Pobreza e subdesenvolvimento sob o manto das rendas petrolíferas – uma análise do processo de desenvolvimento do Norte Fluminense, a partir da realidade de Campos dos Goytacazes

Abstract

The socioeconomic dynamics and territorial occupation of North Fluminense were historically determined by the production of sugar cane, which has enabled land concentration and the intensive exploitation of the labor force at low costs. Since the 1990s, with the implementation of neoliberal policies, the region has gained prominence and expansion of oil exploitation and production and some of the cities that comprise it have higher levels of per capita budget in the country. Despite all the wealth generated by this economic activity, the process of capital accumulation was not sufficient to reduce socioeconomic inequality, creating a suis generis situation for theoretical analysis and public management, which some researchers in the region characterize as "The challenge of abundance". In general, this is an unusual situation because the economic problem consists in dealing with the scarcity of resources, and in this context, it has been shown that the abundance of monetary income in a specific territory also does not result in a substantial increase in socioeconomic indicators and the reduction of poverty it occurs the opposite. In this sense, based on the observation that development in the North of the State of Rio de Janeiro is marked by the maintenance, reproduction, and intensification of socioeconomic inequalities, the present study aims to analyze of both regional and national factors that influenced the contradictory development process in this region, in a historical context in which the accumulation of capital with the different production matrixes has not managed to minimize the economic inequality in the region. Starting from a structuralism approach, we intend to analyze regional development from a theoretical and empirical perspective, adopting the following procedures: a) bibliographic review to understand the economic development and the historical elements that influenced the regional development process; and b) descriptive statistics to show the theoretical analysis with the socioeconomic reality of North Fluminense from the 1990s, also besides, to note the repercussions of the oil economy. Campos dos Goytacazes city was chosen as a spatial feature to portray the example of the contradictions that this accumulation process engendered in the region. It might also be observed that North Fluminense coexists with the concomitant existence of regional and national elements that lead to specialized growth in this territory and make it dependent on decisions related to the interest of financial capital, so that the capital accumulation process does not result in the effective economic development, from a Furtadian perspective. Thus, although North Fluminense has generated an immense volume of wealth during the last decades, it is noted through the historical-structural analysis that the regional socioeconomic structure remains characterized by the reproduction and permanence of aspects of underdevelopment such as social inequality, high levels poverty and low economic dynamism.