FINANCIALIZATION AND EXTRAORDINARY PROFIT UNDER THE "BOOM OF COMMODITIES"

Abstract

The present work deals with the economic and financial determinations of our time that allow large international capitals to use commodities, or raw materials, to maintain their routes of accumulation, concentration and centralization despite the serious crisis of existing profitability. To this end, we explain, initially, the main axes that determine our situation and, then, we systematically present the mechanisms that exist in the global socioeconomic structure that enable the aforementioned movement of the main capitals. The qualitative dimension of the socio-environmental destruction caused by the production of commodities, such as the case of iron mining in southeastern Pará, which is the subject of our doctorate still in progress, could not be addressed in this article. However, without being aware of these general mechanisms and their meanings in the world economic order, we will not understand the strength and centrality that this type of activity has today. We hope, with this work, to contribute to the criticism of the political economy of our increasingly dark times.