Development as a process of cultural change: the connections between surplus and social structures in Celso Furtado’s vision

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present Furtado’s vision of surplus and social structure, suggesting that a rereading attentive to these two elements allows a better understanding of his work. For Furtado, surplus is the starting point for a broader apprehension of development, since it gives scope for community choice and processes of social transformation. In his earlier works on development and underdevelopment, he already insisted on how surplus and social structure defined lifestyles and the process of accumulation itself. Furtado’s approach to the relations between surplus and social structures acquires new contours in the 1970s, taking on account the transformations in the international economy and peripheral industrialization. The interaction between economic, cultural and political factors provides new contours to the notion of surplus. The article thus provides a review of the uses and significance of the notion of surplus in Furtado’s thinking.