The internationalization of nuclear industry: state and capital in atomic relations

This paper analyzes the causes and scope of the nuclear energy diffusion process in the capitalist world. It also aims at explaining Brazil's role in this process. The study contemplates two main concepts that are, here, considered to be driving and directing vectors: the World Capital and the Capitalist State. According to the expanded reproduction logic, World Capital forms the world nuclear productive subsystem, which commands and directs, in this process, hundreds (or thousands) of productive units, regardless of their geographical location, nationality or capital control. Thru the utilization of available public intervention tools, the Capitalist state has favored the formation of the world nuclear productive subsystem, thus guiding the accumulation process in the interior of this system. Therefore, the conclusion of the Nuclear Cooperation Agreement between Brazil and Germany and the resultant establishment of the Brazilian Nuclear Program (following the authoritarian model of public administration), is well fitted in the general dynamics of subordination/articulation of the Brazilian economy to the world economy and, particularly, to the world nuclear productive subsystem. (author)