Circulação do capital, Estado e redes técnicas no capitalismo contemporâneo: as ferrovias no Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Permeated by contradictions and disputes, Brazilian railways were historically structured as instruments primarily aimed at transporting goods from the interior to the ports, subordinating the national territory to the logic of external markets and neglecting their public role in national integration and metropolitan and regional mobility. This pattern was reinforced by the privatization of the Federal Railway Network in the 1990s, which consolidated a model of accumulation by dispossession: it privileged large economic groups to the detriment of territorial and collective needs, removed people from the tracks, and specialized the system in commodities. The objective of this dissertation is to understand the circulation of capital and technical networks in contemporary capitalism by analyzing the railway structure of the state of Rio de Janeiro and interpreting the new demands associated with emerging economic projects in the Fluminense territory, as well as the contradictory and conflictual role of the State itself in the (dis)articulation and feasibility of railway and logistical plans. To this end, the study combines a literature review, document analysis, and empirical observations, grounded in references from economic geography, political economy, and public policy. Among other evidence, the dissertation shows that the railway network, far from being neutral, expresses disputes between class fractions and competing societal projects. When subordinated to market forces, in Brazil it tends to reinforce export corridors; by contrast, when treated as a state policy, it can fulfill functions of regional integration, economic restructuring, and expanded metropolitan mobility. In this sense, the research identifies that the economic future of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil depends on the political choices made regarding railways: whether to reproduce a model of dependence and dispossession—also materialized in the tracks—or to build another territorial and social configuration in which technical networks, especially railways, are oriented toward collective needs and toward a horizon of sovereignty and social justice.