Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Economia Política

Contribuição à crítica da economia política da Amazônia

Eduardo Sá Barreto — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Este artigo busca contribuir para a crítica da economia política da Amazônia
partindo do exame do quadro recente de novo impulso extrativista
na região. A primeira seção discute a vulnerabilidade estrutural do bioma
amazônico, argumentando que a exploração de recursos naturais,
como o petróleo, deve ser compreendida dentro de uma lógica sistêmica
de expropriação e degradação ambiental. A segunda seção aprofunda
essa análise ao conectar a destruição da Amazônia ao colapso climático
e à crise estrutural do capitalismo, evidenciando como esses processos
se retroalimentam. Por fim, a terceira seção procura evidenciar algumas
limitações históricas, econômicas e geopolíticas das ideias desenvolvimentistas
e sua incapacidade de oferecer uma alternativa realmente viável
tanto às mazelas sociais quanto às ambientais.

MOTHER OR STEPMOTHER? FINANCIALIZATION, LOOT AND VALE COMPANY IN THE AMAZON

Gilberto de Souza Marques, Gedson Thiago do Nascimento Borges — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Based on Marxist categories, the article analyzes Vale's trajectory from a state-owned company to a private transnational corporation and its presence in the Amazon. It notes the expansion of foreign capital and financialization, assuming elements of speculation in the company's strategic decisions. At the same time, mineral extraction in the region intensifies, accelerating the depletion of reserves and generating enormous socio-environmental contradictions, which configures a process of spoliation and looting.

Concertação global do capital transnacional e o novo imperialismo:

Laís Benevenuto de Azevedo, Marisa Silva Amaral — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

In the wake of the transformations triggered by the processes of financialization and globalization of capital — developments that gained momentum especially from the last quarter of the 20th century onward — and the structuring of what we refer to here as the global concertation of transnational capital, we seek to shed light on two movements that unfold from this broader scenario and pertain to the capture of surpluses based on accumulation by dispossession: (i) the pursuit of resource conservation as biological reserves of future value; and (ii) the intensification and expansion of land exploitation, natural resources, and consequently, labor. In the first case, we highlight the role of major international conservationist NGOs tied to imperialist interests and the proliferation of multilateral environmental preservation agreements, with their direct implications for national economies. In the second, what stands out ranges from the productivity gains of the so-called Green Revolution beginning in the 1970s to the reorganization of dependent economies toward primary-export specialization, in the neo-extractivist wave that gains strength from the 2000s onward. In both lines of analysis, our focus is built upon a study related to the insertion — or instrumentalization— of the Brazilian Amazon within the described dynamics.

Além do fetiche amazônico

Helena Marroig Barreto — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Este artigo investiga criticamente as representações hegemônicas da
Amazônia, analisando como narrativas fetichizadas constroem a região
como um espaço abstrato e funcional à lógica da acumulação capitalista.
Argumenta-se que tais imagens apagam a complexidade socioecológica
amazônica, reduzindo-a a dinâmicas mercantis, processo intensificado
sob o neoliberalismo por meio do discurso de sustentabilidade. A partir
do conceito de fetichismo da mercadoria, o texto examina como a Amazônia
é permanentemente reimaginada por interesses do capital, desde
mitos coloniais até visões contemporâneas que a apresentam como “última
fronteira”. O artigo propõe que essas representações não são simples
falseamentos, mas relações de poder que organizam a sociabilidade e
cristalizam a dominação capitalista sobre o território. Por fim, discute-se
como a mercantilização contemporânea da natureza, sobretudo através
do paradigma de serviços ecossistêmicos, se organiza na região. Pondera-
se que no neoliberalismo, o ambientalismo se torna um vetor de
apropriação da natureza, internalizando e neutralizando lutas ecológicas.
Isso aprofunda a reificação da Amazônia e amplia os processos de
dominação e acumulação, ao mesmo tempo que apaga modos de vida
alternativos e a diversidade concreta da região.

Expropriation and accumulation by dispossession in the Amazon

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Investigates the process of dispossession and accumulation by dispossession in the Amazon, using the Castanhais Polygon in the Carajás region as a case study. Since the late 19th century, land has been transformed into a commodity through legal instruments—such as long-term lease agreements, rentals, and expropriations—legitimizing property transfer to private entities. Initially, Brazil nut extraction and other traditional land-use practices were carried out by indigenous populations and extractivist communities. With agrarian modernization and state intervention, especially from the Old Republic onward, a latifundist system was consolidated, first favouring the local elite and later large corporations. During the military period, the redefinition of land policies and the federalization of land intensified the privatization process, promoting deforestation and the conversion of forests into pastures, boosting cattle ranching expansion. In the re-democratization phase, agrarian reform measures and the redemption of long-term lease agreements highlighted the contradictions between public and private interests, generating social conflicts and perpetuating accumulation by dispossession. Thus, the study underscores the interconnectedness between legal transformations, socio-environmental impacts, and the spatial reorganization of the Amazon biome, emphasizing the importance of understanding how land, once a source of intrinsic use and value, was integrated into the global market.

Political Economy of Amazonian Women’s Bodies

Isabelle Neri, Daniel Pereira da Silva — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article examines the historical development of female prostitution in the Brazilian Amazon, with a focus on the cities of Manaus and Belém, through the analytical lens of the “body-territory” concept. This framework conceives bodies as extensions of space, intrinsically implicated in processes of territorialization and exploitation. The article argues that historically, external economic interests centered on the extraction of natural resources have shaped demographic configurations and defined gendered social roles within both capital accumulation and the reproduction of life. Within this context, prostitution, far from occupying a marginal position, has constituted a central component of the Amazonian economy—functioning as an organic mechanism of social and economic reproduction, structured by intersecting racial and gender inequalities. By linking the exploitation of territory to the exploitation of women’s bodies, the study demonstrates that prostitution is embedded in the power relations that shape space, economic dynamics, and the lived experiences of racialized women in the region.

Entre distrito industrial e terciário periférico:

Tiago Veloso dos Santos — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

O artigo apresenta a formação de metrópoles na Amazônia brasileira
como um processo resultante da economia política do programa de integração
executado na região na segunda metade do século XX, buscando
responder a seguinte questão: qual o perfil das estruturas econômicas e
espaciais que sustentam essas metrópoles? Tratando como referências
empíricas de análise as metrópoles de Belém e Manaus, identificamos
por meio de procedimentos metodológicos como a revisão de literatura
sobre as características da urbanização regional, coleta de dados estatísticos
sobre ambas, levantamento documental e produção cartográfica,
que as estruturas econômicas que se formaram nos dois principais
centros metropolitanos da Amazônia brasileira foram tanto um produto
das diferentes políticas de desenvolvimento para a região como também
se tornaram condição e meio de expansão do processo de urbanização
regional.

“PRIMITIVE” ACCUMULATION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

Cleidianne Novais Sousa Crispim, Sebastião Novais Sousa Crispim — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The objective of this article is to investigate the contributions made by Otávio Guilherme Velho, José de Souza Martins, João Pacheco de Oliveira and Bertha K. Becker on the theme of the frontier as an approach to analyzing the socioeconomic, historical and geographical formation of the Brazilian Amazon and to demonstrate the influence of the notion of continuity of primitive accumulation on these contributions. Using the comparative study method, we seek to highlight what is specific and peculiar to each of them, but, above all, we want to understand the similarities and similarities between these perspectives. Using the frontier as the main theme, the subthemes that stand out in this investigation of a part of the history of thought about the Amazon as a frontier are the reproduction of the peasantry, the role of the State, the coexistence of different social relations, the lack of conditions for full capitalist development and the dual nature, both agrarian and urban, of the frontier, issues of profound relevance for a more robust reading of the complex social reality in the Amazon and its historical, geographical and economic specificity in its articulation with capitalist expansion.

Ensinamentos amazônicos em tempos de crise ambiental e climática:

Suenya Santos — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article presents reflections on development and emancipatory struggles within the context of a civilizational crisis driven by the capitalist order, environmental degradation, and the climate emergency. It takes the Amazon and the teachings of its peoples as a reference point for reconstructing the sociometabolic order. The biome is marked by a rich sociobiodiversity that contributes to the balance of the global ecosystem as a whole, yet it faces extreme vulnerability due to the exploitation of its territory for mineral and agribusiness commodity production. The theoretical-methodological approach is grounded in historical-dialectical materialism, drawing on critical social thought through a dialogue between the fields of political economy critique and political ecology. The historical situation of the Amazon is considered emblematic of a predatory development model based on the plundering of common goods and the overexploitation of labor, with the State leading processes of territorial commodification. In this context of crisis, conflicts and challenges in the Pan-Amazon region are intensifying. The teachings of Amazonian peoples—through biocultural resistance and the defense of sociobiodiversity—should serve as a guiding horizon for emancipatory struggles, strengthening a set of strategies for an ecosocialist transition in alliance with class-based, anti-racist, and feminist movements.

Bioeconomy and Sociobiodiversity

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article aims to be an essay on bioeconomy and socio-biodiversity with the aim of presenting
these conceptual categories, seeking to discuss theis meanings and identify possible similarities and
overlaps. Furthermore, its context is to look up to reflect, in a preliminary way, how current
discourses around the term bioeconomy have been developed. At the same time, it intends to discuss
the bioeconomy and how the use of the term varies according to the agents involved. To this end, in
terms of methodological procedures, the work is exploratory, descriptive and bibliographic. In terms
of results, the work shows, based on the references analyzed, that one of the current aspects of
bioeconomy dialogues and presents similarities with the term sociobiodiversity, already used in
Brazil for some time, so that efforts around the construction of a definition of bioeconomy that
adheres to the Amazonian reality can be replaced by efforts to construct effective policies and action
plans for the necessary transformation in the productive paradigm proposed for the region.

Quando o dom se torna mercadoria fictícia:

Felipe Martins Dias, Gabriel Amoroso Lima Leite de Barros — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article analyzes the commodification of the Amazon by connecting the ideas of Karl Polanyi and Pope Francis. Though from distinct traditions—Polanyi's critique of the self-regulating market and Francis’s Catholic Social Teaching—both converge in denouncing the commodification of life and defending ethical and ecological limits to capitalist logic. Based on the concept of fictitious commodity and papal documents such as Laudato Si’, Fratelli Tutti, Laudate Deum, and Querida Amazonia, the article discusses how the forest, its peoples, and resources are treated as commodities. It identifies the Economy of Francesco as a contemporary countermovement proposing an economy centered on the common good, social justice, and integral ecology, in contrast to the logic of exploitation and commodification of nature.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF NATIONAL STRATEGIC CENTERS

Bernardo Salgado Rodrigues — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The Amazon is one of the main pillars of the green transition in the 21st century, one of the regions with the greatest strategic value for the accumulation of power and wealth in the international system. It is seen as a geostrategically valued area for the expansion of global capitalism, especially in the next scientific-technological cycles made possible by biogenetic wealth. This fact presents a dialectic between the growing expansion of external interests and the foundations for the sovereign autonomy of the South American, especially in Brazil. This article aims to discuss future perspectives for the political economy of the Brazilian Amazon, having as its central hypothesis the indispensability of national strategic centers for the elaboration of a Grand Strategy for the region. Using the qualitative method of primary and secondary bibliographic review, a discussion is called for a project of regional strategic autonomy based on political economy and international relations.

Apresentação

Comitê editorial — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Apresentação do número 72 (Especial Economia Política da Amazônia)

Carta de Campina Grande

Sociedade Brasileira de Economia Política — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Letter from Campina Grande prepared at the 30th National Meeting on Political Economy, held at the Federal University of Campina Grande (PB), July 8-11, 2025