Resumo

In discussing economic growth, an important role is attributed to small industries which would generate employment and distribute income to the poor urban population. The real facts have not confirmed this hypo-thesis, although small production units continue to represent the majority of industrial and service firms and contribute with a large share of the GNP, employment, wages and taxes, in spite of an increasing concentration of capital and the centralization of economic power in large conglomerates. This apparently contradictory movement of capital in its process of accu-mulation and reproduction suggests that small firms are not condemned to disappear but tend to assume new and different functions, however subor-dinated, dependent or complementary to large conglomerates, in the process of capitalist production.