The fiction of the Spanish economic miracle in the light of the financial crisis

Abstract

This article starts by drawing the turning point in the development of capitalism, describing a change marked by a new growth model based on the extensive use of labor and the extraction of absolute gains. The deformed growth of the Spanish economy will be analyzed as a symptom of the new forms of capital accumulation and profitability dominant in recent years. From this starting point, the goal is first to analyze the effects of economic financialization on the strategies and corporate governance of industrial corporations, always considering that this influence is dependent on the institutional and social structure of the territories on which financialization operates. Through the study of two specific sectors (automotive and software manufacturing), we try to explore the main features of the organizational changes that will lead to new patterns of production and to evaluate some of its effects on the conditions of production and reproduction of the social structure: how, on the one hand, this has meant a restructuring of the power of the global ruling classes through the formation of large international oligopolies and, secondly, a profound reorganization in the forms of workforce consumption.