Liberalism follows a grammar when representing voluntary social relationships that involve some element of exchange; it reduces them to relations of pure exchange. This paper examines the transmission of this grammar across cultural lines, from the progressive officials comprising Brazil’s Workers’ Party government (2003–2016) to the inhabitants of the country’s northeastern backlands (sertão) whose ‘clientelistic’ politics the officials sought to dismantle. By analysing sertanejos’ abandonment of the once-common practice of displaying campaign propaganda on their homes, I hope to explain the political implications of the spread of this grammatical logic – what I call the reductio ad cambitas – to a people who have long embedded political transactions within elector–politician ‘friendships’.

中文翻译：

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Reductionio ad cambitas：巴西东北部自由化的语法

自由主义在表示涉及某些交换元素的自愿社会关系时遵循一种语法；它把它们简化为纯粹的交换关系。本文考察了这种语法跨文化线的传播，从组成巴西工人党政府（2003-2016 年）的进步官员到该国东北部偏远地区 ( sertão )的居民，官员们试图消除他们的“客户主义”政治。通过分析sertanejos放弃曾经在他们家中展示竞选宣传的普遍做法，我希望解释这种语法逻辑传播的政治含义——我称之为reductio ad cambitas – 对长期将政治交易嵌入选民-政治家“友谊”中的人民。