A modernidade da superexploracao: segmentacao laboral e a luta pela unidade no movimento brasileiro contra ALCA = The modernity of Superexploitation : labour segmentation and the struggle for unity in the Brazilian movement against the FTAA

One of the key challenges to the study of Brazilian capitalist development has been how to interpret the survival of 'backward‘ forms of exploitation which, in combination with surplus value generated through higher degrees of worker productivity, often form the basis of the most dynamic economic sectors. This combination of rates of exploitation in single production chains has long been a characteristic of Brazil‘s insertion in the global economy. However, in the context of the 'new consensus‘ around export-oriented development, there has certainly been a revival of surplus value extracted by means of super-exploitation (as defined by Ruy Mauro Marini) in (certain) labour-intensive stages of production, as well as forms of unfree labour tantamount to slavery. At issue for the Brazilian labour movement is how to interpret and confront this so-called developmental 'lag‘; or alternatively, how to struggle for working class unity in a scenario which (despite falling unemployment rates, etc.) continues to be shaped by the neoliberal crisis of labour which struck in the 1990s. This paper reflects on the struggle for unity amongst Brazilian workers on the issue of the grounds of Brazilian development in the movement against the FTAA.