On the evolution of the economic coordination organisms connected with farming (II)

Abstract

This, article is the fourth chapiter of a larger study, that started in the no. 56 of Análise Social, on the historical trajectory of the main «economic coordination» organisms connected with the primary sector in the Portuguese economy that were created by the Salazarist State: namely the National Juntas of Wine, Fruit and Cattle-breeding products, the Institutes of Cereals, Olive Oil and Oleaginous products, and the Viticulture Council of the Green Wine Region. In the present chapter, one tries to trace a descriptive picture of the action that such organisms developed effectively and of the place that they occupied in the life of the sectors «coordinated» by them. One begins with a global reference to their «deviations» and «degeneracy» during the war (1939-1945), that were to be corrected only, in part and, after all, gave them their character and a public image. In the next number of this review, one will presente a synthetic description of their activity in each one of the five fields studied here: Wine, fruit and horticultural products, cattle-breeding, olive oil and oleaginous products, and cereals. In the conclusion, one will resume the issue of general order, suggesting some hypotheses for the interpretation of the described facts and making a reference to the problems and trends following the fall of the Salazarist regime, after having analyzed the ideological and institutional evolution occurred between 1936 and 1974.