Economist, who is being honored by IE, says she is pessimistic about the country's situation
Economist Maria da Conceição Tavares, 87 years old, former professor at the Institute of Economics (IE) at Unicamp, is retired, but continues to be an astute observer of political and economic events in Brazil. Precisely because she is alert, she says she is extremely worried about the situation in the country. “I'm very pessimistic because the conditions are terrible. We have been stagnant for two years. We have never experienced such a strong crisis. This didn’t even happen in the 1930s,” she analyzes, in reference to the so-called Great Depression.
Conceição Tavares is being honored throughout the month of August by IE, her home, through the “Economy and Thinkers II” event. Until the 30th, several lectures and debates will be held around the economist's work, which offered important contributions to the understanding of different themes, including underdevelopment. In a telephone interview with Journal of Unicamp, from Rio de Janeiro, where she lives, she said she was humbled by the honor. “I sent a thank you to the event organizers, but I think the initiative was a little excessive,” she says.
The economist claims to have great esteem for Unicamp, where she helped train the University's first generation of economists. “Several of them continue working at Unicamp and other institutions”, she recalls. Urged to talk about the current situation in Brazil, Conceição Tavares does not spare the word, one of its most striking characteristics. Regarding the government of President Michel Temer, the intellectual does not make any concessions. “The attitudes of this government have served to worsen the country’s situation. In fact, this is not a government, but a misgovernment”, she defines.
The recently approved labor reform, in the economist's opinion, is an example of the setbacks imposed by the current policy of Temer and his supporters. “This measure has the clear objective of ending the CLT [Consolidation of Labor Laws], which dates back to the Vargas era. This will have serious repercussions, such as deepening the precariousness of work,” she points out. And she continues: “Now, they are discussing pension reform. This government has no legitimacy to conduct this matter. It is an illegitimate government that is falling apart. He has no morals to do anything; he just does nonsense.”
Asked if she sees the 2018 elections as an opportunity to get the country back on track, Conceição Tavares once again shows extreme distrust. “My son, to begin with, I hope there is an election next year. I have doubts about that. After all, haven't we already had a white coup? So we can have another one. Furthermore, there is no suitable candidate. There is no one on their side. On our side there is Lula, but they are doing everything possible and impossible to neutralize him. It’s all very dark,” she concludes.
The event “Economy and Thinkers II” is organized by the IE Documentation Center team and is coordinated by professor Giuliano Contento de Oliveira. In the first edition, the person honored was Celso Furtado. The tribute to Conceição Tavares, according to the professor, comes from the importance of the economist's vast contribution to the economy in general and to IE in particular. “For the economy, the professor contributed in an exemplary way to the understanding of the phenomenon of underdevelopment and the challenges posed for the Brazilian economy to break out of this condition. For IE/Unicamp, the professor was not only one of the founders of the first postgraduate course in economics at Unicamp, in 1973, but she was also one of those responsible for introducing the historical-structural method into the “Escola do IE/Unicamp” for understanding economic phenomena, together with the other disciples of Raul Prebisch and/or Celso Furtado”, he points out, in an interview on the IE website.
About the tribute:
IE pays homage to the work of economist Maria da Conceição Tavares
Read more in issue 658 of the Unicamp newspaper, June 2016
