Dr. Brasilia and Mr. Nacala: The Apparent Duality Behind the Brazilian State-Capital Nexus

Abstract

In August 2010 Brazil attracted the attention of the world because of its strong position against foreign direct investments (FDIs) in land. Legitimized by a widespread campaign against the foreignization of national land, the General Attorney Office issued a new legal opinion that imposed procedural and quantitative limits in the acquisition of land to Brazilian companies which were under foreign control. However, less than one year earlier, in September 2009, the Brazilian and Japanese government had concluded a trilateral agreement with Mozambique to implement agribusiness and contract farming over more than ten million hectares of land situated in the the Nacala Corridor. In this paper, I analyse this apparent duality in the attitude of Brasilia and conclude that, exactly like in the case of the the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, we are not facing a pathology, but a voluntarily induced dual personality which is functional to the consolidation and reproduction of the global capitalist system.

Keywords: law and development, land grabbing, BRICS, neo-colonialism, sub-imperialism, accumulation by dispossession, state mode of production