The social and the common: neoliberalism, bio-politics, and universal basic income

Abstract

Considering the context of rare possibilities to expand social protection in Brazil – especially after 2016 – the backbone for an effective political debate regarding social rights seems to be a reaction against the neoliberal reforms of the Brazilian state by restoring the pillars of the welfare state and its logic of workfare. This article proposes to use the guaranteed minimum income as a concrete instrument to move the center of the debate toward a positive political agenda, based on the concept of common, overcoming the traits of conditionality and focalism of traditional distributive policies. This issue is discussed based on context analysis and bibliographical research, in a theoretical framework built on the bio-political critique on neoliberalism (Lazzarato; Hardt and Negri; Dardot and Laval). The guaranteed minimum income is described as a bio-political line of attack capable of catalyzing an institution of the common, enclosing an alternative to the mystifying dualism between neoliberalism and welfarism.