Crisis and Neoliberal Restructuring: The Political Economy and Structural Adjustment of the B in Brics

In the first decades of the 21st century, the BRICS countries, initially grouped together in 2001 by Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, were heralded as emerging nations poised to drive global economic growth. Often cited as an alternative model to neoliberal globalization, the BRICS have since experienced decades of unstable and unequal economic growth, economic crises, political upheavals and military conflicts. As new countries join the group, it is timely to reassess the earlier expectations placed upon these nations.

The presentation focuses on Brazil, examining the structural adjustments of the state and the profound transformations following the crisis from 2013 to 2015, which unfolded as part of the global economic crisis. Since then, Brazil has undertaken numerous neoliberal reforms, including the constitutional limitation on public spending, pension, labor and union legislation reforms, as well as restricting loans by state banks and the operations of public pension funds to favor transnational capital, granting autonomy to the Central Bank, and increasing parliamentary control over the public budget at the expense of the Executive Branch. These measures have significantly altered the state's intervention capacities and shifted the balance of power among social classes and class fractions.

The primary aim of these reforms was to restore profit rates and modify power relations within the state and enterprises, leading to the weakening of unions and labor-oriented parties, increased capital remuneration, and the strengthening of companies and activities linked to transnational capital. The hypothesis posited here is that the Brazilian bourgeoisie unified in favor of neoliberal reforms for the restructuring of the state, updating the forms of incorporation into global capitalism in a context of political confrontations and instability since 2015. The presentation will provide research findings on Brazilian companies and entrepreneurs, gathering interviews, documents, relevant data and statistics from the period.