City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 6-2021 The Logic of the Land: The Agrarian Roots of Uneven Development in Brazil Chris Carlson The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4368 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE LOGIC OF THE LAND: THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL by Chris M. Carlson A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2021 © 2021 CHRIS M. CARLSON All Rights Reserved ii THE LOGIC OF THE LAND: THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL by Chris M. Carlson This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date Mauricio Font Chair of Examining Committee Date Lynn Chancer Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Mauricio Font Charles Post Marc Edelman Jeremy Porter THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT THE LOGIC OF THE LAND: THE AGRARIAN ROOTS OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL by Chris M. Carlson Advisor: Mauricio Font This dissertation seeks to explain the highly uneven pattern of economic development in Brazil during the 20th century. Stark development differences between the northern and southern regions of the country have long been a problem of concern to scholars and policymakers and have generated a number of studies over the years. However, none of these have gotten to the root of the problem, and state policy has never adequately addressed the regional disparities. This study puts forth a new theory of uneven development based on the different ways that agricultural production has come to be organized in different parts of the world, and how this has impacted larger processes of industrialization and economic development. A comparative examination of the historical development of rural property relations in both the Northeast and Southeast regions of Brazil reveals how very different rural economies emerged in each place, and how this created major disparities not only in agriculture, but across much the rest of the economy. Rural property relations are shaped by historical processes of land appropriation and class struggle, and these processes are further elucidated through archival research in both regions. Statistical data on agricultural productivity and manufacturing are used to test the hypothesis that the regional differences in industrialization are due to fundamental differences in the rural economy. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a number of people that I would like to thank for their help in writing this dissertation. First of all, much of the research was funded by a Fulbright-Hays grant (#P022A180017) to Brazil, as well as various travel grants from The Graduate Center and the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies. I would like to thank them for the financial support that made the research possible. I would also like to thank Doug Yarrington who first introduced me to archival research in Latin America, and to Brad Barham who introduced to me the idea of studying agrarian change and development in Brazil. I would like to thank my committee members—Mauricio Font, Charles Post, Jeremy Porter, and Marc Edelman—for their continual guidance and comments on my work. I am especially thankful to Charlie for engaging with me at length about my ideas on development, and for faithfully reading and responding to all of my work from the very beginning of graduate school until the very end. His voluminous knowledge on a range of topics relevant to my work made him an invaluable resource, and his almost obsession with not only understanding social phenomena but also providing a clear and coherent explanation for the important sociological questions of the day is truly remarkable and a rare quality in academia. Mauricio, Jeremy, and Marc were also a pleasure to work with and provided important feedback on various elements of this project that made it better than it would have otherwise been. In Brazil, there were a number of people who facilitated my research and helped me gain access to important sources of information. I would like to thank the staff at Recife’s INCRA office, who were far more friendly and hospitable than they needed to be and made working with them a pleasure. I would also like to thank the staff at the National Archives in Rio de Janeiro, and the State of São Paulo archives who allowed me to access the documents I needed v in a quick and orderly fashion. Most important, was the enormous help and enthusiastic support I received from Felipe. He ended up being not only the best research assistant I could have ever asked for, but also a great friend and colleague. If nothing else of value comes from my research in Brazil, our friendship alone will have made it worthwhile. I would also like to thank my family and friends. To my mom, for her constant encouragement and support, for listening to me complain so much, and for tracking down and digitalizing important texts for me when I could not find them abroad. I don’t think she knows just how important those efforts were for helping me finish the project. Thank you to my brother Nicholas and my friend Shaun as well for tracking down sources and sending them to me on a couple occasions. And, to my dad, for instilling in me the importance of education and for placing value on intellectual pursuits. If not for that, I may not have taken this route in life. Most of all, I want to thank Iriana. I could not possibly express in words just how much she has helped me along the away, both intellectually and emotionally, and in keeping the wheels on the bus in the midst of so much uncertainty. She has been a constant sounding board for my thoughts and ideas from the beginning to the end and has helped me tremendously in thinking through the complex problems of Latin American development. Her keen observations and wisdom have greatly enriched my analysis and have forced me to think about a number of issues in ways that I otherwise would not have. And her family, struggling with the reality of Latin American development on a daily basis, has forced me to see these issues from their perspective, and to understand the problems of underdevelopment as more than mere theoretical questions to be debated among scholars. I hope I can somehow give back to them all they have given to me. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF FIGURES x INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: The Poverty of Development Theory 6 The Mainstream Approaches 8 The Brazilian Context 23 CHAPTER 2: Toward an Agrarian Theory of Uneven Development 34 Three Theses on Uneven Development 36 The Case of Brazil 57 CHAPTER 3: Economic Development in Colonial Brazil 59 Colonial Land Appropriation 61 Production Strategies 67 Technical change 71 Industrialization 76 CHAPTER 4: The Agrarian Roots of Economic Development in Southeast Brazil 82 Explaining São Paulo’s uniqueness 84 The early coffee economy 92 Immigrant labor 95 New rural property relations 101 CHAPTER 5: The Agrarian Roots of Underdevelopment in Northeast Brazil 117 vii Climate, Culture, and Capitalism 119 The traditional sugar economy 127 Land appropriation in the 20th century 131 Rural Productive Logic 136 Agricultural Productivity 149 CHAPTER 6: The Regional Concentration of Industrialization 155 Debating the origins 156 Agricultural productivity 159 Industrial growth in São Paulo 163 Regional concentration 169 Industrial growth in the Northeast 174 CONCLUSION 180 BIBLIOGRAPHY 192 viii LIST OF TABLES Table I: Percent of farms that employ various capital inputs ....................................................47 Table II: Immigrant and Brazilian farms by farm size in 1934 ..............................................110 Table III: Landholdings in the state of São Paulo, 1920 to 1940 ............................................114 Table IV: Landholdings in Paraná and Mato Grosso, 1940 to 1960 .......................................114 Table V: Landholdings in the state of Pernambuco, 1940 to 1960 ..........................................133 Table VI: Landholdings in the state of Pernambuco, 1960 to 1980 ........................................135 Table VII: Large unproductive farms in Brazil by state, 2010 ................................................150 Table VIII: Distribution of agricultural land in eastern Pernambuco, 2010 ...........................151 Table IX: Percent of farms that utilize modern technology, 2006 ...........................................152 Table X: Agricultural productivity by major regions of Brazil, 2006 .....................................153 Table XI: Investment in agriculture in major regions of Brazil, 1920 ....................................162 Table XII: Manufacturing value added by regions of Brazil, 2012 .........................................177 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure I: Global inequality at the end of the 19th century ..........................................................15 Figure II: Per capita manufacturing output in US dollars, 2010 ...............................................22 Figure III: GDP per capita