Resumo

ELSENHANS, Hartmut. The Impending Threat of Rent Globalization and the Defense of Capitalism by Labor. Convergencia [online]. 2019, vol.26, n.81, 01. ISSN 2448-5799.  https://doi.org/10.29101/crcs.v26i81.12179.

Globalization does not necessarily lead to a world system of capitalist economies. Under the prevailing conditions of labor disempowerment, capitalism is too weak to transform rent-based underdeveloped economies. Globalization is driven by currency devaluation which transforms new comparative advantage into cost competitiveness. The major check on devaluation, full employment does not work in most cases. In order to globalize capitalism, labor in the South would have to be empowered. At theoretical level, a neoliberal understanding of capitalism as against Keynesianism blocks an understanding of the importance of mass consumption to maintain capitalism. At political level, mass movements, where they exist in the South, are captured by secular or cultural nationalism. An increasingly fragmented multipolar system emerges where rent-seeking is promoted by governments.

Palavras-chave : globalization; rent; Keynesian macroeconomics; international relations; class struggle; development.