ECONOMIC THOUGHT, DEVELOPMENT PLANNING, PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract

The paper analyzes the discourse of economists in Maranhão State development plans. lts point of departure is the assumption that the power effects (Foucault) produced by the discourse of economists are, in nowadays societies, the reason why one can observe, as suggested by Schumpeter (History of Economic Analysis), a correlation between Economic Thoughf and public policies, that is, the discourse of economists is the concrete means by which, at present times, Economic Thought turns into public poIicies. Its aim is not make a resumed or systematic exposition of such discourse but show clearly its connections with the condition and the position (Bourdieu) of the social agents that produce it as well as make explicit the procedures of control (Foucault) that condition its production. Such an analysis brings a critical purpose implicit: it shows that both public problems and policy solutions are not objectively defined but socially built. The discourses that have the quality of establishing public problems or the ones that are recognized as being able to give answers are not worse nor better than any other. They produce power effects not because they are true but because they are socially accepted as being true.