Brazilian Sanitary Reform and the nature of the State: critical notes on the agrarian issue

Abstract

Since the birth of the Brazilian Sanitary Reform movement, its intellectuals presented a particular reading about the role of the State in the social constitution and development of the productive forces. The analysis of this view is fundamental for understanding the limits of the State apparatus in the political choice made by such movement. Therefore, this study aims to critically debate with the formulations about the nature of the State, the category of ‘citizenship’ and its specificities in underdeveloped countries. This critical path is used to analyze the Sanitary Reform praxis on the relationship between health and agrarian issues in Brazil. Thus, we opted for the textual type of an essay. Overall, the nature of the State in underdeveloped countries can be rethought from global economy. That nature imposes on the State the role of (re)producer of capitalist relations, characterized by a particular violence politically presented in the form-regime of restricted legitimacy. Such violence is closely linked to exploitative relations in the countryside and is essential in the
development of capitalist accumulation. This argument seems to be important to rethink the centrality of the agrarian issue within the sanitary movement.