THE CENTRALITY OF WORK IN DEBATE: NOTES FOR A HISTORICAL BALANCE AND APPOINTMENTS FOR THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE

Abstract

The productive restructuring in the last half century and its consequences in the world of work have given rise to debates in the field of Social Sciences that called into question the centrality of work for the understanding of the new dynamics of capitalism. This debate included names like André Gorz, Claus Offe and Jürgen Habermas, on the one hand and on the other, authors such as István Mészáros, Sérgio Lessa and Ricardo Antunes. By resuming in the Marxian work the broader dimension of the work category and placing it in its ontological perspective, it is possible to understand the complexity of the forms of work in contemporary capitalism by analyzing it from its metamorphoses and the emergence of new - and precarious - forms of wage.