Cultivating giants: Capital centralization and diversification of the activities of Brazilian construction firms at the end of the civilmilitary dictatorship

Abstract

This essay analyses the process of concentratingproduction in a small number of firms in the heavyconstruction sector during the final period of theBrazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985), aswill as the process of diversification of the activitiesof those firms during the same period. Drawingon a Marxian theoretical framework to analyzethis process, this double movement is seen as acentralization of capital and also as a search forsectors with the highest profit rates, due to thereduction of profit margins in the constructionsector as a result of stabilization and the reductionof government investment in public works. During the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s we seethe formation of an oligopoly in that market andthe beginnings of a process of expansion in theactivities of those business groups, which givesrise to the consolidation of large and diversifiedbusiness conglomerates.