THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF UDN'S JURISTS

Abstract

This article exposes the economic views of the main jurists of the political party UDN (União Democrática Nacional — National Democratic Union), such as Afonso Arinos, Aliomar Baleeiro and Bilac Pinto. Maria Victoria Benevides' thesis sees in these actors an archaic and vague economic discourse. On the other hand, this text identifies on them a relatively stable conception of economics crossed by impositions of political and legal order. They had rather more a politicized view of the economy, coherent with the kind of liberalism advocated by such actors, than an absence of reflection on the field. For these UDN jurists, the leading role in the ordering of the social world belongs to the Law, not to the market. This article also shows that these jurists did not ignore their contemporary economic theory, but that they belonged to a different political tradition. Their proximity to the main issues of the period did not mean a denial of the past, but the actualization of certain traditions, such as the centrality of the state, lately in discredit.