From the 'Miracle' to the 'Lost Decade': intersectoral transfers and external credit in the Brazilian economy

Abstract

The present paper examines the Brazilian experience from the 'Economic Miracle' to the 'Lost Decade'. Its aim is to advance an alternative measurement of the flows of extraordinary wealth (i.e. ground-rent and net external credit) available for appropriation in the Brazilian economy and to asses their relevance in sustaining the process of accumulation of industrial capital. That is done in order to provide further and more accurate evidence to the claim that the evolution of the Brazilian process of capital accumulation has been extremely dependent on the evolution of those masses of extraordinary wealth.

On the Brazilian ground-rent appropriated by landowners

“…By then, the existence of an increasingly large industrial reserve army dispensed capital to rely on politically expensive solutions to push down wages (Grinberg, 2013a). Grinberg (2008Grinberg ( , 2013b presented an estimation of the magnitude of Brazilian (agrarian and mining) ground-rent appropriated by capital, crucially in the industrial sector, between 1955 and 2005. Figure 1 reproduces the results of those measurements.…”

“…The goal of the present paper is to complete the measurements of the historical evolution of the Brazilian ground-rent advanced in Grinberg (2008Grinberg ( , 2013, presenting an estimation of the portion appropriated by landowners. In pursuing this goal, this paper will put forward the methodology and original estimation of a group of macroeconomic time-series that are also required for the analysis of the long-term performance of the Brazilian economy.…”

“…The third section presents an estimation of the ground-rent appropriated by landowners in Brazil. Fourth section puts together the results of the previous section with the measurements presented in Grinberg (2008Grinberg ( , 2013b to produce an estimation of the total ground-rent available for appropriation in Brazil. Fifth section assesses the relative importance of ground-rent in the the production and appropriation of social wealth in the Brazilian economy.…”

The Political Economy of Venezuela's Bolivarian Cooperative Movement: A Critique

“…8 See Iñigo Carrera (2007), which pioneers the analysis of the effects of key public policies upon the appropriation of ground-rent -in this case in Argentina. Grinberg (2008) has subsequently used this approach in the analysis of the Brazilian economy to assess the fl ows of extraordinary wealth (ground-rent) in sustaining the process of accumulation of industrial capital.…”

Notas metodológicas para el cálculo de la renta de la tierra petrolera

“…Cabe aclarar que existen otros mecanismos de distribución de la renta luego de que es apropiada por los terratenientes, por ejemplo cuando ésta se pone en el banco y hay una tasa de interés negativa, o en el caso de que la renta sea apropiada por el Estado, todos sus gastos son formas de transferencia de renta. Sin embargo, corresponde calcularlas a posteriori, ya que son transferencias que sí aparecen en la comparación de tasas de ganancia.17 En la actualidad, existe un trabajo sobre los mecanismos de apropiación de la renta de la tierra agraria en Brasil(Grinberg, 2008). Los autores del presente trabajo nos encontramos desarrollando, en gran parte con base en su metodología, estudios sobre la renta petrolera en Venezuela.…”