Recent trends in the financial field in Brazil and their impact on the political scenario

Abstract

During the last decade Brazil has witnessed the expansion and differentiation of its financial field, with a major impact on society and the composition of its elites. I analyze this process based on data concerning the new players and the instruments they disseminate in companies and other organizations in Brazilian society. These include both financial instruments per se and organizational tools based on the same logic. I seek to demonstrate that the quest for legitimacy for new players and instruments has led to a new cultural judgment on what constitutes society's "common interest", which drastically constrains action by the different governments and partially explains the paradoxes faced by the Lula administration in its first year.

Keywords

• sociologie économique
• sociologie des finances
• arbitrage
• guerre culturelle
• culture économique