{"id":14611,"date":"2020-06-05T17:27:23","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T21:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiplier-effect.org\/?p=14611"},"modified":"2020-06-05T17:52:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T21:52:32","slug":"eulogy-for-carlos-lessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/eulogy-for-carlos-lessa\/","title":{"rendered":"Eulogy for Carlos Lessa"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have translated this eulogy on behalf of the Economics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where I have spent many of my years of economic formation. Carlos Lessa is part of a generation of brilliant Brazilian economists that have shaped the public debate and the discipline in Brazil. This is an effort to pay homage and make more visible the work and life of scholars whose writings are hardly ever translated into English but who are extremely important to our education.<\/em><\/p>\n

This Friday June 5th at dawn,\u00a0Carlos Lessa, Professor Emeritus of the Institute of Economics and former Rector of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) has passed away.\u00a0This is a time of mourning for our community.\u00a0Lessa was a brilliant professor and for several\u00a0decades\u00a0has been systematically considered by students as\u00a0the best in class.\u00a0As an intellectual,\u00a0he was a big interpreter of Brazil\u00a0and especially of Rio de Janeiro, a\u00a0city that for him was the epitome of what is best and worst in\u00a0our country\u00a0. In addition to his many classes, he was a man of his time and a\u00a0brilliant speaker, known for his\u00a0very influential and extremely popular talks and speeches.\u00a0His hundreds of lectures, from a world before the existence of the internet, are of immeasurable\u00a0importance and impact, particularly in the\u00a0most difficult years of our history,\u00a0during the military dictatorship regime, when the\u00a0circulation\u00a0of information was often restricted\u00a0by the\u00a0fear and action of censorship.<\/p>\n

Lessa was not a\u00a0typical\u00a0academic;\u00a0he would not spend his time locked in an office talking\u00a0only to his peers.\u00a0Some of his works,\u00a0especially his books, were immensely popular.\u00a0His Introductory Economics manual, written together\u00a0with the brilliant and deeply missed Ant\u00f4nio Barros de Castro, was, together with the famous The Economic Growth of Brazil<\/em> by Celso Furtado[1]<\/a>, one of\u00a0the best-selling economics works\u00a0in all of Brazilian editorial history. His book Quinze Anos de Pol\u00edtica Econ\u00f4mica<\/em> (Fifteen Years of Economic Policy)\u00a0perhaps his main academic work, showed his strength as a historian.\u00a0His book\u00a0Rio de todos os Brasis<\/em> (Rio de Janeiro of all Brazils) is an example of another aspect of his personality:\u00a0the\u00a0admiration and love for the city he was born in.\u00a0For him, Rio, the city that represented the country’s potential, became a testament to the national socioeconomic imbalance and distance and to the\u00a0demographic of poor quality of life.<\/p>\n

In addition to being a professor and academic, Lessa was a defender of democracy and an activist for the renewal\u00a0of economists’ thinking. He was one of the founders of the Instituto dos Economistas do Brasil<\/em> (Institute of Economics of Brazil) and president of the Conselho Regional de Economia do Rio de Janeiro<\/em> (Regional Council of Economics of Rio de Janeiro).\u00a0At UFRJ he occupied several important functions over the decades: he was director of the Economics Institute, he was dean of CCJE (Center for Economic and Legal Sciences)\u00a0and was Rector of the University.\u00a0He actively participated in party politics and in the movement for the democratization of Brazil. He was director of the Brazilian Development Bank[2]<\/sup><\/a> (BNDES) during Sarney\u2019s presidency and President of the Bank during Lula\u2019s first year of presidency.<\/p>\n

Lessa was an enthusiast and defender of the public university.\u00a0He recognized the importance of the institution in national formation, in the production of knowledge and reflection about the country.\u00a0In\u00a0addition, he emphasized\u00a0the important role\u00a0held by the public university\u00a0in creating opportunities for talented young people whose alternatives were often limited by obscene and persistent social inequalities in Brazil.\u00a0He proudly taught and trained many undergraduate\u00a0and graduate\u00a0students in\u00a0action\u00a0\u2014 having been\u00a0awarded honorary titles during graduation ceremonies by many classes\u00a0throughout his teaching career.<\/p>\n

Lessa was a nationalist and patriot in the classic sense, not to be confused with the vulgarity and superficiality with which these terms have been recently used in Brazil. His nationalism implied a generous view of the Brazilian people and its profound democratic conviction. He wanted Brazil to become a cosmopolitan society, but one that would dialogue with the world from its own perspective, elevating its roots and affirming its interests and qualities. He recognized us as the heart of Latin America, where the people of the world would meet. And hoped \u2014 and fought \u2014 for our society to overcome its history of inequality and economic and social backwardness. Lessa is one of the last historical developmentalists. He is part of Brazil\u2019s legacy, one that brought to the world modernist projects and cultural innovations. The Brazil of Oscar Niemeyer, Glauber Rocha, Clarice Lispector, Jo\u00e3o Celso Martinez Correa, Jo\u00e3o Gilberto, Ant\u00f4nio Carlos Jobim, Milton Santos, Celso Furtado, Ant\u00f4nio Barros de Castro, Maria da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o Tavares and others.<\/p>\n

We, members of the Economics Institute of UFRJ, pay our tribute to this great professor and provide our\u00a0solidarity and sentiments to his family for the loss.\u00a0This\u00a0is\u00a0a particularly heavily felt loss, at a severe moment\u00a0of our history,\u00a0where people with knowledge and contagious\u00a0love for our popular culture and national history,\u00a0commitment to democracy and\u00a0optimism and\u00a0energy\u00a0are deeply missed.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> The economic growth of Brazil<\/em> is one of the few Brazilian economics books that has been translated into English. Celso Furtado was the author of several books, one of the founders of the Brazilian developmentalist school and a prominent scholar of ECLAC. He was a professor of Lessa and Barros de Castro and of huge influence to their work.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> In Portuguese, the full name literally means National Bank for Social and Economic Development. The bank was founded in 1952 and was originally called BNDE. Lessa was one of the defenders and most responsible for adding the S, in 1982, to its name, making explicit its commitement to social development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have translated this eulogy on behalf of the Economics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where I have spent many of my years of economic formation. Carlos Lessa is part of a generation of brilliant Brazilian economists that have shaped the public debate and the discipline in Brazil. This is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[647,1159],"class_list":["post-14611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brazil","tag-carlos-lessa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14611"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14620,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14611\/revisions\/14620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/multiplier-effect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}