Guilherme Leite Gonçalves

In what way are law and the development of capitalism related to one another? This question is often answered first and foremost using the normative schema based on the distinction and friction between capitalism and democracy. Two views emerge from this thesis: Firstly, the available motivational resources are seen as insufficient to legitimize state interventions in late capitalism; secondly, law is presented as the de facto limiting...

In Latin America, the 1980s brought the end of the military dictatorships, which had stifled the forces of social change for decades. But while transition to democracy expanded the formal circle of citizenship, it also saw economic crises and elite pacts. In Brazil, the slow, gradual, and safe transition heralded by the second-to-last...

Virgínia Fontes is one of today’s most distinguished Marxist thinkers in Latin America. She was Professor of Social History at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and Senior Researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In her book Reflexões im-pertinentes: História e capitalismo contemporâneo published in 2005, she examined the development of capitalism and its...

Marxism and law Much of what we know about the Marxist notion of law is rooted in Evgeny B. Pashukanis’ critique of legal form. Its starting point is Marx’s argument that in capitalist society sociability acquires the form of value, implying that concrete labor is realized through the exchange of commodities. This assumes the autonomous and equal will of each of the commodities’ owners. Such will only exists as...