Judicial decision-making as social practice: the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, outsourcing, and the reconfiguration of labor in Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court’s decision in ADPF 324 as a moment in the reconfiguration of labor relations under contemporary capitalism. It approaches judicial decision-making as a situated social practice and the Court’s action as an institutional practice capable of producing meanings and redefining regulatory parameters. The research combines a bibliographic review with documentary analysis. Its theoretical framework reconstructs the categories of commodity form (Marx), legal form (Pashukanis), and ideology (Althusser). The primary source consists of the opinions delivered by the Justices in ADPF 324. This material is examined through a materialist analysis of social forms, oriented toward reconstructing the mediations between discursive, institutional, and structural dimensions. The analysis shows that categories such as free enterprise, autonomy of the will, and efficiency shift the focus of social protection toward economic rationality. In this movement, the legal form preserves equivalence between formally free subjects, while ideology interpellates individuals as free subjects and legitimizes the reorganization of subordination. At the institutional level, the Court redefines public policy parameters and consolidates outsourcing as an ordinary form of productive organization. The paper concludes that the decision contributes to stabilizing structural transformations of labor, preserving legal equivalence while reconfiguring material inequality. It also points to the relevance of this analytical framework for emerging forms of work mediated by digital platforms.