O Estado Liberal, O Desenvolvimento Económico e a Crise dos Anos 90 do Século XIX: João Crisóstomo de Abreu e Sousa e José Frederico Laranjo

Joao Crisostomo de Abreu e Sousa and Jose Frederico Laranjo were important figures of the Portuguese political panorama of the second half of the 19th century. Both of them having belonged to the Partido Progressista (Progressive Party), they still keep very relevant differences from each other in terms of doctrinaire leaning. The attitudes concerning tariff-protection are emblematic of those differences, thereby serving also as an illustration of the character of mere “party of notables” that was a defining trait of that political formation. Such differences coexist, however, with deeper cleavages separating these authors, partly attributable to differences of generation, but certainly not just to that aspect. Laranjo was an author with a general strong leaning to state intervention in the economy and to socialism, whereas Crisostomo was mostly a liberal that chose to keep faithful to a free-market orientation, even facing the economic hardships that Portugal had to endure in the 19th/20th turning of the century, or especially facing them.