Finance, extraction and logistics as axes of the third neoliberal moment in Latin America

Alessandro Peregalli

doi:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.1.0047

Abstract

With the notion of ‘operations of capital', focused on the interaction between the dimensions of finance, extraction and logistics, authors such as Mezzadra and Neilson have highlighted some ‘underlying transformations of capitalism’ that go well beyond a generic idea of neoliberalism as ‘the hegemonic circulation of economic doctrines or processes of deregulation and governance'. The aim of this article is to investigate the strong articulation of finance, extraction and logistics in Latin America by focusing on the creation of new infrastructural corridors in the continent during the ‘third phase’ of neoliberal hegemony in the region. This article brings together elements from the so-called ‘critical logistics studies’ literature with a range of other theoretical perspectives, including insights from the work of David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi, Michel Foucault and Saskia Sassen. It applies this theoretical background to the Latin American reality, drawing on regional-specific literature and general data using a trans-disciplinary perspective.

Highlights

In recent years, the concept of logistics has developed as an important theoretical lens for the analysis of contemporary capitalist transformations
Even the construction of infrastructure is largely considered in the Latin American literature to be, almost exclusively, an extractive operation which has a significant impact on the territory as well as on the dispossessed populations, without considering its fundamental role in the advent of so-called supply chain capitalism
Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2015:1) proposed to connect the logic of extractivism and extraction both to finance, whose growing tendency is ‘to penetrate and subsume economic activity and social life as a whole’, and to logistics, ‘the art and science of organizing the turnover of capital to maximize efficiencies of transport, communication, linking, and distribution’. These two authors suggest that it is important to understand the way in which extraction, finance, and logistics interact and coexist in contemporary capitalism by using the concept of ‘operations of capital’, with an operation seen as ‘a moment of connection and capture that exhibits the materiality of even the most ethereal form of capital’

Summary

Introduction

The concept of logistics has developed as an important theoretical lens for the analysis of contemporary capitalist transformations. Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2015:1) proposed to connect the logic of extractivism and extraction both to finance, whose growing tendency is ‘to penetrate and subsume economic activity and social life as a whole’, and to logistics, ‘the art and science of organizing the turnover of capital to maximize efficiencies of transport, communication, linking, and distribution’ These two authors suggest that it is important to understand the way in which extraction, finance, and logistics interact and coexist in contemporary capitalism by using the concept of ‘operations of capital’, with an operation seen as ‘a moment of connection and capture that exhibits the materiality of even the most ethereal form of capital’. If we understand that extraction, finance and logistics are, the emerging dimensions of today’s global scale capitalism, this approach in no way denies the unevenness of this development, or the historical, social and geographic specificities it incorporates

The three phases of neoliberal penetration in Latin America

An infrastructural platform for the export of commodities

Geopolitical uncertainties and the projection toward the Pacific