A Firma chegou, pesou, levou, aí vai tirar seus bilhões (...), mas o agricultor não sai daqueles centavos: expropriação e resistências camponesas na Amazônia paraense

Abstract

Whenever peasant formations are in some way in direct relation to sectors of the capitalist economy, the debate arises about their permanence or subsumption. In this paper I deal with this subject, and I present as a working hypothesis that the contracts made between family farmers and oil palm companies do not turn them into a class for capital, but they compose particular ways for capitalism to promote their expanded reproduction. Using the ethnographic method I show that in the Amazon the expansion of oil palm contains all the elements identified by Marx in what he called primitive accumulation, and that this does not constitute an obstacle to capitalist existence, on the contrary, proves Rosa Luxemburg's central thesis. According to Luxemburg, "As a historical process, the accumulation of capital progresses from beginning to end in a medium consisting of various precapitalist formations, and in constant political confrontation, maintaining endless economic exchange with them." Thus, and in view of today's context, the author's theoretical scheme is current and valid.