First published in 1981, The Logic of Poverty consists of eight essays that look at rural structure and the role of the unemployed 'reserve army', the state of the sugar industry, the ineffectiveness of the irrigation schemes, the stagnation in the fishing sector, and the lack of credit available to peasants in Northeastern Brazil.

Preface 1. Introduction 2. Rural structure, surplus mobilisation and modes of production in a peripheral region 3. Hunger in the Northeast 4. The hungry imagination 5. On the relationship between the subsistence sector and the market economy in the Parnaiba valley 6. Stagnant peasant capitalism 7. Innovation and social structure 8. Irrigation in the Brazilian Northeast 9. State and society in Northeastern Brazil