Transnational Corporations and Capitalists from the Global South: Natura & Co. and the IEDI

• Author: Thiago Aguiar,Pedro Micussi
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221114824
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221114824

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 246, Vol. 49 No. 5, September 2022, 86–99

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221114824

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

86

Transnational Corporations and Capitalists from

the Global South

Natura & Co. and the IEDI

by

Thiago Aguiar and Pedro Micussi

Translated by

Clara Baeder

The Brazil-based company Natura & Co. became a transnational corporation, the

world’s fourth-largest cosmetics corporation, by restructuring its Brazilian operations,

becoming a publicly traded corporation, and expanding its international presence with the

acquisition of the Australian company Aesop, the British company The Body Shop, and

the iconic Avon International. The political action of one of the company’s founders, Pedro

Passos, as president of Brazil’s most important business think tank, the Instituto de

Estudos para o Desenvolvimento Industrial (IEDI), helped shift the stance of that institute

toward transnationalization strategies, structural adjustment and economic opening

policies that benefited transnational corporations, revealing tensions within the Brazilian

capitalist class.

A Natura & Co. tornou-se uma corporação transnacional sediada no Brasil, a quarta

maior empresa de cosméticos do mundo, após reestruturar suas operações brasileiras, abrir

seu capital e expandir sua presença internacional com a aquisição da companhia australi-

ana Aesop, da britânica The Body Shop e da icônica Avon International. A ação política

de Pedro Passos, um dos fundadores da empresa, como presidente do mais importante

think tank empresarial brasileiro, o Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento

Industrial (IEDI), contribuiu para alterar a orientação desse instituto em favor da pro-

moção de estratégias de transnacionalização, de políticas de ajuste estrutural do Estado e

de abertura econômica que beneficiaram corporações transnacionais, revelando tensões no

interior da classe capitalista brasileira.

Keywords: Global capitalism, Transnational corporations, Corporate strategies,

Transnational capitalist class, Brazilian capitalist class

Thiago Aguiar is a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas and a for-

mer visiting researcher (2016–2017) at the University of California, Berkeley. Pedro Micussi has an

M.A. in sociology from the Universidade de São Paulo. Clara Baeder is a translator living in São

Paulo. The authors thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, the

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, the Fulbright Commission, and

the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (grant #2019/26020-4) for grants that

resulted in this work. Previous versions of the article were discussed in the Fourth ISA Sociology

Forum in 2021 and in the forty-fourth annual meeting of ANPOCS in 2020. They also thank ISA

Research Committee 2: Economy and Society and ANPOCS Working Group 40: Society and

Economic Life for comments that enriched the manuscript and Clara Baeder for the translation.

1114824LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221114824Latin American PerspectivesAguiar and Micussi/Transnational Corporations and Capitalists from the Global South

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