Financialized growth regime and capital accumulation in Brazil: geopolitical and institutional factors of the recent collapse and beyond

Abstract

This paper discusses the factors that contributed to the collapse of the hegemonic bloc that enabled the governability of the Workers’ Party in the period 2003-2016. It is based on the view that in order to understand the economic and political-institutional crisis, it is necessary to analyze the deepening financialization of Brazil, a periphery country, and the way in which rentier accumulation operates in the consolidation of US power in Latin America. The empirical evidence revealed the existence of endogenous factors for the crisis, factors that were already present in the Brazilian economy before the cyclical deterioration that started in 2014. With the end of the commodity price boom, profit and accumulation rates began declining. The recession that started in 2015, coupled with the social discontent stimulated by mainstream media, was conveniently used by national economic groups aligned with the geopolitical interests of the hegemonic nation, the US and its allies. This is representative of a hybrid war aimed at the Workers’ Party government. The econometric results, in addition to corroborating this interpretation, detected the existence of an export-led growth regime between 2001 and 2019 that articulates with financial interests. This is the result of the strong external demand for Brazilian commodities, which refutes the interpretations that considered it a typical finance-led growth or, in a surprisingly optimistic perspective for a country marked by a high concentration of income and stock of wealth, a wage-led growth regime.