Updating the Center-Periphery Relationship in the Light of the Financialized Capitalism: the case of the Brazilian subordinate financialization

Abstract

The article aims to show how financialization intensifies the subordination of peripheral economies in relation to the central ones, focusing on Brazil. Financialization is defined as a systemic pattern of wealth, driven by financial liberalization after the collapse of Bretton Woods. The integration of peripheral economies into this hierarchical global market of currencies and financial assets occurs unequally, with peripheral countries attracting speculative capital through high interest rates and deregulation. The article analyzes the process of financialization in Brazil since the 1980s, proposing a periodization that reveals how Brazil’s economic structure consolidated a specific type of financialization.