Cimento e corporativismo no Estado Novo

This chapter contributes to an understanding of the technological dimension or Portuguese corporativism. Drawing on doctoral research about the cement factory production space of Maceira-Liz owned by the Empresa de Cimentos de Leiria (ECL), I focus on the technology that made the difference in the broader Portuguese production panorama of the time — rotative ovens. I have also considered the factory as an essential historical object to understand, not only the development of the building and construction project during the Estado Novo period, but also its material role as an experimentation site of social and economic policies of the corporative regime. Assuming the existence of a co-construction process between the material‑ ity of cement and the corporative regime, I have used recent approaches to the history of science and technology to follow the articulation of the actual prac‑ tices manifested by individual engineers and scientists and the development of authoritarian regimes. The Maceira-Liz site sets the example regarding the ways in which both factory plant and social organisation have been conceived and designed hand in hand, as a whole. This is where a set of equipment and corporative solutions were built and tested as a pilot-project, to be later imple‑ mented in the Portuguese territory (social housing quarter and chapel in 1930, and the first “Casa do Povo” (House of the People) in the new regime, in 1934). As a first experimentation, it also provided solutions for the organisation of the cement industry regarding the “Condicionamento Industrial” (an instru‑ ment of State-planned economic development) and paved the way to the first Portuguese “Federação das Caixas de Previdência” (the first national federa‑ tion of welfare, security and pensions bureaus) in 1939. The complex negotiation between the ECL and the state government between 1929 and 1932 led to the official approval of certification and quality assessment practices regarding cement production in the Portuguese indus‑ trial context (1930). This contributed to the quality regulation of the national cement to be deployed in the building and construction of national harbours by the state (1932). The process ended with success mainly because of the ini‑ tiative, perseverance and technical supremacy of the ECL; it was determined by the network of relations established between the individual actors from the factory laboratory with those of a number of university and state laboratories in Portugal (Laboratório de Química Analítica do Instituto Superior Técnico, Laboratório de Ensaios de Materiais Estatal), as well as in Europe. The public works plan associated to Oliveira Salazar’s inauguration as Pres‑ ident of the Council of Ministers in July 1932 had started in June 1929, under the state budget devised by him as former Minister of Finances. The budget gave priority to communication infrastructures — roads and harbours with high demands of cement — and it was essential for the infra-structuring of the corporative internal and external market. By analysing how this cement factory developed relationships with the state, I hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the process of implementation and institutionalisation of the corporative regime and illustrate the essential role of cement in the materiali‑ sation of the Estado Novo regime in Portuguese territory