O avanço do fenômeno da financeirização do ensino superior em tempos de crise estrutural do capital

Abstract

Based on the structural crisis of capital, there is a context of accumulation with predominance of finance, supported by the triad: productive restructuring, neoliberalism and financialization. In this sense, from the 1970s onwards, surplus profits not reinvested in industrial production began to migrate to other sectors, especially services. In the case of peripheral capitalist countries such as Brazil, the process of financialization of social areas is highlighted with higher education, from the expansion and massification of this segment in the private sphere. Thus, this study aims to investigate the phenomenon of financialization in the current context of the structural crisis of capital and the consequences of this process in Brazilian privatemercantile higher education. The investigation presented here is of a theoretical nature with bibliographic research referenced from the perspective of Marxian ontology, of a historical-dialectical character. To this end, its main theoretical contribution was the contributions of Marx (1985, 1986, 1996); Lukacs (1978, 2018); Engels (1987); Lenin (2012, 2017); Mészáros (2002, 2003, 2008); Tonet (2005, 2012, 2013); Alves (2011a, 2011b, 2016); Antunes (2003, 2005); Chesnais (1996, 2000, 2005); Harvey (1996, 2005, 2008); Leher (1998, 2010); Paulani (2005, 2006, 2009); Chaves (2010, 2019, 2020); Sguissardi (2008, 2015), among others. The dynamics of financial predominance in Brazil is strongly associated with rent-seeking from interest income, especially investments in public and private bonds, in addition to being a national phenomenon that occurs in a subordinated way and dependent on foreign capital. With regard to the educational services sector in the country, the phenomenon of financialization is practically consolidated in private-mercantile Higher Education, starting to advance in Basic Education. The active role of the State in this process and serious consequences in both cases are evidenced. By analyzing the consequences of financialization in Brazilian private-mercantile higher education, this thesis shows that, as long as we are under the yoke of capital, education and other social complexes will continue to represent lucrative commodities without limits in the forms of commodification incorporated. Therefore, the interests of capital profitability can always lead it to migrate to other areas, according to the intensification of the structural crisis and the search for more attractive rates for capitalist accumulation. At the end of this study, we leave another important reflection: the State does not have the role of reversing the presented financialization picture, on the contrary, the State representes the dominant class, being the complementary command structure of capital. Regardless of the instance in which it operates - public or private - its nature is the same. If capital is uncontrollable, so is the pursuit of profitability, and the State will always be ready to make life easier for capital, supporting it in the task of investing in new market niches and further expropriating the field of work.