TOWARDS A MARXIST PERSPECTIVE ON THE TRANSITION TO NEOLIBERALISM: CARLOS NELSON COUTINHO AND JOSÉ CHASIN’S ANALYSES OF 21ST-CENTURY BRAZILIAN CAPITALISM

Abstract

The central objective of this study is to highlight the analyses of Carlos Nelson Coutinho and José Chasin regarding Brazil's transition to so-called neoliberalism. As two of Brazil's foremost Marxist thinkers, their contributions are considered fundamental to understanding the neoliberal phenomenon today. Thus, the study emphasizes analyses they produced both in the heat of the moment—during the emergence of and transition to neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s—and during the phenomenon's consolidation in the 2000s. It is evident that both thinkers, each in their own way, draw upon the best of Marxian categories and Marxist thought to comprehend the historical present and their own era, operating at both the critical-abstract and practical-concrete levels. A debate of this nature—bringing a Marxist perspective to the understanding of the present—is virtually absent from existing studies on the subject, making it all the more necessary.