A luta pelo direito a cidade: contribuicoes do debate da derivacao do Estado/The fight for the right to the city: contributions from the State derivation debate.

AutorReis, Ana Beatriz Oliveira

Introduction

Beyond a normativistic understanding, it is understood that the right to the city, in the conception created by Henri Lefebvre and currently developed by David Harvey, has two dimensions: the overlap of the use-value of urban space in relation to the exchange value and the utopian dimension. These dimensions would place this right in the anti-capitalist struggle, which has as its necessary horizon the overcoming of the hegemonic sociability of the commodity.

In recent years, the right to the city has been claimed by different collective subjects and gained more space in institutional discussions, especially in public policies and legislation of different levels of government. However, it is understood that the affirmation of this right and its reduction to state benefits eliminates its emancipatory potentiality by imprisoning it to political and legal forms. Therefore, the question is what are the limits and possibilities of the struggle for the right to the city with the aim of overcoming capitalist sociability?

In order to understand the limits and possibilities of the struggle for the right to the city, this investigation uses the historical-dialectical method, through bibliographical research of works located in the field of Marxian and Marxist thought, especially the recent contributions of the debate about the derivation of the State, to answer the guiding question of this work.

Research on political and legal structures is important, together with the apprehension of the limits of the struggle in the institutional field for public policies and laws that aim to promote the right to the city. Central to this analysis are the studies situated within the state's derivationist debate (CALDAS, 2014, p. 12) and their contributions to understanding "issues related to the problem of value, accumulation and social forms of capitalism" (MASCARO, 2018b). The state derivation debate began in the 1970s in Germany and later in England as a way of criticizing illusions about the welfare state and the traditional theories of the state as well as overcoming the dichotomy between economicism and politicism (CALDAS, 2014, p. 27). In the context of this debate, the idea that State and Law are neutral instruments, that is, that they can be used for any purpose, is rejected (CALDAS, 2014, p. 192).

This article is structured as follows: at first, we present the methodology of this research that uses the references of Marxist critical theory. What follows are the main considerations of the derivation debate about social forms, in particular, the commodity, value, political and legal forms. These are analyzed through the legacy of Karl Marx himself and former and current interlocutors in the sphere of Marxist thought. Then, in a third moment, we rescue the struggle for the right to the city in its theoretical and historical-social aspects, as well as the main questions regarding its limits and possibilities through dialogue with the derivationist debate of the State. Finally, we present the conclusion of this investigation.

Methodology

This research uses the references of Critical Theory, identified according to the understanding below:

Critical Theory always has as one of its most important tasks the production of a certain diagnosis of the present time, based on structural trends of the current social organization model, as well as on concrete historical situations, which show both the opportunities and potentialities for emancipation and the real obstacles to it (NOBRE, 2004, p. 1). The critical theory emerged as an opposition to the traditional ways of producing science in modernity. Critical of idealism, the thinkers who identify with it, such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (1985), sought to overcome the theory-practice dichotomy, because knowledge should enlighten people about the established order to reorganize society. Moreover, they intended to break with the uncritical production of scientific knowledge. Research, for critical theory, is determined by "tasks to accomplish" and these tasks have a specific objective: "the changing circumstances that condition misfortune" (HORKHEIMER, 2011, p.42).

The orientation towards overcoming the hegemonic sociability of the commodity, through the elements of reality itself, makes those who commit themselves to critical theory not content merely to describe the observed object. It is also necessary to: (i) identify the potentialities in reality itself of what may come to be according to the elements it provides; and (ii) check what are the obstacles that prevent the world from being as it should be. It is important to note that for critical theory historical becoming is not an abstraction since the potentialities for emancipation are verified in concrete reality itself.

The scientific method that conducts the present research is the dialectical-materialist (MARX, 2011, p. 129). In this sense, we intend to point out the limits of the institutional use of the right to the city through critical thinking using bibliographic research in works located in the Marxian and Marxist fields.

The derivationist debate of the State and social forms

Understanding the limits and possibilities of the struggle for the right to the city requires a theoretical effort to verify what are the structures imbricated in the production of space that impact the struggle for its radical transformation. These structures are the social forms, practices repeated daily that condition the attitudes and expectations in life in society, including in the constitution of specific institutions.

In the words of philosopher and jurist Alysson Leandro Mascaro, "social forms are relational modes that are constituents of social interactions, objectifying them. It is a process of mutual imbrication: social forms come from social relations but end up being their necessary beacons" (2013, p.21). It is important to emphasize that the analysis of social forms cannot be done without using the historical research tool, given that the ways of relating in society change according to the social structures of each epoch, not being about merely abstract categories.

In antiquity, the established social bonds were given by slavery through direct domination, and in the Middle Ages, serfdom ensured social reproduction. In Modernity, with the beginning of the development of capitalist relations, the generalization of exchange relations constituted the main social form of the current hegemonic sociability: the commodity. The commodity-form crosses all things, transforming them into something that can be traded, deriving from it all other social forms (MASCARO, 2013, p.22).

The constant repetition of exchange makes it a regular social process, which is why, over time, at least a portion of the products of labor must be intentionally produced for exchange. From that moment on, on the one hand, the separation between the utility of things for immediate necessity and their utility for exchange is confirmed (MARX, 2011, p. 162). In capitalist sociability work becomes abstract, that is, it becomes generalized as a commodity that can be sold to those who own the means of production. From the exchange relation between commodities and wage labor itself, another social form is derived: the value-form. This "is not a quality that is intrinsic to the commodity, because it only establishes itself in the equivalence of all commodities with each other (...) its form always presents itself in a relational way" (MASCARO, 2013, p.23). In this context, money is constituted as an element of equalization between the goods.

For these social forms to operate, it is necessary to establish an apparatus outside the economic agents themselves that guarantees the social reproduction of exchange. If in previous sociabilities, such as slavery and feudalism, it used direct domination through the use of physical force, for example, in capitalism it is necessary to...

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