This thesis explores the conditions of neoliberal power through the lens of finance as a specific form of social mediation. Based on the recognition that neoliberal financialisation is mediated by financial forms that are characterised by a high degree of abstraction, the conceptualisation proceeds through an immanent critique aimed at tracing out the social sources behind them. In doing so it seeks to uncover the deep structures that make neoliberal power possible yet which tend to remain misrecognised through the refraction produced by its apparent forms. The highly financialised economy of Sweden serves as the concrete case for examining this social phenomenon. Neoliberal power, it is argued, derives its strength from a deepening fetishism that naturalises the alienated condition of the globalised capital relation, ultimately rooted in the way that money absents its own social source. This absenting gives rise to the false but necessary narcissistic social consciousness upon which the process as a whole relies. The absence of a concept of money’s own absenting in theories of neoliberal power tends to reproduce the detotalizing abstraction that the process itself depends on, with implications for the possibility for transformative change.

Faster, Higher, Stronger, translation of the Latin ―Citius, Altius, Fortius‖, motto of the modern Olympic Games, is used in this dissertation to make an analogy to the superexploitation of the sugar cane cutters of Alagoas (Brazil), as they increasingly need to perform faster, accumulate higher quantities of sugar cane and strike more strongly with their machetes, to guarantee the surplus value for the sugar factory owners of Alagoas.Our intention is to demonstrate how this professional category underwent an excessive exploitation, that could only result in damage to health and indelible marks in its corporeity, since the category was exposed throughout life to long working days, to the intensification of their work, and to the expropriation of the work necessary for their personal and familiar reproduction.This damage is proven through research carried out with workers between the ages of 41 and 67 years, who experienced working conditions before and after the deregulation of the sugar cane market in Brazil.Our theoretical basis rests on the Marxist theory of the exploitation of work, from which social scientists Ruy Mauro Marini and Raul Rojas Soriano derived the premises of super-exploitationandof Marxist medical sociology respectively. / Mais Rápido, Mais Alto, Mais Forte, tradução do latim ―Citius, Altius, Fortius‖, lema dos Jogos Olímpicos da modernidade, é usado nesta dissertação para fazer uma analogia com a forma como acontece a superexploração dos cortadores de cana-de-açúcar dos canaviais alagoanos, que precisam de uma atuação cada vez mais rápida, acumular montes de cana cada vez mais altos e desferir golpes de facão cada vez mais fortes, para garantir a mais-valia dos usineiros de Alagoas. Nossa intenção é demonstrar o quanto que esta categoria profissional, que foi exposta ao longo da vida a extensas jornadas laborais, à intensificação do seu trabalho e à expropriação de parte do trabalho necessário para a sua reprodução pessoal e familiar, sofreu uma exploração desmedida, que só podia resultar em danos à sua saúde e marcas indeléveis na sua corporeidade. Danos estes que demonstramos através de pesquisa realizada com trabalhadores entre 41 e 67 anos de idade, que vivenciaram tanto o período anterior quanto o posterior à desregulamentação do mercado canavieiro brasileiro, em função da idade. Nossa fundamentação teórica se apoiou na teoria marxista da exploração do trabalho, sob o olhar de dois cientistas sociais que souberam extrair desta teoria as premissas da superexploração, Ruy Mauro Marini, e da sociologia médica marxista, Raul Rojas Soriano.