Dados é uma das principais e mais longevas publicações nas ciências sociais no Brasil. Criada em 1966, divulga trabalhos inéditos e inovadores, oriundos de pesquisa acadêmica, de autores brasileiros e estrangeiros. Editada pelo IESP-UERJ, é seu objetivo conciliar o rigor científico e a excelência acadêmica com ênfase no debate público a partir da análise de questões substantivas da sociedade e da política.
Dados vol. 27 n. 2 Rio de Janeiro 1984
Resumo
This article is an attempt to reorient the terms in which the Brazilian left has dealt with the population issue. Specifically, the objective is to take the discussion beyond the narrow anti-Malthusianism that has characterized it during the sixties and seventies. The recent historical development of the debate is summarized, and the several, sometimes mutually incompatible, viewpoints existing among various sectors of the Brazilian left are criticized in some detail: the pro-natalist position, which holds that population growth is a positive factor in the national development process; the determinist viewpoint, which sees the gradual decline of fertility as a natural response of individual families to economic development, requiring no special government policies; the tendency which considers population policy under capitalism to be manipulative or even harmful to the prospects of social revolution, even though similar policies under socialism may be approved of; and finally, the more recent position of certain sectors of the left, notably the feminists, Who advocate the extension of the access to modem means of fertility control to the poor. The latter position, however, is ambivalent, to the extent that government initiatives in this area are still rejected on the grounds that they have anti-natalist intentions. The conclusion is that the continued anti-Malthusian focus of the debate on family planning in Brazil is counter-productive. While the government ·sponsored and private programs are open to criticisms of authoritarianism and misleading propaganda, none of the perspectives discussed offer convincing arguments for the wholesale rejection of official family planning initiatives.
A Esquerda Brasileira e a Questão Populacional: Uma Abordagem Crítica
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