This paper reinforce somes ideas, which were expressed in the past quarter of century in the document that originated the SUDENE, and analyses them accordingly to the events of last decades. The conclusions are that the main guidelines (1) The need of a transformation in the agrarian structure and (2) The priority that should be given to industrialization as a dynamic element of regional development, both continuing being valid. In relation with the industrialization process, the necessity of a wide connection between industry and local market (which gives to the industrialization the character of an instrument of social homogeneity) is highlighted.

This paper shows us that the causes of Latin American indebtedness must to be analyzed from two sides. On one side the transformations that took place in the inter-national financial market and generated an anomalous increase in the supply of credit by the international private banking. On the other side, the economic liberalism that the authoritarian regimes embraced and their social and political necessities to reward the middle-class supporter which led them to increased the debtedness much beyond their capabilities of payment. Considerations are also given to explain why the debtors countries have managed to “reschedule” the existing debt individually and not to bargain collectively. Problems and consequences of a “default” by Latin American countries are also analyzed in this paper.

This paper analyses the Brazilian external debt negotiations which followed the international financial system disruption precipitated the Mexican moratorium. The emphasis is on Brazil-IMF agreements. We divide the negotiations in two rounds, accor-ding to the external financial needs for 1983 and 1984, respectively. Our main conclusion indicates that there will be no economic growth prospects for some years ahead if the present negotiation model is maintained. New conditions, such as longer terms and lower rates of interest, are basic requirements for solving the Brazilian Balance of Payments problem.

As a way out for the indebtedness crisis the economists of the World Bank and the IMF have been advocating the outward looking development’s thesis. The degree of the opening of the economy and the dynamics of the foreign trade were promoted to the level of true indicators of development without concern with the social and ecology costs of the exports. The inadequacy of this strategy for the third world countries, the feasibility of a moratorium and the advantages of a introverted growth, mainly in the Brazilian case, are analyzed in this paper. Some obstacles which Brazil will face in the retake of economic growth are also focused.

The purpose of the paper is to trace the essential connections between the work of Marx and the foundations of capitalist economic dynamics. The main point is that Marx’s “laws of motion” of the capitalist economy have been thought to be effective at the level of capital in general, whereas a theory of capitalist economic dynamics as such must lead to more con-crete determinations, which cannot arise unless the level of competition, or the “plurality of capitals”, is fully taken into account. After a short introduction, the 2nd section discusses four different notions of compe-tition that can be found in The Capital, underlining the one concerning the economic laws of motion, whereby every capital seeks to get surplus profits by means of new methods of production and new products, leading to relative surplus value production. But competition still emerges here in its general features, which do not suffice to establish a dynamic theory. The 3rd section concludes this paper raising some basic elements needed to develop such a theory. After a preliminary discussion of the reasons to dismiss the equilibrium paradigm in a dynamic economy and of the role of time — both historical and theoretical —, it doses with a reference to the theoretical forms of dynamics: instability, crisis, trend and business cycle, where emphasis is put in the last two.

In discussing economic growth, an important role is attributed to small industries which would generate employment and distribute income to the poor urban population. The real facts have not confirmed this hypo-thesis, although small production units continue to represent the majority of industrial and service firms and contribute with a large share of the GNP, employment, wages and taxes, in spite of an increasing concentration of capital and the centralization of economic power in large conglomerates. This apparently contradictory movement of capital in its process of accu-mulation and reproduction suggests that small firms are not condemned to disappear but tend to assume new and different functions, however subor-dinated, dependent or complementary to large conglomerates, in the process of capitalist production.

After summarizing a model of autonomous or administered inflation presented in an another paper, the author analyses the Keynesian and the monetarist policies of controlling inflation. Finally they discuss at lenghty an alternative policy of price stabilization — an administrative policy —based on price controls and programmed deindexation, associated with moderate groth of the economy and followed by monetary and fiscal adjustment.