The Logic of Poverty: The Case of the Brazilian Northeast

First published in 1981, The Logic of Poverty consists of eight essays that share at least one assumption: that Northeast Brazil provides a startling example of inhumane economic development. The contributors have all worked in the area, and know it at first hand. They look at rural structure and the role of the unemployed ‘reserve army’, the state of the sugar industry, the ineffectiveness of the irrigation schemes, the stagnation in the fishing sector, the lack of credit available to peas...