O representante das classes produtoras: análise da trajetória de João Daudt d’Oliveira (1930-1951)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes aspects of the performance of Brazilian business leaders between 1930 and 1951 in search of a common dialogue between the industrial and commercial sectors and the efforts to meet their demands and create channels of interference with the government through analysis of the trajectory of João Daudt d'Oliveira. Daudt had a pharmaceutical laboratory and developed a long career as a representative of the business community. He was friends with Getúlio Vargas. They were colleagues at the Faculty of Law of Porto Alegre. He was elected director of the Commercial Association of Rio de Janeiro (ACRJ) in 1930 and two years later, he was one of the founders of the Brazilian Economist Party, a political association whose objective was to formulate a platform common to the interests of the "producing classes" . In the 1940s, Daudt was invited to be a member of the National Labor Council (CNT), as well as other councils - the National Petroleum Council and the Fiscal Council of Banco do Brasil. He organized and coordinated the Brazilian section of the Inter-American Trade and Production Council (CICYP) in 1944, and participated expressively at the International Business Conference in Rye, United States (1944), representing developing countries, advocating thesis of the social function of capital, in which private enterprise is presented as a possible instrument of social peace. Daudt was one of the most active organizers of the first Brazilian Congress of Economics (1943) and the Conferences of the Producing Classes of Teresópolis (1945) and Araxá (1949). He was also one of the founders of the "Carta da Paz Social", along with Roberto Simonsen, president of the Federation of Industries of São Paulo. The document systematized a series of formulations for entrepreneurship in social welfare projects through private initiative, which culminated in the creation of social services of the industry and commerce (SESI and Sesc, respectively). Considering the elements that gave it the legitimacy to be recognized as spokesperson for the producing classes at different times and through the analysis of its trajectory, its insertion in different networks, which included from political groups, entrepreneurs and intellectuals, it was possible to identify strategies of the Brazilian business community in order to obtain representation of their interests. These strategies included political participation - via political party - such as participation in strategic channels of access to government in the period analyzed.