Quando água e óleo se misturam: classes sociais e semelhanças analíticas entre Florestan e Rangel

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the similarities between the analytical construction of Florestan Fernandes in his important book A revolução burguesa no Brasil: ensaio de interpretação sociológica (The bourgeois revolution in Brazil: essay of sociological interpretation) and Ignácio Rangel’s theory of the Brazilian economy duality. The authors are exponents of two very different traditions in the Brazilian social thought, the so-called USP school of sociology and the national-developmen- talism, respectively. Initially, the theory of duality proposed by Rangel is presented in its basic elements. Next, several themes are highlighted in which Fernandes’ analytical architecture in that book shows significant similarities with the architecture of the theory of duality. The themes analyzed are the non-capitalist nature of colonial Brazil and the immediate consequences of the Independence; the commercial capital development; the changes brought about by the coffee sector development and the manufacturing sector emergence; and the constitution of industrial capitalism in Brazil under the hegemony of agrarian interests. To conclude, the difference in the authors’ conclusions regarding the limits of state coordination of the national development is addressed to reaffirm that, despite these different conclusions, the analytical structures are similar.