As desventuras do marxismo: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, antagonismo e reconciliação (1955-1968)

Abstract

The main object of this thesis is the sociological work of Fernando Henrique Cardoso conceived between 1955 and 1968. Its purpose is to identify the theoretical and conceptual aspects of Cardoso s Marxism and to emphasize the political content of some of its studies. In opposition to recent interpretations that tend either to overlook the presence of the Marxist conceptual framework on this work, either to restrain its political meaning, the thesis will reconstitute the basic concepts of Cardoso s Marxism through the constitutive antagonisms from which it develops and through its appropriation of Marxian texts and concepts. Three specific moments will be analysed in each part of the thesis: Cardoso s first studies, still attached to Florestan Fernandes research group and characterized by a dualistic interpretation of Brazilian society; the dialectical inflexion expressed in Capitalismo e escravidão no Brasil meridional; and the works written on Brazil s conflictive political context between 1963 and 1968, whose critical appraisals of populism and nationalism will be dealt with as expressions of a Marxism of reconciliation.