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THE NEW REASON FOR THE WORLD: ESSAY ABOUT THE NEOLIBERAL
SOCIETY
Martin Kuhn
Walter Frantz
Resumo
O livro A nova razo do mundo: ensaio sobre a sociedade neoliberal prope fazer uma leitura
crtica do movimento poltico e econmico que desemboca na denominada sociedade
neoliberal. Os autores escavam, desde o sculo XVII e XVIII, o movimento de construo e
reconstruo do liberalismo. Est estruturado em duas partes. Na parte I, constroem uma
espcie de genealogia do liberalismo, dos seus primrdios at os anos 1980, quando se
configura o que denominam de racionalidade neoliberal. Em cinco captulos produzem um
movimento retrospectivo e apresentam ao leitor as teses bsicas do liberalismo e suas
sucessivas transformaes, permitindo compreender a racionalidade neoliberal. A parte II da
obra, organizada em quatro captulos, discute as transformaes em curso, nos planos
polticos, econmicos e sociais, nas subjetividades dos indivduos, produzidas pela
racionalidade neoliberal. Para os autores a razo neoliberal expressa uma racionalidade no
democrtica e que ataca de modo explcito a cidadania. Sugerem que fugir dessa priso total e
global extremamente difcil e vislumbram nas prticas de comunizao do saber, de
assistncia mtua, de trabalho cooperativo como traos de formas alternativas a outra razo
do mundo, designando-a por razo do comum.
Abstract
The book The new reason of the world: essay about the neoliberal society proposes to make a
critical reading of the political and economic movement that leads to the so-called neoliberal
society. From the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the authors have been digging the
movement for the construction and reconstruction of liberalism. It is structured in two parts.
In part I, they build a kind of genealogy of liberalism, from its beginnings up to the 1980s,
when what they call neoliberal rationality is configured. In five chapters they produce a
retrospective movement and present to the reader the basic theses of liberalism and its
successive transformations, allowing to understand the neoliberal rationality. Part II of the
book, organized in four chapters, discusses the ongoing transformations in political, economic
and social plans, in the subjectivities of individuals, produced by neoliberal rationality. For
the authors, the neoliberal reason expresses an undemocratic rationality that explicitly attacks
citizenship. They suggest that escape from this total and global imprisonment is extremely
difficult and they envisage practices of 'communication' of knowledge, of mutual assistance,
of cooperative work as traces of alternative forms to another reason of the world, by
designating it by reason of the common.