Fernando Henrique Cardoso is a Brazilian sociologist and political scientist. He was a professor of Sociology at the University of São Paulo (USP) and was also the 34th president of the Brazilian Republic. FHC's sociological theories, as he is known, talk about the late industrialization of Brazil and other Latin American countries. With the Chilean sociologist Enzo Falleto, the former Brazilian president developed his dependence theory , different from the theory of the same name developed by sociologists with a socialist orientation.
Read also: Democracy:political system based on popular participation
Biography of Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Fernando Henrique Cardoso was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, on June 18, 1931 . At an early age, he moved to the city of São Paulo, where he studied Sociology at the University of São Paulo (USP) and married sociologist and anthropologist Ruth Vilaça Correia Leite Cardoso, also a student and future professor at USP. The couple had three children.
After joining as a professor of Sociology at USP, FHC witnessed the civil-military coup of 1964 and was persecuted by the military who took power. From 1964 onwards, FHC first went into exile in Chile , where he met the also sociologist Enzo Falleto, with whom he would develop important works on the development of Latin America, moving to France at the end of his exile.
In 1968, FHC returned to Brazil and got the job Emeritus Professor of Sociology at USP. In the same year, the future president was compulsorily retired due to the issuance of Institutional Act number 5, AI-5, enacted by President Costa e Silva during the most repressive years of the Brazilian military dictatorship.
In 1978, FHC began his career in Brazilian politics, running for the Senate as an alternate for elected senator Franco Montoro. In 1982, Montoro was elected governor of São Paulo and FHC assumed his position in the Brazilian Senate . In 1984, the future president actively participated in the movement Diretas Já!, who fought for the establishment of direct elections for president in Brazil after the signs of the end of the military dictatorship. Until then, FHC was a member of the MDB party, which was the opposition party allowed by the military government.
In 1985, FHC ran for mayor of the city of São Paulo, losing to his opponent Jânio Quadros, of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB). FHC managed to be reelected senator in 1986, holding the position until 1993, when he was appointed Minister of Finance by President Itamar Franco . In 1988, after the total political opening, FHC was one of the collaborators for the foundation of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), listed by MDB dissidents dissatisfied with party politics.
In 1992, President Fernando Collor de Mello, elected in 1989, was impeached, and his deputy, Itamar Franco, took over the government and appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso as his Finance Minister. FHC had the difficult mission of putting an end to the hyperinflation that had hit Brazil since the previous decade, reaching rates of 700% rise in the prices of consumer products. To eradicate inflation once and for all, FHC put into practice the Plano Real , which reduced inflation and stabilized the price of the Brazilian currency.
In 2002, FHC ended his government, being succeeded by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. From then on, ex-president FHC began to write and provide political advice , living both in Brazil and in his apartment in Paris. In 2008, Ruth Cardoso, his wife, passed away. In 2014, the former president married Patrícia Kundrát, then executive secretary of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation.
See also: Social inequality:sociological concept related to social classes
Books by Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Fernando Henrique Cardoso wrote and published, as a sociologist and politician, more than twenty books. The main ones are listed below:
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Social Changes in Latin America :published in 1969, in Brazil, the book talks about the events in Latin America that, at the time, involved the dispute between the socialist and capitalist blocs in the Cold War and the insertion of these countries in the context of industrial globalization.
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Latin American dependency and development :written with Enzo Falleto, the book talks about the need for an economic union of Latin American countries for industrialization and development. The theory of sociologists was opposed to the idea of socialist revolution proposed by most sociologists of the time.
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Authoritarianism and democratization :in this book, FHC defends a peaceful redemocratization of Brazil, which was already living, at the time, under the military dictatorship.
Government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Fernando Henrique Cardoso ruled Brazil between 1995 and 2002 . In this period, the economy was stabilized after years of economic recession, which was caused by the high expenditure of military governments on international economic policy in the 1970s. There was also a big privatization movement during the FHC government. The president sold it to the private sector and placed a large part of Brazilian public companies on the financial market (stock market).
These privatization policies earned acclaim from sectors linked to the liberal right (who were anxious for the stabilization and growth of the financial market in the country) and criticism from sectors more aligned to the left (who they wanted the growth of the public machine for greater income distribution).
The FHC government passed the approval of the financial sector , but faced a lot of criticism from the lower sectors of the population, who wanted full employment, but also access to health, education, housing and decent food. These problems were only partially resolved with the basic reforms proposed by later governments.
Party
At the beginning of his political career, FHC was affiliated with the MDB (Democratic Mobilization of Brazil), which opposed Arena (National Renovation Alliance), the official party of the military government. In 1978, with the possibility of political opening to other parties, FHC participated in the creation of the PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia do Brasil), party in which he remains affiliated to the present day.