Conclusions

The evidence presented in the preceding chapters has an important bearing upon existing interpretative generalisations about the political motivations of economic policy making during the First Republic, briefly reviewed in the Preface to this book. Even though the works by Pelaez and others had the merit of stressing the resilience of orthodox doctrines within influential circles — a rather uncontroversial fact at the time and not only in Brazil — the evidence presented in the present study certainly does not support their strong claim about the permanent orthodox bias of actual economic policies. After its heyday at the time of Finance Ministers Murtinho and Bulhões, which can be conceived as the culmination of a reaction launched by orthodox opinion after the monetary explosion and exchange rate collapse of the early days of the Republic, orthodoxy was always on the defensive, only temporarily regaining enough influence to carry policy proposals through in the mid-twenties, when great external, fiscal and monetary disequilibria recurred. The explanations put forward in the preceding pages for the motives of the adoption of the gold standard in 1906 and 1926 as well as the policies actually followed during, for instance, Epitácio Pessoa and early Bernardes governments can hardly be said to have an orthodox inspiration — notwithstanding public men’s frequent utterances in favour of ‘sound finance’ — and were, in fact, carried out against the views held by the most representative sectors of orthodox opinion.