The business community and the Estado Novo dictatorship: the case of the rise of the Klabin/Lafer group during the Vargas governments

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of business during the Vargas governments between 1930 and 1945, with an emphasis on the Estado Novo period. Given the recent discussions and research on corporate responsibility for violations of human rights, especially those of workers, we problematize this issue in the Vargas dictatorship. We deal with the economic benefit and high exploitation of the workforce during the Estado Novo, specifically analyzing the case of the Klabin/Lafer industrial group, which benefited greatly from the policies adopted during the period and which then had great economic rise. Based on documents from the memory center maintained by the business group, as well as other primary sources produced in that historical period, we verified the economic emergence of the Klabin/Lafer group and pointed out the need to discuss the business responsibility of economic groups that were favored not only by the military dictatorship, but also by the State of exception established in Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s.