Paul Singer

Bio

"Professor Paul Singer, Austrian economist and tireless promotor of the Solidarity economy in Brazil, died at age 86 (see RIPESS). Below is an interview with Professor Singer by the International Sociological Association.

Paul Singer is one the most distinguished intellectuals of the Solidarity Economy in Brazil and in the world. His publications include: Desenvolvimento e Crise [Development and Crisis] (1968), Desenvolvimento Econômico e Evolução Urbana [Economic Development and Urban Evolution] (1969), Dinâmica Populacional e Desenvolvimento [Population Dynamics and Development] (1970), Dominação e desigualdade: estrutura de classes e repartição de renda no Brasil [Domination and Inequality: Class Structure and the Distribution of Income in Brazil] (1981) and Introdução à Economia Solidária [Introduction to the Solidarity Economy] (2002). He was born in Vienna, Austria, and moved to Brazil in 1940. In 1953, at the age of 21, Singer was a militant of São Paulo’s Steelworkers Union and a leader of a historical strike that lasted for over a month. In the 1960s he merged his militant and intellectual activities, starting his career as professor of Sociology and Economics at the University of São Paulo, also studying Demography at Princeton University. At the end of that decade his political rights were revoked by the military dictatorship and he helped found the well-known think tank Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). After his return to teaching, Singer helped launch the Worker’s Party (PT) and then became São Paulo’s Municipal Secretary of Planning and later the National Secretary of Solidarity Economy. Here he describes his experiences with the Solidarity Economy and how such initiatives can contribute to a more equal world. Paul Singer is interviewed by Gustavo Taniguti, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo and Renan Dias de Oliveira, a professor at the Fundação Santo André, Brazil." (https://ussen.org/2018/04/19/an-interview-with-solidarity-economist-paul-singer/?)