtado International Development Policies Center. Contact: celsofurtado@ufrj.br 4

5 Annex 1 A proposal by President Lula...this Conference also lauds an economist whose life and work embody the true spirit of the quest for development. I refer to Celso Furtado. The Brazilian government joins in this homage. I would at this moment like to propose the creation of an international center for studies on development financing policies that will carry the name of Celso Furtado. Each historical cycle has its own intellectual factory to serve as a strategic reference. We wish to see the creation of a center that irradiates innovative policies and projects to combat hunger, poverty and the bottlenecks of development. My government is willing to provide all the support necessary for the construction of an international study and research foundation that fulfills these goals. In this way we will help to build a new development agenda capable of facing the challenges of globalization... (Passage of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva s speech at the inaugural ceremony of the XIth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development held on 14 June 2004, São Paulo). Annex 2 Celso Furtado answers to President Lula Your Excellency Mr. President, Please allow me to express my gratitude for the honorable references made to my work as a public servant during your speech at the inaugural session of the UNCTAD XI meeting. I became convinced early on that it is the duty of the national State to exercise a decisive role in the perpetually menaced construction of this great country, Brazil. We will be incurring in a historical mistake of serious consequences if we fail to admit that the decline of national States agents of collective will has as its inevitable consequence a greater concentration of economic power at a global scale. This is a particularly serious problem in those countries endowed with a great development potential as is the case of Brazil. The definition of a development policy for a country of continental dimensions necessarily includes making a commitment that will affect the destiny of future generations. Rather than lead to political paralysis, however, this perspective should foster transparency in the implementation of strategic government actions. 5

6 It is important for Brazil to assume a position of leadership in this confrontation between developed and underdeveloped economies. Considering that Brazil is the country with the greatest development potential, it is inevitable that the powers that defend the supposed current world order form coalitions against it. Taking this into account I consider Your Excellency s idea of creating an international center dedicated to the study of underdevelopment-related problems an excellent one. Developed and underdeveloped economies must receive distinct treatments. We cannot ignore the specificities of underdevelopment lest we be condemned to surviving in the dependence scenario we know so well. I would hereby like to place myself at Your Excellency s entire disposal in your noble quest in favor of development and the preservation of our national independence. Respectfully yours, Celso Fu rtado Letter by Celso Furtado to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, July 5th Annex 03 A fair homage to Celso Furtado The Celso Furtado Development Policies Center has the goal of promoting a systematic reflection on the socio-economic trends and policies of developing countries, as well as on perspectives for their international insertion. The center constitutes a tribute to the vast intellectual and political legacy left by Furtado to Brazil and Latin America in general. For over half a century the life and works of Celso Furtado served as an abundant source of inspiration for successive generations of economists, social scientists, public servants and political leaders of Latin American countries. There is no doubt that they will continue to do for a long time to come. The creation of the Center will serve as an incentive to keep alive the critical intelligence and deep sense of social construction transmitted by Celso Furtado to intellectuals and public men of the region. Furtado s work in favor of overcoming underdevelopment in Latin America is difficult to parallel. For over half a century his intellectual production had an extraordinary impact on the development of a conscience in favor of development in poor countries. He consistently opposed orthodox academic theory and neoliberal thoughts on economic policy and dedicated his life to the formulation of an alternative theory that remained respectful to economic theory but demanded adaptation to the characteristics of the various countries of the region. He expressed his third world intellectual militancy by creating and divulging an analytic scheme uniquely adapted to the characteristics of less developed countries. This included the design of autonomous development strategies geared towards fostering their well-being and equality as well towards improving their international insertion. 6

7 The volume and degree of divulgation of his work transformed it into a basic Latin American and international reference source in the discussion of solutions for the problems posed by underdevelopment in Latin America and underdeveloped countries in general. Celso Furtado published more than thirty books and several dozen treaties and articles in no less than eleven languages. It is estimated that two million copies of his books have been sold. This probably makes him the most read and discussed analyst of Latin American problems both in the continent itself and throughout the world, possibly by a total of over ten million readers. In the various universities in which he lectured around the world countless students of a range of underdeveloped regions enjoyed his direct supervision in studies and thesis on their respective countries particular underdevelopment conditions. Furtado was an exemplary theoretician of underdevelopment dedicated to guiding the citizens of developing nations towards actions of transformation, as can be seen by the pedagogical and didactic nature of his works. These are based on his own personal analytical construction that relies on the structural-historical method to which he contributed together with Raul Prebisch. The method has three levels: causal analysis of economic underdevelopment; socio-economic and socio-political analysis; and analysis of the problems that result from underdevelopment and dependence at a cultural level. Because they provide a historical interpretation on the creation of the productive, social and institutional structures of underdevelopment in Latin America that is used to justify a complete set of transforming actions, his works on the Economic Formation of Brazil and the Economic Formation of Latin America have become essential to understand the region s historical specificities. Furtado was a pioneer in Brazilian and Latin American development issues. His works were acclaimed for their daring, creativity, analytical refinement, enthusiasm and common sense in the construction of viable national projects to foster Latin American development. He defined himself as an intellectual at the service of action. A politically active intellectual; a militant of the development cause. But not a military activist: his works are analytically refined; he was a scholar, a Professor. Celso Furtado s biography bears proof of the coherence between his intellectual and his executive work. Furtado had a noteworthy participation in the creation and operation of institutions of great influence in the history of the efforts made to foster autonomous and equitative development in Latin American countries. During his mandate as Director of the ECLAC Economic Development Division he drafted the institution s first paper on economic planning and contributed towards the creation and consolidation of various Latin American governments technical capacity. He participated in the elaboration of the Plan of Goals of the Kubitschek administration in Brazil, where he became the country s first Minister of Planning in the beginning of the 60s. He created the Superintendence for the Development of the Northeast - Sudene, an undeniable cornerstone of worldwide institutionalism in terms of the development of extremely poor regions. The military coup forced him to seek exile abroad for many years. During this time he combined his activities as a Professor in the University of Paris with a great number of technical missions to underdeveloped countries. In the 80s he returned to Brazil where he became President Sarney s Minister of Culture and later a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Furtado s intellectual legacy unfortunately continues to apply to the modern day world: in spite of the region s many economic and social transformations, the trends that he so desired to change by means of political transformation persist, strengthened by the in many respects 7

8 perverse globalization process. The asymmetries between the center and the periphery to which he always referred continue to exist. These include an extensive productive and technological inferiority, an enormous vulnerability to external factors and an extremely high subemployment level, all of which have a marked effect on poverty and income distribution. There is not doubt that the development agenda must change to adapt to modern day conditions which have certainly changed. After all, nowadays our economies are open and the State s financial capacity has decreased. Nonetheless, there remains the need for a State that supports growth, technical progress, increased productivity and competitiveness, improved international insertion and reduced external vulnerability, as well as a growth strategy that contemplates society as a whole and integrates growth to the redistribution of income. The intellectual work of Celso Furtado is profoundly current and the Center that is being created bears the enormous responsibility of giving continuity to his exemplary work. Celso Furtado s translated books include: The Economic Growth of Brazil (University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1963). Original in Portuguese, Formação econômica do Brasil (Fundo de Cultura, Rio de Janeiro, 1959). Translated also into French (Mouton, Paris, 1972), Spanish (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1962), Polish (Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Varsovie, 1967), Italian (Einaudi, Torino, 1970), Japanese (Shisekaisha, Tokyo, 1972), German (Fink Verlag, Frankfurt, 1975), Romanian (Univers, Bucareste, 2000), Chinese (Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 2002). Development and Underdevelopment (University of California Press, Los Angeles,1964). Original in Portuguese, Desenvolvimento e subdesenvolvimento (Fundo de Cultura, Rio de Janeiro, 1961). Translated also into French (PUF, Paris, 1976), Spanish (Eudeba, Buenos Aires, 1964), Persian (Teheran, 1980). Economic Development of Latin America (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970). Original in Portuguese, A economia latino-americana (Editora Nacional, São Paulo, 1976). Translated also into French (Sirey, Paris, 1969), Spanish (Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile, 1969; Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1971; Guairas, Havana, 1972), Italian (Laterza, Bari, 1971), Swedish (Rabén and Sjögren, Stockholm, 1972), Japanese (Shinsekaisha, Tokyo, 1975), Chinese (Beijing, 1983). Obstacles to Development in Latin America (Anchor Books-Doubleday, N.Y., 1970) (Anchor Books-Doubleday, N.Y., 1970). Original in French, Les Etats-Unis et le sous-devéloppement de l Amérique Latine (Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1970). Translated also into Spanish (Edicusa, Barcelona, 1971; Campodonico, Lima, 1971), Italian (Franco Angeli, Milan, 1971), Japanese (Shisekaisha, Tokyo, 1972). Diagnosis of the Brazilian Crisis (University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1965). Original in Portuguese, Dialética do desenvolvimento (Fundo de Cultura, Rio de Janeiro, 1964). Translated also into Spanish (Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1965). No to Recession and Unemployment (Third World Foundation, London, 1984). Original edition in Portuguese, Não à recessão e ao desemprego (Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro, 1983). Translated also into French (Anthropos, Paris, 1984), Spanish (Paz e Terra, Buenos Aires, 1984).Accumulation and Development (Martin Robertson, Oxford, 1983). Original in Portuguese, Criatividade e dependência (Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro, 1978). Translated also into French (PUF, Paris, 1981), Spanish (Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1979), German (Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Frankfurt, 1984). Theory and Politics of Economic Development Original edition in Portuguese, Teoria e Política do Desenvolvimento Econômico (Cia. Editora Nacional, São Paulo, 1967). Translated into French (PUF, Paris, 1970), Spanish (Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1968), and Italian (Laterza, Bari, 1972). The Myth of Economic Development Original edition in Portuguese, O mito do desenvolvimento econômico (Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro, 1974). Translated into French (Anthropos, Paris, 1976), Spanish (Periferia, Buenos Aires, 1974; Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1975), Polish (Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, Varsovie, 1982). 8