Ruy Braga
Making use of the theoretical tools of Marxist critical sociology, Ruy Braga proposes an innovative reading of the social history of Brazil – from Fordist populism to the Lulista hegemony – using the ‘politics of the precariat’ as an analytical vector. Braga’s analysis seeks to explain both economic and structural processes (peripheral Fordism, its crisis, the transition to financialised post-Fordism) and the subjective dimension of the proletariat suffering from precarity (the anxiety of the subordinate, the preoccupation of the worker, the plebeian or classist drive of the exploited). At the moment when the plebeian drive is once again stimulating strike activity in the country, underlined by the protests that have recently shaken Brazil, this book impels us to reflect on the limits of the current model of Brazilian development.
First published in Portugese as A política do precariado: do populismo à hegemonia lulista by Boitempo Editorial in 2012.
Biographical Note
Readership
All interested in the history of the making of the working class in Brazil, and anyone concerned with Workers Party history and contemporary Brazilian crisis.
Table of Contents
Preface Michael Löwy List of Tables and Figures
Introduction
Part 1 The Formation of the Reversal
1 The Spectre of the People The Sociology of Modernisation Encounters the Working Class Unions in Peripheral Fordism Populism and the Migrant Precariat Between the Archaic and the Modern: An Ethnography of the Precariat Working-Class Archaeology: Populism in Reverse From Fordist Mirage to the Politics of the Precariat Final Considerations
2 The Fatalism of the Weak Sociology of Applied Work: The Limits of Bureaucratic Unionism Public Sociology of Work: Towards Working-Class Independence The Precarious Hegemony of Peripheral Fordism From Populism to Social Discontent (and Vice-versa) Critical Sociology of Work: Discontent as Disalienation For a Sociology of Working-Class Discontent Final Considerations
Part 2 The Transformation of Hegemony in Reverse
3 The Smile of the Exploited Work and Politics in São Bernardo The Despotic Factory Regime and the Metalworker Precariat Peons 1: From Contingent Consciousness to Necessary Consciousness Peons 2: From the Union Bureaucracy to the Metalworker Vanguard Peons 3: From Rank-and-File Rebellion to Strike Waves Precarious Hegemony: The Return of Bureaucratic Power? Final Considerations
4 The Anguish of the Subalterns Post-Fordism and the Neoliberal Company A Peripheral and Post-Fordist Precariat Discontent and Consent in the Call-Centre Industry Unionism in the Telemarketing Sector Lulista Hegemony: Between Social Discontent and Active Will Telemarketers: The Reverse of the Reverse Final Considerations
Conclusion: ‘Let’s Play That?’
Interventions 1 Dilma and the Brazilian Utopia 2 Unrest in the Kitchen 3 Chronicle of an Unforgettable Month 4 For a Sociology Worthy of June 5 Rosa Parks in Itaquera 6 The Most Visible Colour 7 Challenging Hegemony 8 The Era of Pillage 9 The End of Lulism and the Palace Coup in Brazil
Bibliography Index
