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Transformations in the Brazilian and Korean Processes of Capitalist Development between the Early 1950s and the Mid-2010s: From Global Capital Accumulation to Late Industrialisation

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Published Oct 2023

Nicolás Grinberg

Author: Nicolás Grinberg
Challenging mainstream nation-centred theories of economic development, Nicolás Grinberg examines the specificities of capitalist development in Brazil and South Korea by starting from their modes of participation in the international division of labour and hence in the production of surplus value on a global scale. Contrary to those theories, he does not consider these as resulting simply from the economic policies of nation states and their associated political institutions; nor from local class-struggle dynamics or geopolitical developments. Rather, drawing on key insights from Marx’s critique of political economy, his analysis begins by recognising that the process of capitalist development is global in terms of its economic dynamics and historical trends, and national only in its political and institutional forms of realisation. State-mediated patterns of economic development and institutional change in Brazil and Korea, as well as the intra- and inter-state political processes through which these have come about, are then considered mediations in the conformation and reproduction of the nationally differentiated, uneven process of capital’s valorisation on a global scale.

Biographical Note

Nicolás Grinberg, PhD. (2011), London School of Economics and Political Science, is independent researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council and associate professor in Comparative Economic Development at the Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Social Studies of the National University of San Martin. He works on the political economy of capitalist development from a comparative-historical perspective. His work has been published in New Political Economy, the Journal of Contemporary Asia, Latin American Perspectives and Third World Quarterly, amongst others.

Readership

Research institutes, academic libraries, specialists, post-graduate students, policymakers, political activists, economic analysists, political analysts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Graphs and Tables

Introduction
0.1 State-centred accounts: neoliberal and statist approaches
0.2 Global capital accumulation and the development of the East Asian and Latin American national economies
0.3 Summary and conclusions

Part 1 The Specificity of the Brazilian and Korean Processes of Capitalist Development

Introduction to Part 1

1 Capital Accumulation in Brazil and Korea: An Overview
1.1 Capital accumulation and the Brazilian state
1.2 Capital accumulation and the Korean state
1.3 Summary and conclusions
Appendix

2 The Valorisation of Capital in Brazil and Korea
2.1 Valorisation of the total social capital and of the portions invested in the industrial and agrarian sectors
2.2 Rate of profit of social, industrial (manufacturing) and agrarian capital
2.3 Surplus value in the form of ground-rent
2.4 Inflows of aid resources and interest-bearing (loanable) capital
2.5 Summary and conclusions

3 Determinants of the Valorisation Capacity of Industrial Capital in Brazil and Korea: The Steel, Automotive and Semiconductor Industries
3.1 Development of the system of machinery and the productive attributes of the collective worker in large-scale industrial productions
3.2 Summary and conclusions
Appendix 3.1: The determinants of the rate of valorisation of industrial capital in the Korean, Japanese and Brazilian steel industries
Appendix 3.2: The rate of valorisation of industrial capital in the Korean and Japanese automobile industries
Appendix 3.3: Brazilian, Korean, Japanese, Argentinian and Mexican automotive industries: base data

4 Growth and Development Characteristics of the Brazilian and Korean Processes of Capital Accumulation
4.1 Economic growth
4.2 Industrial exports
4.3 Labour productivity in the industrial sector
4.4 Individual and collective characteristics of the industrial labour-force
4.5 Cost and reproduction patterns of the industrial labour-force
4.6 Labour-market institutions and working-class political representation
4.7 Summary and conclusions
Appendix: Tables A4.1–A4.17

Part 2 Historical Development of the Brazilian and Korean Processes of Capital Accumulation

Introduction to Part 2

5 Brazil and Korea up to the mid-1960s
5.1 Brazil: From nationalistic to developmentalist populism
5.2 Korea: From autocratic democracy to electoral autocracy
5.3 End of chapter conclusions

6 Brazil and Korea between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s
6.1 Brazil: From ‘corrective inflation’ to the ‘economic miracle’
6.2 Korea: From the ‘democratic restoration’ to the Yusin Republic
6.3 End of chapter conclusions

7 Brazil and Korea between the early and the early 1980s
7.1 Brazil: From the first ‘oil shock’ to the ‘debt crisis’
7.2 Korea: From the Heavy and Chemical Industry Plan to the Comprehensive Stabilisation Programme
7.3 End of chapter conclusions

8 Brazil and Korea between the early 1980s and the early 1990s
8.1 Brazil: From the IMF ‘stabilisation’ programme to the hyperinflation crisis
8.2 Korea: From the Kwangju massacre to the Great Workers’ Struggle
8.3 End of chapter conclusions

9 Brazil and Korea between the early 1990s and the early 2000s
9.1 Brazil: From the neoliberal reforms to the neoliberal crisis
9.2 Korea: From the conservative coalition to the ‘democratic market economy’
9.3 End of chapter conclusions

10 Brazil and Korea between the early 2000s and the mid-2010s
10.1 Brazil: From neoliberalism to neodevelopmentalism
10.2 Korea: From ‘participatory government’ to ‘post-democracy’
10.3 End of chapter conclusions

Summary and Conclusions of the Book

Appendix A: The qualitative and quantitative determination of the capitalist ground-rent
Appendix B: Methodological bases and sources
Appendix C: Statistical tables
Databases consulted
References
Index