Abstract

The article aims to discuss aspects of the contemporary Brazilian political economy,
showing how Brazilian large manufacturing entrepreneurs acted in defense of their interests
in the dispute over the design of economic policy throughout the Partido dos Trabalhadore
(Workers’ Party) governments between 2003 and 2016. It is argued that is possible
to identify an inter-class dispute over the definition of four macroeconomic prices – the profit
rate, the interest rate, the exchange rate, and the wage rate – which places industrial capitalists
sometimes against the rentier sector, sometimes against the labor movement in Brazil.

JEL Classification: E60; O1; P00; Z13.