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STATE, CLASS AND INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL 2: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRASILIAN STEEL INDUSTRY
Author(s) -
FOOT S.P.H.,
WEBBER MICHAEL
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8330.1990.tb00210.x
Subject(s) - foreign direct investment , capital (architecture) , foreign capital , commodity , scale (ratio) , investment (military) , state (computer science) , business , capital investment , production (economics) , private capital , market economy , economics , economy , political science , finance , geography , macroeconomics , cartography , archaeology , algorithm , politics , computer science , law
This paper examines the forces underlying the development and form of the Brasilian steel industry since the 1930s. Foreign direct investment has been limited by Brasilian nationalist policies and by higher costs of steel production, but large scale, integrated plants could not be built by private capital due to insufficient resources. Thus the Brasilian steel industry combines large scale state owned plants (financed by foreign capital) and smaller scale privately owned plants. The operations of the plants are coordinated to reduce market uncertainty, permit the steel sector to advocate its own expansion plans, and delimit the spheres of public and private capital while excluding foreign commodity and productive capital. Even so, in the 1980s the steel industry in Brasil has faced a crisis of declining local demand, prompting a rapid expansion of exports.