The Fourth Transformation Confronts Financial Capital: From Neoliberalism to Disconnection
Oscar Rojas
Abstract
This article examines Samir Amin’s theory of “disconnection” as a strategic framework for understanding Mexico’s contemporary confrontation with global financial domination. Drawing on Amin’s argument that capitalist unipolarity can be countered through nationally directed development and democratic social planning, the paper situates disconnection as a pathway toward genuine multipolarity. It analyzes how neoliberal integration into the U.S.-centered international financial architecture — rooted in dollar hegemony, securitization, and the subsumption of productive and commercial capital under financial capital — has subordinated national development to the speculative imperatives of global oligopolies. Through a historical reconstruction of Mexico’s entry into financial domination after the 1994 crisis, the article shows how privatization, currency devaluation, and the autonomy of the central bank institutionalized the dominance of transnational capital and fostered systemic corruption. Against this backdrop, the article interprets the Fourth Transformation as an emergent process of disconnection, marked by austerity measures aimed at reducing current expenditures, the recovery of public investment capacity, and the rebuilding of public banking as a tool for socially oriented credit creation. By linking Marxist value theory, geopolitical shifts in the declining unipolar dollar order, and the political economy of financialization, the paper argues that reclaiming public credit, strengthening productive sovereignty, and reasserting state control over strategic sectors constitute essential steps toward breaking with neoliberal financial subordination and advancing a national-popular strategy of development.
Keywords
Marxism, Mexico, Samir Amin, neoliberalism, dollar hegemony, unipolarity, multipolarity, public banking, Fourth Transformation, Marxist political economy, national development, privatization, central bank autonomy, speculative capital, productive sovereignty, public investment, global oligopolies, value theory, Oscar Rojas
